Oh say, can you see The Wheel of Time Reread Redux? What excellent vision you have!
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapters 54 and 55 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!
Chapter 54: Into the Stone
Redux Commentary
If anyone remembers the PS2 Prince of Persia game, where you spent the whole last part of it climbing and jumping and tightrope-walking around the outside of the giant tower while being like a million virtual feet in the air, that is what this chapter reminds me of now. It might not induce quite as much queasy vertigo as playing the game did, but it gets the job done. At least 40% of the reason I could never be a superhero is my lack of tolerance for heights.
The sides of the Stone looked like cliffs. […] A hundred bloody paces. Maybe a hundred and twenty. Burn me, even Rand would not try to climb that.
Suddenly [Mat] blinked, and squinted at the side of the Stone. There was some fool climbing it, just visible as a moving shadow in the moonlight, and over halfway up already, with a drop of seventy paces to the pavement under his feet. Fool, is he? Well, I’m as big a one, because I am going up, too. Burn me, he’ll probably raise an alarm in there and get me caught. He could not see the climber anymore. Who in the Light is he?
Isn’t it great when you ask a question you’ve already answered?
Although, I don’t think I realized for the longest time that it was actually Rand whom Mat was looking at here. When Rand showed up inside the Stone I sort of didn’t really question how he got there, because obviously he was going to. It’s probably good that Jordan was paying at least a little more attention to continuity on that score than I was.
Also, I should just say, because for some reason I didn’t in the original commentary, that this whole Mat scene was more or less exactly what I would have wanted it to be had anyone asked. Watching your protagonist running around impressing warrior badasses, being accidentally brilliant and kicking ass. What more could a girl ask for?
After a moment [Mat] set the tin box down; the wire handle was beginning to grow uncomfortably warm.
What, no potholders in the Third Age?
(Seriously, though, couldn’t he have wrapped it in cloth or leather?)
The sweat rolled down the Black sister’s smooth, ageless face, now. Egwene wondered if she thought she was about to die. She almost wished she were cruel enough to do that.
I don’t think it would have been cruelty, in this case. I see what point was being made, and it fits that Egwene is still naïve enough here to think that she can fight the good fight without actually having to kill anyone herself. But given the situation she and Elayne and Nynaeve are in at this point, leaving an enemy alive at her back, imprisoned by a nebulously defined method she literally learned how to use like five minutes ago, with no knowledge of whether it has any weaknesses or loopholes (especially considering that later on we find out that it absolutely does) is less mercy and more rank foolishness.
But, it’s early. She’ll learn. For a while, anyway. Sigh.
“Luck, Sandar,” [Mat] muttered. “You cannot beat bloody luck. Now, why don’t you find this bloody private way the High Lords take down to the cells?” Sandar had insisted there was such a stairway, and using it would avoid having to run through most of the Stone. Mat did not think he liked men so eager to watch people put to the question that they wanted a quick route to the prisoners from their apartments.
I know, right? That is straight-up creepy. There is literally no reason I can think of for having a shortcut from your bedroom to the dungeons that doesn’t paint you in a seriously unpleasant light.
You have to wonder if Darlin was one of those who liked to toddle on down there for an interrogation nightcap, or… whatever. I’m betting not, considering how he ends up pretty firmly on Team Light, but I’m also betting he didn’t object to the existence of the passageway, either.
Well, at least Mat got to give him a most satisfyingly humiliating beatdown in this chapter. Mark this one up as one more laughably minor but still mildly disappointing “reunion” we never had time to see in the series proper. Though I assume they probably could have met up at least in passing during the gap between the end of this book and the beginning of TSR.
I swear, I increasingly would love to have an account of what exactly went down during that off-screen period between these two books. Based on the number of times I suspect I’ve brought this up, I imagine you are not surprised. But I want it, you guys. If nothing else, it would be a golden opportunity to provide the scene where the entire original set of Super Boys and Girls get to interact together in an actual non-crisis situation, before they are separated for basically forever. Boo.
