Sometimes I get a little bit Wheel of Time Reread Redux!
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapters 32 through 34 of The Dragon Reborn, originally reread in this post.
All original posts are listed in The Wheel of Time Reread Index here, and all Redux posts will also be archived there as well. (The Wheel of Time Master Index, as always, is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general on Tor.com.)
The Wheel of Time Reread is also available as an e-book series! Yay!
All Reread Redux posts will contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series, so if you haven’t read, read at your own risk.
And now, the post!
Short note before we begin: As some of y’all may be aware, this coming weekend is the 8th annual occurrence of JordanCon in Atlanta, GA. (Eight years, can you believe it?) It has been my tradition to provide you guys with a yearly report on my perambulations there, but unfortunately this year I will not be attending. I has many a sad over this, I assure you, but it is what it is.
But I did want to take a moment here to blow a kiss to all my dear friends and fellow fans who are attending JordanCon 2016, and hope that you all have just as astounding an amount of fun as I had every time I got to go. Mwah, darlings. Take lots of pictures for me.
Onward!
Chapter 32: The First Ship
Redux Commentary
New icon! Not the most exciting of the bunch, but hey.
It was probably right around this point that I realized Mat’s storyline had become the most engaging and enjoyable thing in the whole novel thus far. I wonder if Jordan had as much fun writing it as I did reading it, the way it just rolls along with swashbuckling vigor. Of course, given how these things go, that could just as easily mean it was the most difficult bit to write of the whole book. You never know.
Whichever the case, Mat’s storyline picks up a delightful caper-like flavor from this point, which it maintains throughout the middle section of the series and is definitely a very large part of the reason he was my favorite character for that period. Sadly, once Mat gets mired in Ebou Dar and then the Seanchan Empire in TPOD, that flavor sours a bit, but up until that point I enjoyed the hell out of it. Still do, really.
Mat frowned at the closed door. “I think I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I don’t know why you might think that,” Thom said dryly. “Next you could try telling the Lord Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks he should marry the Amyrlin Seat.”
Well, they both gave some thought to the idea, as it turns out…
As for Rand:
So many faces in his dreams. Selene had come, cool and mysterious and so lovely his mouth went dry just thinking of her, offering him glory as she had—so long ago, it seemed—but now it was the sword she said he had to take. And with the sword would come her. Callandor. That was always in his dreams. Always.
I sort of forgot this bit, and I find it interesting now, because I think I assumed that the dreams Rand had throughout TDR (and also unwittingly forced upon others for the whole book) were more of a ta’veren-y sent-by-the-Pattern thing, like the metaphorical carrot bait in the Creator’s cosmic Box Trap of Destiny™. Or, er, something like that.
But this passage, which I had totally forgotten about, suggests the much more mundane idea that it was just Lanfear’s doing all along. Which would mean that it was the bait in a Box Trap of Destiny™, just not a cosmically sanctioned one.
…Sometimes I read some of the sentences I have written in the course of doing this blog, and just go “Wow”.
Anyway! I suppose there’s no reason it can’t be both, though. Maybe Lanfear was sending the dreams because the Pattern wanted her to send the dreams, and so it was all cosmic and shit. So THERE.
Chapter 33: Within the Weave
Redux Commentary
“That town burning, and the wells failing, and… That is evil, Moiraine. I can’t believe Rand is evil. The Pattern may be shaping itself around him, but how can the Pattern be that evil? It makes no sense, and things have to make sense. If you make a tool with no sense to it, it’s wasted metal. The Pattern wouldn’t make waste.”
[…] Moiraine was silent for a time, warming her hands. Finally she spoke while staring into the flames. “The Creator is good, Perrin. The Father of Lies is evil. The Pattern of Age, the Age Lace itself, is neither. The Pattern is what is. The Wheel of Time weaves all lives into the Pattern, all actions. A pattern that is all one color is no pattern. For the Pattern of an Age, good and ill are the warp and the woof.”
I picked this quote out in the original commentary, but then did not remark upon it, possibly because I got distracted with issues of whether “Aiel” rhymes with “pail”. (It doesn’t, but I still hear it that way in my head, and at this point I think it’s safe to say that that particular pronunciation ship has sailed for good.)
Also possibly because there’s really not that much to say about it. Philosophically speaking, this is about as straightforward a good/evil set-up as one could probably come up with while also acknowledging the necessity for gray areas and/or randomness. This is not to disparage it, so much as to note its lack of complexity. It stands out, I think, because in pretty much every other way, Jordan’s world building was so intricate and complicated, but when it came to the really big over-arching questions of Life, the Universe, and Everything, he kept it simple. Probably for the best, really.
“Twelve of you fought twenty Aiel?” Lan asked in a flat voice.
This was another quote I picked out in the original commentary, probably because it cracks me up every time I read it. You can feel the contempt oozing out of this line, it’s brilliant. Haha.
Chapter 34: A Different Dance
Redux Commentary
Not really sure why this chapter used the serpent-and-wheel icon again, rather than the wolf or Aiel icon (though I think the Aiel icon hasn’t been invented yet, so there’s that), but okay.
I kind of forgot that Perrin really does kill him a whole lot of Whitecloaks in the early books, doesn’t he? Not that I blame him, exactly, but that’s quite a few Not Officially Evil kills, there. So I suppose that his later “trial” for them in… TOM? I think? Is maybe a tad more reasonable that I thought at the time. MAYBE.
And the Aiel in the cage. What Min saw was always important. But how? What was he supposed to do? I could have stopped those children throwing rocks. I should have.
And that’s always the problem with prophecy, isn’t it. It’s the chicken or the egg; would Perrin have done anything about the Aiel in the cage if Min hadn’t told him it would be important? How to account for the fact that the very act of telling the future changes that future? Or are we to assume that the prophesied event was fixed, and would have happened whether Perrin had been made aware of its importance beforehand or not? And what does that imply about free will, or the lack thereof?
Jordan’s cosmology seems to imply that free will is… well, only nominally free. In that it is intimated that someone can change the course of fate if they want to do so, but only up to a certain point of irrelevancy; after that, not so much. The more pivotal a person or event, the more intractable its inevitability, it seems.
Which means that as protagonists ta’veren, Perrin, Mat, and especially Rand appear to be more or less screwed in the free will department. Sorry, dudes.
All that said, of course we would all prefer to believe that Perrin would have freed Gaul regardless of prophecy, just because it was the right thing to do. We would all prefer to believe that any of us would have done the same in his place. No matter what the personal risk would be. Right?
…Okay, and I wrote all of the above before going to check the original commentary, where it turns out I said basically the exact same thing, except more briefly. Points to me for consistency, I guess?
And also, yes, the scene with Moiraine is still a bit weird. Even though it’s not clear from the scene whether Perrin actually got an eyeful of her in the altogether, or whether he just saw her in skimpy underwear or something. But for the sake of my internal Skeev-O-Meter, I’m going to assume the latter, and move on with my life.
And that’s what I got for y’all today, kids! Envious well wishes for alla y’all heading to Atlanta this weekend, and I’ll be back with more next Tuesday!
Did Min have a viewing about Gaul in the cage because that’s when he meets Faile or because Gaul becoming his follower will be important?
Moiraine isn’t pretending to be a lady, she is one.
If Rand passed through Remen shortly before Gaul was caught, does nobody remember him and think he looked like an Aiel?
Does Perrin really know about the slowing of channelers? Ny only seems to learn about it later. Why would Perrin think that Moiraine is older than she looks?
Perrin should be glad that the chain is badly made. That makes it easier to destroy it.
“I’m going to assume the latter, and move on with my life.”
Really, you shouldn’t deprive Perrin in this manner :D
My Dearest Leigh,
Shenanigans trump all. Muahahaha. Haha. Ha.
You’ll see.
Hi Leigh,
::waves::
S’up?
Waddaya mean Aiel doesn’t rhyme with pail? I had this whole Nantucket thing going for that.