Chapter 55: What is Written in Prophecy
Redux Commentary
I didn’t cast Bel’al in my WOT casting post, but in my head he’s pretty much always looked like Malcolm McDowell, even though I don’t think Bel’al is actually supposed to look quite as grizzled as McDowell is these days.
Oh, and also, he’s dead. Whoops. Sorry, dude. On the general scale of Bad Guys, you were nowhere near hardcore. Also, all hail Moiraine, one of the select few non-Rand people in WOT to bag herself a Forsaken, even if he was sort of one of the most weaksauce of the bunch. Still totally counts!
As for Callandor itself, the mythological parallel it references is so obvious that it’s nearly silly to make note of it. I mean, it is literally the Sword in the Stone, c’mon.
Fun fact: the Welsh name for Excalibur was “Caledfwlch”, which sounds remarkably like “Callandor” when pronounced aloud, at least according to the Internet. This is the kind of thing which is maybe overly-apparent in retrospect, but always tickled me to discover about references in WOT.
(Another fun fact is that technically the Sword in the Stone and Excalibur are two different swords, but Arthurian legend is such a clusterfuck of conflicting and/or rebooted/retconned versions, really, who cares. And actually, given Jordan’s whole motif of legend decay over time, conflating the two actually works better than conforming to “accuracy”, which is super fun.)
As for the Supergirls, or rather me talking about the Supergirls, I got quite the kick out The One Where News Editor Leigh Loses Her Shit in the original commentary, which is a story I’d honestly mostly forgotten about until rereading it just now. Ah, memories.
And, well. I may have forgotten about it, but the sentiment still stands: that was a shitty way to act, even if stress makes it understandable, for both me and the Supergirls. But I am at least gratified that the Supergirls later got their just deserts for not making amends to Mat after the fact.
“Can you go to sleep again so soon?” Nynaeve asked finally.
“Sing to me.” Egwene managed a smile. “Like when I was a little girl. Please?” Holding Nynaeve’s hand with one of hers, the stone ring clasped in the other, she closed her eyes and tried to find sleep in the wordless humming tune.
In yet another iteration of Reasons Why I’d Never Survive Being In A Story, #562 in a Series, is that there is no flippin’ way I’d be able to go to sleep under that kind of pressure. Hell, half the time I can’t go to sleep when there is no urgency about it whatsoever, but when it’s actually very important that I go to sleep at a certain time, like because I have to catch a flight or something? Forget it. So if my actual survival depended on going to sleep? Nope, not happening, sorry.
As for Perrin, hm. I feel sort of guilty that I can’t really invest in his love for Faile? Because I know it’s meant to be one of the biggest romantic storylines in the whole series, and yet. The PLOD, it really did a number on my patience for it, you guys.
Someone mentioned in the comments, in reference to my intimation in the last post that Perrin’s obsession with Faile developed too quickly for believability, that they’d had a lot of off-screen interaction that we do not get to see, which could account for the otherwise inexplicable deepening of their relationship. Which, okay, sure, that’s possible, but not making any reference to that deepening on-screen, either passively or actively, is kind of cheating, from a storytelling standpoint. If you don’t show it, or at least tell it, in the actual story, expecting your audience to extrapolate it via idle speculation cheapens the effect, in my opinion.
Plus, you know, the extent to which the Perrin ‘N Faile Show is limited to the skipping-record repeating theme of Big Manly Dude Rescues His Woman And/Or Angsts About Rescuin’ His Woman is the kind of thing that, to the shock of precisely no one, is really not my cup of tea. To say the least.
Small piece of intel I had rather forgotten until now: that Rand turned aside (or spliced, or whatever) balefire with Callandor during his fight with Ba’alzamon/Ishy. That’s pretty damn impressive – especially considering he had no idea what he was doing at the time. Not to mention cutting through all of Ishy’s Dreamworld traps like they were nothing, while, again, having no clue what was going on.