Anyways the Gaul thing. Couple of thoughts there. First, every time I hear his name, Asterix and Obelix pop into my head and am pleasantly surprised when somebody promptly gets biffed up the hooter. The Whitecloaks are the proverbial Roman Legion; poor ignorant sots.
Other thing. IIRC Perrin was doing some self spanking with the thought about seeing those kids throw rocks at dood in the cage and not doing anything about it. He figured that he should have done something, so this was making ammends with his conscience. Subconsciously. Perrin even reflects on this by how little a footprint he left in his room.
Big controversy. ENTER THE FALCON. So she comes along, all stockery like. Knowing what I know now, for me this was the most natural plot line. The way RJ dragged it on a bit reflects on some of the tedious aspects of marriage but by and large being married makes you batcrap crazy; I can testify to this. RJ puts it out on paper; maybe he was doing a book tour and was reflecting on being separated from Harriet. I dunno.
Lanfear totally pooched it. Again. Hottest chick in the universe and she just doesn’t get that “crazy”is a huge turn off. Suicide Squad HQ shout out. Lanfear had Rand by the tenders, he was done. Along came the crazy gleam of blah bah blah power blah and then he was lost. Just smile, land the guy, let him get comfy, then refuse to make him a sammich and do all the nutbar stuff. It would be too late for Rand and then he gets the guilts and the story is cut by 8 books.
Moiraine. Yowza. Are Sedai are masters of the Great Game. Run Perrin.
Mat. This was the best parts. Especially Mat, Thom and a whack of fireworks. Good times. Yay for mudfooted swineherders.
I got more, but that should do for now.
Woof™.
The good/evil commentary is kind of interesting because the conclusion of the book in some ways undermines that. Or maybe not – I suppose the Dark One is still ‘evil’ but is seen as necessary, but (at least for me), that’s not exactly evil then. How can you fault somebody for being evil when they are literally required for the continuation of existence in a meaningful way?
I always liked that scene between Perrin and Moiraine. Not because I like thinking about Moiraine in a state of undress (well, not just because), but because Jordan initially sets Moiraine up as a very clear Gandalf analog. Then spends several books deconstructing it. This is one of the first real glimpses of Moiraine as a normal, human woman. We will get a lot more of that in the next couple books, to the point where it becomes obvious Moiraine never really knew what she was doing and is almost totally at a loss as to what to do. (She still manages to respond by being a total MFing BA.)
(I was all hyped to go to JordanCon for the first time this year and had to bail for a wedding. Woe is me.)
I always knew how “Aiel” was pronounced, but I always thought that “Faile” was pronounced “Fail” as in “pail” or “pale.” It made sense given her character. Still can’t really properly pronounce it to rhyme with “Aiel” in my head. Also, you can tell that Robert Jordan spoke to Kate Reading and Michael Kramer at various points during the series, since they change their pronunciation of words between books (notably, since I’m doing an audio re-read of the series at the moment, they pronounce “Cairhien” as “kai-REEN” in The Eye of The World). And everybody pronounces “Taim” wrong. I think my personal biggest pronunciation blunders before listening to the audiobooks were Nyneave (in my head it’s “NIN-uh-vuh”) and and Egwene (egg-WEEN).
4. subwoofer
I liked Faile in TDR. Also, Jordan gives her a few lines where she practically chokes to death on her tongue, overhearing accidental reveals about the Horn of Valere and the Dragon Reborn.
Re: Lanfear and the Pattern and who sent the dreams – I think there were several Forsaken messing with Rand’s dreams during his Forrest Gump Run Across Randland.
Ishamael possibly – though more subtly than as Ba’alzamon.
Bel’al almost certainly – the whole plan of getting Rand to take the sword so he could take it from him was his plan.
Lanfear occasionally – mostly just to remind Rand that she’s desirable and that glory can be his.
As far as the Pattern, if you want to get meta, everything that happens in the book is the Pattern’s Will because the Pattern is essentially the author.
I think of all the major WoT characters, Moiraine is the character who most follows idea that the Pattern is the Pattern and that in the end, the Pattern will control. As Perrin thought in AMoL, “Moiraine always had believed in following the weave of the Pattern and bowing to the Wheel’s turnings.” (AMoL, pg. 177).