Not quite impressive enough to justify Rand’s giant bout of I’m the King of the Wooorld! hubris at the end of this chapter, of course. But as I said in the original commentary, it makes it a lot more palatable in retrospect to assume that Callandor’s flaw contributed a great deal to his excess of grandiosity. Probably not all of it, mind you. But a lot.
That said, I guess if you’re like eighteen and realized you just used Excalibur to kill who you are totally sure is actual Satan, then you might be doing some ridiculously over-the-top victorious yelling too. I mean, I kind of have to give Rand that even as I roll my eyes at it.
And, you know, he fulfilled a whole bunch of prophecies with the yelling, too, so. Well done, young grasshopper. Here, have your own icon!
Aaand we’re stopping here. I know there’s only one more chapter left in the book, and I said last week I’d be covering all of them, but next week’s post will involve talking about more than just the end of TDR, so I’m moving it back to next week. So come on back next Tuesday, at the twilight’s last gleaming! Or, you know, whenever. As long as you show!
I always felt that these kinds of magic abilities come from the whole “if no one has told me these things are impossible, then I just go ahead and do them”. I found similar things with Garion in Eddings’ series..
For a guy who had a nickname along the lines of “netweaver”, Be’lal really didn’t show the best grasp on strategy, unless his idea of weaving a net is to just set things up so that virtually everyone under the sun who might be opposed to you converged on Tear at the same time and then…see what happens, while you have no back-up.
Leigh, what is the other 60% of the reason(s) you could not be a superhero?
I picture Victor Garber as Bel’al. I have to cry foul over the translation of Demandred’s name as listed in the WoT Black Book. In the Old Tongue, Demandred has something to do with swords/baldes (I am at work and do not have access to that book). Yet, I believe that Bel’al is described as the swordsman. He was the one who was an avid swordsman. I believe one of the reasons he set up shop in Tear is because he wanted to be near Callandor.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
OK, Mat. That good deed regained you a little of my respect, which you completely lost after wasting all that food for kicks. But you’re still a barnaclehead. And you’ll only get worse with the flirting and romancing, which I dislike reading about in characters of any gender because I’ve never gotten to do so and don’t know how. Luckily for me, you’re a snark-master, which goes a long way toward making your POVs enjoyable.
I read TDR twelve years ago and have forgotten a lot, but what was that about Ba’alzamon throwing “traps” at Rand, including “Trollocs and Myrddraal”? Channelers can conjure fire and maybe rock out of thin air, but not animals.
Not that it really makes it any less impressive that Rand “just did it” re: splitting the beam of balefire, but that was in the World of Dreams where it would be possible to do that – likely not in the real world.
I love that Brandon Sanderson came back to that when he just put his hand up and stopped balefire and Egwene’s like OMG and he’s like “It’s just a weave.”
@@.-@ “Rand was still in the Heart of the Stone but it was different.” When Ishamael conjured up the trollocs and Myrddraal, they weren’t real since they were in Tel’aran’rhiod at this point.
@6: Thanks. With people bouncing in and out of T’AR, I lost track of who was where. I do that a lot with these books. :-p
KalvinKingsley @5
I expect you are correct about Rand being able to split balefire in T’A’R, but not in the real world.
Re-reading the bit about Mat blowing a hole in the Stone with fireworks was…appropriate…on July 4.
I forgot there was some ‘foreshadowing’ (if indeed it was true foreshadowing, or just something Sanderson decided to reference) to the splitting balefire/’it’s just a weave’ moment!
@3 – Yes! Victor Garber would be a great Be’lal!
LOL! I forgot that not only did Mat wonder who the climber of the Stone was right after thinking about Rand not being foolish enough to do such a thing (Jordan does love his irony), but that Mat mentioned kissing the girls after rescuing them. Considering the way things actually go for them for a while, that’s a whole other level of irony. (Also, cue those who thought Mat and Elayne could have made a good couple. I can sort of see it, and there did seem to be some attraction there, but I’m glad Elayne ended up with Rand.)
Also: Mat wondering just how many are on the roofs tonight is still hilarious. Hardly a secret way in any more! Though it does explain why the seemingly impossible prophecy about the Stone can be fulfilled–the people of Tear don’t think like thieves (or three dimensionally) so they never consider looking up or planning for a roof assault. And while to be fair Mat is able to get in because of the fireworks, Rand clearly got in without them and the Aiel surely had plans for how to do so as well, so.
Sandar: he may end up falling by the wayside later, but I did always like him (even his feelings about Illianers/smugglers that makes him be at odds with Domon for so long ended up being oddly amusing after a while), and the fact he is, on some small level, resisting Liandrin’s Compulsion here says a lot about him. Even if he couldn’t prevent the initial betrayal, he is doing something about it now, and that matters.
Rhuarc: *sniff* That is all. That, and him immediately giving Mat his archetypal recognition simply because of the mention of his luck–before the Finn, even! *also waves to Gaul*
Egwene: even if she is still a bit binty in this chapter (and the lessons she learns from this encounter don’t take effect until later, and then seem to be forgotten), she’s still badass here. I especially love her “I hope the Black Ajah *are* there” bit. And while it’s true that leaving Joiya behind when she didn’t know if she could break free (and if she were as skilled and knowledgeable and strong as Moghedien, she could have) as well as leaving her alive at all are rather short-sighted, I’m glad at this point that she had scruples and wasn’t willing to torture or be cruel like their enemies. A similar realization is had by Nynaeve two books later after capturing Moghedien in the a’dam in TAR. Elayne doesn’t get to have hers until the interrogation of Ispan. Anyway, at least she did get some nice payback on Joiya!
The men Perrin fights in TAR: I can only assume Be’lal brought them there, since Ishamael certainly didn’t (since he had nothing to do with the thirteen, the ter’angreal, or Faile, and he doesn’t show up until after Be’lal is dead). Which suggests Be’lal has some Dreaming ability too. Of course we later see Demandred in TAR, and Rahvin goes there at the end of TFoH, and even Asmodean appears there when scouting out Rhuidean, not to mention all the Forsaken Coffee Hours, so apparently this was just a very common thing for Aes Sedai (or at least high-level ones) in the Age of Legends. Still, I don’t think we ever see anyone *else* (i.e. non-channelers) brought into TAR by a channeler, so it’s interesting to see this only from the otherwise unremarkable and forgettable Be’lal; you’d think it’s something one of the more powerful and important Forsaken would do, considering the other to do it is Ishamael himself.
It is something of a shame we never see Mat and Darlin interact again (I can’t recall exactly when Darlin went into rebellion, but I believe it was while everyone was in Cairhien or Caemlyn, and then Mat went off to Salidar and Ebou Dar so he wouldn’t have met up again until Merrilor–and then only briefly, since after that Darlin fought at Shayol Ghul). I did love that Mat wouldn’t let him monologue. As for the secret stair down to the dungeons…considering Darlin threatens to have Mat and Sandar “hung by the heels, and watch while the skin is stripped from your bodies” I think he actually would be one of those “toddling down” for a bit of torture, his being a Lightsider notwithstanding. (Whether this is a typical nobleman attitude or something unique to the High Lords is less clear.)
“No one told you being a hero is such hard work”–hah! Is *that* why Mat denies being one for so long, since he hates work? :P
And to be fair, the women needing rescuing in this chapter may feel uncomfortable, but at least it does show the men in their lives care about them (and in Mat’s case it isn’t based on romance, either). Also let’s not forget Egwene plays a big part in the girls’ rescue, and Moiraine is the one who rescues Rand in the next chapter.
As for what happened between this book and TSR…yes, I’d love to see that too. (And for that matter, between TGH and TDR as well.) But that’s what fanfic is for!