From the first day I read the description of Faile in TDR till the present, I have one image of what actress should portray Faile: Sofia Coppola. Whenever I see Godfather III, and Mary Corleone (the character Sofia Coppola plays) is on screen, I think there is Faile. (FWIIW, the character of Mary Corleone is as annoying as Faile is before she is freed from her imprisonment in Malden. It is after Faile’s rescue, that I thinks she grows up.)
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
@8JL, I like Faile too. I think at some point she even punches Perrin in the shoulder. Go figure, we are back in the school yard handling crushes. Since marriage, I get Faile now. Just about every guy will be dealing with her to some extent in a relationship. I just wish Perrin figured stuff out, the name “Zarine” is very grinding to read. But Perrin has the most natural marriage, Mat and Rand don’t even come close.
Moiraine is Stiffler’s mom.
Erm… Mat… Matty Mat Mat. From Mattersville. Now’s your chance lad, run for it. Run. Now. The other direction… Dang it, he’s not listening.
Woof™.
Crazy conspiracy theory I just thought of:
If the Pattern tries to balance good and evil, and the Dark One is trying to end the universe, does that mean that the Pattern is helping the light to extend the good/evil conflict??
Is it just me? Every time I read that particular scene between Moiraine and Perrin, I am irresistably reminded of Eigerman’s phone call to Father Ashbery in Clive Barker’s Cabal:
What if Min’s vision about Perrin took into account that Min is going to mention this vision to Perrin and that is going to influence his actions? The prophesied event is fixed but so is the telling of the vision – and so telling the future doesn’t change the future from what’s been foreseen, it ensures that what was foreseen will happen.
… I’m glad I’m not Min. Thinking about this sort of thing is confusing!
@6 – That’s a good point about Moiraine being shown as a real person. It’s an odd scene, but part of its oddness is that we don’t expect that sort of scene for the type of character Moiraine has so far been portrayed as.
Leigh says: “…Mat’s storyline picks up a delightful caper-like flavor from this point, which it maintains throughout the middle section of the series…” Mat, beginning in tDR, becomes my favorite character, along with Nynaeve and Elayne. His POV is, to me, hilarious – it is simply amusing to read his thoughts and comments; and the actions he gets caught up in are something else. Rand is becoming a terrible figure, so cynical and twisted, and so screwed by his sense of chivalry. Egwene shows herself to be an unscrupulous climber, and after her manipulating Nyn in tFoH, someone I really don’t care for to the end of her days. Min, in tFoH, is just a little girl with no guts to stand up for herself (until she finally gets to Rand, where she puts on a show that makes me grit my teeth). Perrin waxes and wanes (strong at the end, though – whenever Rand really needs him).
It is interesting how all these characters change over time, and how I relate to them, and my feelings about them change. They are alive in some sense in my imagination, more than most characters in other books have ever been. In the final three books, Sanderson did most of Jordan’s characters well. But not Mat; after KoD, he is sort of a shadow. I think Leigh is correct in supposing that Mat may have been the hardest character for Jordan to realize.
Sofia Coppola? Insufficient nose.
The Patterns is like house arrest for the DO and how nice the housekeepers (humanity) keeps it is how susceptible it is to becoming more ragged and filthy. At best, the DO is locked in the basement, at worst, there’s a keyhole in the door. If the lock is picked, then the DO has the run of the house and can do whatever, really. Burn it down to build another, corrupt it entirely, unmake it all together. It’s all about tweaking the Creator’s nose Nelson style. Ha, Ha! I got out and I wrecked the toy, stole the toy, obliterated it. Round two.
So the last Mat chapter has a number of interesting things in it besides Mat’s badassery, most of which Leigh sadly didn’t mention either the first time around or this time. First there’s Mallia–who even before we get to hear what ‘Samon’ has been putting in his head very much comes across as the same sort of douchebag as a lot of the Tairen High Lords just from the way he treats Mat and Thom. But the thing that is most important about him, of course, is that he’s the one who introduces us to Be’lal before we even know that’s who he is. Aside from the side note about Tear becoming more hostile than usual toward Illian under his rule–seems Be’lal is doing more than just trying to claim Callandor in his quest to become Nae’blis, if he’s already trying to start a war with Sammael–I was always struck by Mallia’s comment about Samon “carrying a man beyond his own beliefs”, since this rather sounds to me like a mild form of Compulsion. Which makes sense, since it would be rather strange if someone known as the Netweaver didn’t know how to use Compulsion.