Be’lal: funny, I hadn’t thought about it, but Malcolm McDowell absolutely does fit for casting, especially considering not only his physical description but the way he feigns affability here, allowing Rand the chance to take Callandor “for the sake of the friendship they once shared.” That sort of veneer of camaraderie and honor fits McDowell well.
I still think it’s a waste of a Forsaken (even if I agree that offing at least some of them and having them stay dead is a good thing overall), and I still wonder why Jordan built him up as this great plotter and schemer only to get rid of him so quickly. But even aside from his belief in Stupid Evil (and Be’lal’s sheer arrogance), I guess it falls under what TV Tropes calls Overcrippling Specialization: namely that while Be’lal was a great swordsman and really was an amazing general and tactician, that doesn’t translate to being good at all kinds of manipulation and scheming. So just because his trap was good (and he had some good defenses set up) doesn’t mean he couldn’t be outgambitted and taken by surprise, especially by someone he had dismissed as being a threat.
Still, I can’t help thinking my theory that Be’lal didn’t die but switched places with Taim, using him to take his place here in the Stone so he could run the Black Tower later, is something Jordan should have done as being more clever and unpredictable. And without it being the case, I can’t help wondering why Jordan made a point of telling us the Dark One could bring someone back who had been balefired by only a small amount, and that Moiraine could only balefire by a few seconds; and why there were so many extra chairs at the Forsaken Coffee Hour in KoD. I guess it’s him wanting to keep the reader guessing (RAFO), and Moridin wanting to do the same to the other Forsaken. And Be’lal being the one to draw Alviarin into TAR must have been to order her to send the coven to Tear (or maybe the Fades?), and Mesaana just took credit for the trap to Graendal (typical of her, really).
Ah well. Still damn awesome to see Moiraine doing that Unflinching Walk right through all the fighting to balefire him. :)
Speaking of balefire: aside from Rand’s awesomeness, I wonder if he was able to do that because a) Callandor is made of a form of cuendillar, which we know balefire can’t destroy b) he created some sort of weave, or even a TAR effect or c) Ishamael created the balefire with the True Power, and Callandor was a True Power sa’angreal?
Amico: It is never explained, but my best guess is that of course shielding her didn’t get rid of the shield on the girls (because being blocked from the Source wouldn’t just get rid of the weaves she was maintaining, especially since they would have been tied off I assume), and that when Nynaeve punches her, her sudden unconsciousness kept her from staving off Egwene’s weave–and without Egwene there to guide it, it came down like a blade instead, thus stilling her instead of simply locking the shield in place.
Brief side note: while the girls act terribly toward Mat (which even if it can be excused in the heat of the moment certainly can’t be later), I have to point out that Nynaeve’s initial outburst doesn’t seem to be one of disapproval, ingratitude, or reprimand, but simple disbelief. She’s just plain shocked that he’s there, when last she knew he was heading off to Caemlyn to deliver Elayne’s letter. So him then getting after her for being “greeted as if I had come to steal a pie” surely didn’t endear him to them, and probably contributed to how they acted toward him after this. It still doesn’t excuse it (especially since, as obvious as it was Amico was bad based on what Sandar told him, they could easily have explained why they attacked her as they did instead of just wrapping Mat in Air), but it does explain a bit.
I do still love Leigh’s newsroom anecdote analogy though.
I already gave my two cents about Perrin last time. So all I’ll say is Leigh is right about not everything being shown or told being a narrative shortcut we really shouldn’t have been put through. But as has also been stated, Jordan was never exactly flawless in his portrayal of romance, so at least he’s consistent. (This of course shows he never corrected his errors, or perhaps never even realized he was making them, but it’s better than him doing it for some couples and not others, since it would make you wonder why certain ones were getting short shrift.)
The way Jordan wrote Rand’s fight with Ishamael, how he was sure he could “do anything” with Callandor, makes it clear to me he intended the flaw that induced wildness of the mind and greater taint effect (and the lack of a buffer), and just didn’t get around to explaining it until Cadsuane in WH. So yeah, there was an indication even before TPOD or the bit with the dead child in TSR.
On the mythological references and naming: yeah Callandor was always a gimme to me, especially since I was aware of both the other names for Excalibur and that there were two different Arthurian swords, Excalibur and Caliburnis. The fact the two could be conflated definitely fits Jordan’s theme of myth and legend over time, but I have to also make note of Leigh’s point regarding the confusion and conflicting nature of the Arthurian canon. Not only because it proves Jordan’s point, but because I have always been amused and entertained by the fact that things people claim are only a modern phenomenon re: fandoms have been around a very long time, and Arthuriana proves it. (Reading the TV Tropes page on the literature isn’t just informative, it’s hilarious seeing their terminology applied, and appropriately, to Malory et al.)
It’s rather interesting in retrospect that pretty much everything we see Ishy do here has to be with the True Power, explaining both why it looks so different and why Rand feels no channeling, but we never really get the explanation for it until we learn about the True Power later. I also have to point out that severing the lines connecting him to the Dark One is the same thing he does later to Asmo…I guess the difference between them is that because Ishy wasn’t a traitor (and keeping him alive was a punishment), the Dark One chose to restore him and not Asmo (assuming the latter wasn’t balefired). I.e., the severing of the connection to the Dark One doesn’t prevent him from resurrecting you, it’s only his own choice and whether you were balefired. So presumably this was recreated once he came back as Moridin.
Also of note: the minute Rand realizes he is the Dragon Reborn, he starts thinking about how to prevent another Breaking and make the killing end. While this is something that’s been with him all along (see: Tear and Illian’s feud, what happens in Cairhien, the schools he creates), it particularly informs his desire to create the Dragon’s Peace at Merrilor. So for those who might have thought that came a bit out of nowhere, or was included just for Rand to manipulate Egwene re: gathering the Light’s forces and the seals, this bit shows Rand was planning it almost from the beginning.
@1 juliamd: Good point!
@2 R0bert: In Be’lal’s defense, it was only Rand whom he had specifically lured there. The Supergirls were sent by Lanfear, the coven came because of Mesaana (or Be’lal himself, but they weren’t his opponents). He had no idea Moiraine and the others were coming, and once they did show up his only mistake (though it was a big one) was not checking to see who had fallen into the hedgehog trap (but even then, he had no way of knowing the free Moiriane knew balefire), and he didn’t know Perrin was a wolfbrother. (I’m guessing Ishy never got around to telling him; we know Lanfear was keeping her cards close to her chest.) And of course he had no clue at all about either Mat or the Aiel. So he’s not quite as bad a planner as it appeared, but the mistakes he did make were pretty big, so.
@3 AndrewHB: Hmm, I could see that too. Though he could also work for Rahvin, since he’s very charming and handsome, and I could picture him with the wings of white in his hair. As for the name meaning, it wasn’t blade in the sense of being a swordsman (although Demandred absolutely was one too!) but in the sense of “twisting the knife”, referencing his betrayal of Lews Therin/the Light.
Be’lal wanting Callandor, of course, would be because it was the most powerful male sa’angreal other than the Choedan Kal, not because he wanted to use it like a sword.
@@.-@ AeronaGreenjoy: Two possibilities–they weren’t real Trollocs and Myrddraal, but illusions created with the Power; or similarly, they were actually TAR effects, which we know can actually hurt you if you believe in their reality.
@5 KalvinKingsley: Good point, although I could have sworn Rand did something similar in the real world too. Also, if as I suggested Callandor is made of cuendillar, even balefire wouldn’t be able to harm it.
I thought Rhuarc was the tallest Aiel that had ever been seen but in the Encyclopedia, it lists Gaul as 6’6″ which is even taller than Rand, and no height for Rhuarc, IIRC. Does that make Rhuarc like 6’8 or something like that?