A couple other tidbits: Mallia thinking Mat is a lord and Mat denying it is hilarious both because of how this begins the long running gag of Mat refusing his own lordening, and because it almost seems like karmic payback for the way he treated Rand in TGH. And of course there’s Mat telling Thom the plain truth about the letter and the gold, and the gleeman thinking he made it up; Master Merrilin is not yet familiar with Mat’s lucrative luck, but he will be! And so this was where the line about the Lord Captain Commander and the Amyrlin Seat was; I thought it had been Thom who said it. Hah! You know Jordan had to have been laughing as he wrote it, since he already knew that Egwene would be Amyrlin (as foreshadowed right in this book!) and that Galad would join the Whitecloaks and end up leading them.
The assassins, of course, are the men Ishamael sent, and he’ll kill the leader in a few chapters for having failed here. Poor Mat though; as much as he’s an awesome fighter (and yes, establishing he already knew how thanks to Abell is very welcome), he’s still innocent when it comes to killing. It’s easy to forget, because of how much a badass he is later, that it wasn’t just Perrin or Rand who was upset about being thrust into situations where it was kill or be killed; Mat may get over it quicker either due to pragmatism or the memories the Finn give him, but the distress and insecurity are still there.
Despite this though, Mat’s swashbuckling adventures that are just now beginning are still fun to read–and interestingly, since we’re returning to him next, I always really enjoyed Perrin’s adventures in this book too. They make an interesting contrast with each other, and make up for the lack of Rand other than his brooding, increasingly unstable scenes like the one that ends this chapter.
And speaking of Rand, I too had forgotten Selene was speaking to him of Callandor in his dreams. Whether this was all her own initiative or something the Pattern decreed, what I find worth noting about this is that it seems to somewhat undercut the notion that Lanfear wanted Rand to go to Tear solely to mess up Be’lal and Ishamael’s plans; while obviously claiming Callandor would do that, a lot of the debate had always been about whether she wanted to lure him to Tear with the girls so he could be captured or so he could ruin what Ishamael and Be’lal were planning. But it seems from this that Lanfear’s idea was in fact to get Rand to claim Callandor–and not just to spoke Be’lal’s wheel but because she wanted Rand to fulfill the prophecy (the sooner he revealed and accepted he was Lews Therin reborn the better) and, of course, for him to have the power to help her take on the Dark One and the Creator. Which also explains why she got annoyed with Rand in TSR–she wasn’t mad he’d taken Callandor at all, but that he wasn’t using it or learning how to channel the way she wanted. I seem to recall she even said outright she “didn’t contrive to get Callandor in his hands just to see him never use it the way he should”, or some such. (Which, hilariously, makes her rather like Moiraine in being annoyed at Rand’s dithering and passive researching.)
Then we go back to Perrin. Not much to comment on really, since as Leigh says, the depiction of the neutral Pattern and how it balances the Creator and the Dark One is certainly both clear and stark; no wonder Perrin is upset. I am reminded of the moment way back in TEotW, after Moiraine Healed Tam, and Rand reacted to her warning him the Dark One was after him and the other boys by reciting the catechism and thinking “as long as you lived a good life you were safe from the Dark One.” It’s a similar idea, thinking the world was safe, had more good in it than bad, and that being good was enough to protect you, only to have the rug yanked out from under you. This bit is worse though, since it isn’t just finding out the Dark One can indeed still threaten you, but that even the Pattern isn’t on your side…
I also wonder, too, why Rand’s instability is so great here, only to wane again until around LOC and again in TPOD. The easy answer is that since the first three books were meant to be one, Jordan had wanted to show much more of the taint effect near the end of it, and after doing so (and realizing how much more of the story he had to tell), he backed off and made Rand more sane again. In-story? No idea, unless somehow simply fulfilling that prophecy and claiming his title (things he had been avoiding so long and hard) helped Rand achieve some sanity again.
Yup, Lan’s line kills me too. And I have to say, with as arrogant and pretentious as Lord Orban is, I almost thought he was another of the Whitecloaks. :P
The wheel-and-serpent icon for the last chapter makes sense to me for several reasons–first, Perrin meets and frees Gaul here, something that was ordained by the Pattern as passed on through Min’s visions; second, the whole bit about Perrin killing Whitecloaks again is part of his destiny that will lead to his alliance with Galad in ToM; third, Gaul and Perrin talked about Rand being He Who Comes with the Dawn and the prophecy of the Stone, two things which are extremely pivotal to the Pattern (remember the wheel-and-serpent icon was also used for Rand’s ancestor memories in Rhuidean which were also tied to his Aiel heritage); and finally, this chapter like the previous one features Faile. And not only is she obviously going to be very important to Perrin (again as attested to by Min), but it’s his love for her that enables Perrin to resist Lanfear’s Compulsion, thereby saving Rand and the world. I’d call that pretty damn significant to the Pattern.
Other comments: love Moiraine’s reaction when Lan rather blatantly identifies Masema for her as the Prophet. I have to say that while it’s a shame Rand never got to face him and tell him what for, him not meeting Moiraine again is another regret. Because when someone makes her that angry, you know the conflict would have been rather electric. Speaking of our favorite Blue, I was never weirded out by Perrin walking in on her, I just found it an amusing and humanizing moment for her. I also had to laugh at her explanation for why Faile was staring at Perrin; not only did she pretty much hit the nail on the head (Faile claims she found all of them, and Perrin, strange and believed strangeness would lead her to the Horn, but she was totally checking him out), but it’s nice to see the simplest explanation rather than yet another Shadow plot.
Prophecy and free will are always funny things, especially in a world like WOT with its threads and Pattern, but I suspect the reason Min saw Gaul around Perrin was because he was going to be important to Perrin (the Two Rivers, Ghealdan/Malden, TAR), Perrin was going to have important connections to the Aiel (the Shaido), and…because yes it was foreordained Perrin would free Gaul. Not because prophecy said so, but because his own inner nature did. Even if that nature was dictated by how his thread was woven, it’s still part of Perrin to do the right thing by his own choice, and so I am sure he would have freed Gaul regardless.
Last bit: it is indeed sad Loial won’t get to sleep in his sung wood bed.
@1 birgit: Good point about Gaul and Min’s viewing. Granted, he met Faile just after seeing him in the cage, not at the same time, but it’s her seeing him free Gaul that leads to them all fleeing Remen, which in turn leads to Faile following them. And obviously (as she herself says later) him freeing Gaul is one of the things that makes her interested in Perrin.
It’s entirely possible the villagers did think Rand looked like an Aiel, if they had ever seen any prior to Gaul’s capture. But even if they did, they had no reason at that point to detain him, since Orban and the others hadn’t met Gaul and his companion yet.
I don’t think Perrin knew about slowing per se, he just can guess Moiraine is older than she looks because of how she speaks and carries herself and the authority and knowledge she possesses. Or maybe it’s less “she must be older” and more that after catching her in her room like that he was like “she looks a lot younger than I thought she was.”
@@.-@ subwoofer: I agree re: Perrin; not having done something to help protect Gaul motivates him in freeing him as much as Min’s vision if not more, so I think that’s more proof Perrin would have helped regardless. And interesting, I never made that connection but you’re right–after seeing how little mark he left on his room, he’d want to leave his mark another way. And did he ever!
@5 Lisamarie: Well the thing is, the Dark One may be necessary, and he is acting the way he was created to be–but that way is still evil. So while he can’t be blamed for what he is, Shai’tan is still undeniably doing (or planning to do) truly evil things. Just because he can’t be faulted for it doesn’t mean he should be allowed to get away with it–not even from the Wheel’s POV, since a cloth made of nothing but evil would have no more of a Pattern than one made of only good.
@6 H.P.: Well said, all true.
@8 JonathanLevy: That was always one of my favorite moments, not just because of Faile’s reaction, but because of Moiraine’s–there she was getting after Perrin for blurting out who Rand was in front of Faile and Mistress Nieda, and then she turns around and drops her own bombshells. But of course she acts like nothing happened and won’t be bothered with such things. A consummate Blue, even as she makes mistakes!
@9 KalvinKingsley: Interesting. I thought for the longest time it was only Ishamael and him alone. The bit Leigh pointed out in this entry shows Lanfear may well have had a hand too. As for Be’lal, the only bit where we heard about him, Callandor, and dreams is when Perrin’s group gets to Tear and Moiraine finds out people are dreaming about the sword, which based on what she said was Be’lal simply not warding his dreams so they leaked out to everyone else. But maybe he did send some deliberately, at least to Rand, since their confrontation makes it clear he wanted him to come to the Stone. After all, no other way for him to get his hands on it without Rand pulling it out of the wards first.
@10 AndrewHB: Quite true, although as Leigh and others have pointed out, just because Moiraine believes such a thing doesn’t mean she always trusts it, or can fully give in to accepting it, since up until surrendering to Rand she still keeps thinking she can influence/manipulate things to what she believes the prophecies mean.
@12 cdrew147: Maybe? I mean, you make it sound like that’s bad, but since apparently the conflict between good and evil was set up at the outset of creation by the Creator, and is meant to play out over and over again through every turning of the Wheel, then if the Pattern is helping with that it’s only doing what the Creator created it to do. Which, since the Pattern has no actual sentience (Jordan likened it to a giant machine or AI just following its programming), this really all comes back to the Creator and his motives/viewpoint.
@14 Herenya: Considering how human Moiriane ends up appearing during and after the rescue from the Tower of Ghenjei (right down to being naked and disheveled), it’s clear this change of how we conceive of her/her role in the story was not only intended by Jordan all along but something he planned to arc across the entire series.
@18 macster Good post. Regarding this:
I have to believe that Rand’s seeming insanity during tDR is less the Taint than it is sleep deprivation and paranoia. He exhibits none of the muttering, no hearing LTT, none of the classic things that point to true insanity later. Just imagine running across the US, trying to avoid all contact with everyone, not being able to sleep hardly at all (and when you collapse into an exhausted sleep, having haunting nightmares of everyone you love trying to kill you).
The reason he’s “back to normal” in tSR is because Ishamael is “dead” and Lanfear has what she wants (mostly) – he’s seized Callandor and proclaimed himself. Driving him via Dreams won’t accomplish anything anymore (and honestly she likely wasn’t sending him nightmares anyway). So his dreams are his own, he can truly sleep and such. Then by the time anyone who would want to mess with his dreams returns, he’s learned to shield them from Asmodean. Which, if you’ll recall, is the very first thing he asks about once he’s got the Forsaken teacher under his thumb.
@@@@@ KalvinKingsley: Very good points, all. For some reason I had forgotten how bad sleep deprivation can affect a person, but while I’ve not fallen into paranoia or worse, let’s just say I’ve had my own experiences with it. Not fun. And the nightmares definitely make things worse for him. Plus while Rand seems more stable for a while here, the very next book has what many think is the first manifestation of the Lews Therin voice, and if not he certainly starts channeling Lews Therin’s memories in TFoH and then the voice appears openly in LoC. So he really isn’t without the madness for long, which does suggest the seeming recovery here is indeed just about being able to sleep properly and being free of Ishy, Lanfear (temporarily), and all the stress and burdens which came with fighting his Dragon Reborn destiny.
The characters all still have perfectly free will. The pattern is just blatantly manipulating things so the right choice tends to be obvious. They can still choose to refuse the obvious choice. The result being their almost inevitable deaths and the ruin of everything, according to the Finns when Matt asks. So, it’s less they have no choice and more they should be grateful for the easy-to-follow “this is the path where you live” markers the pattern throws at them.