Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky, y’all, but until then, have another Wheel of Time Reread Redux!
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapters 20 and 21 of The Eye of the World, 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 now available as an ebook series, except for the portion covering A Memory of Light, which should become available soon.
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!
Before we begin, behold the mighty Note of Scheduling: The holidaze doth descend upon us inexorably, with the dead-tree-decking and the egg-based cocktailing and the relentless wassailing (OH GOD THE WASSAILING), and so the Reread shall be hiatusing in response, because that is how we do.
Ergo, while I plan to have a post for next week and for December 23rd, the blog will then be on hiatus for the following two weeks, resuming January 13th.
Got it? Good. Go!
Chapter 20: Dust on the Wind
Redux Commentary
Yep, got that song stuck in my head again.
I mentioned it in the original commentary, but I still think it’s interesting that Jordan waited twenty chapters to move the POV out of Rand’s head to someone else. (Not even excepting the Prologue, really. Because all things considered, being in Lews Therin’s head still sort of counts as Rand’s POV, doesn’t it? Trippy!)
(POV = Point Of View. I’m sure most of you know that perfectly well by now, but I still periodically see people express confusion about that acronym, so just in case.)
It’s interesting because in a narrative sense, if Jordan was genuinely trying to set up confusion on the reader’s part as to which of the Superboys is actually The Chosen One, as I originally claimed, then keeping us in Rand’s for the entirety of the opening act really undermines that goal. It would have been far more effective, if that were the intent, to have us skipping back and forth between Mat, Perrin, and Rand’s POVs from the beginning. But instead, we get twenty chapters of Rand, one brief side trip into Perrin’s head, and then we’re back to Rand again. And then, the next POV switch we have is not to any of the Superboys at all, but to Nynaeve, whom at this point we (or I, anyway) didn’t even know was going to be of long term importance to the story at all.
It seems like Jordan’s decisions re: POV switches were guided more by the demands of the plot than by any kind of formal structure. In George R. R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire, for instance, it’s clear that Martin decided from the beginning to keep to a very strict serial 3rd person limited POV, dictated by chapter breaks: each chapter is told from one and only one character’s POV, and the next chapter always switches to a different character. (As far as I know, anyway, but as I’m on the fifth book at this point and that pattern has yet to be deviated from, I feel pretty safe in assuming that’s how the whole thing will go.)
Jordan, by contrast, only started switching POVs in WOT away from Rand when Our Heroes stopped all being in the same place and having (basically) the same experiences as Rand was; or, in other words, when Rand’s perception of events stopped being sufficient to convey the full scope of the story. In addition, Jordan obviously had no problem with switching POVs in the middle of a chapter (as he did here) if that told the story better, and he also had no compunctions about staying with the same character POV for several chapters in a row, if necessary, to bring whatever particular story arc was going on at the time to a good breaking-off point.
Neither of these approaches, I think, are any better or worse than the other; it’s simply a matter of differing styles. Martin’s approach has the virtue of symmetry and stylistic cohesiveness, but I feel like Jordan’s method has the advantage of being organic and natural-feeling, to go where the story goes.
*shrug* In the end, whatever gets your story told as best as it can be is what works, if you ask me.
But to get back to my earlier point, the other thing this narrative style indicates (now that I really look at it, anyway) is that contrary to what I said before, I don’t think Jordan actually was trying to be coy about which of the boys was the real protagonist of the story. In retrospect, it was really always clearly Rand. You just don’t devote your first 20 chapters to the POV of a character who’s going to turn out to be a sidekick.
(Well, you can, and actually that would be a fun subversion to play with, but subverting narrative POV tropes was clearly not something Jordan was interested in as far as WOT goes, so.)
Anyway, so the gang splits up and so do the POVs, and it’s all just going to get more complicated from here. Really, really, really complicated.
As they raced through the trees, guided as much by instinct as by the dim moonlight, Bela fell behind. Perrin looked back. Egwene kicked the mare and flailed her with the reins, but it was doing no good. By their sounds, the Trollocs were coming closer. He drew in enough not to leave her behind.
“Hurry!” he shouted. He could make out the Trollocs now, huge dark shapes bounding through the trees, bellowing and snarling to chill the blood. He gripped the haft of his axe, hanging at his belt, until his knuckles hurt. “Hurry, Egwene! Hurry!”
Suddenly his horse screamed, and he was falling, tumbling out of the saddle as the horse dropped away beneath him. He flung out his hands to brace himself and splashed headfirst into icy water. He had ridden right off the edge of a sheer bluff into the Arinelle.
Just a small, amusing point of order: Bela was the only one here who had the sense not to go running off a cliff. Heh.
Chapter 21: Listen to the Wind
Redux Commentary
…Yeah, so this chapter title makes perfect sense given what happens in it, but coming on the heels of the previous chapter title it’s a little ehhh. I would have changed one or the other. Probably the one that keeps giving me seventies prog rock earworms.
“You have very little room to talk, Wisdom.” Moiraine showed more interest in her hot tea than in anything she was saying. “You can wield the One Power yourself, after a fashion.”
Nynaeve pushed at Lan’s arm again; it still did not move, and she decided to ignore it. “Why don’t you try claiming I am a Trolloc?”
Moiraine’s smile was so knowing that Nynaeve wanted to hit her. “Do you think I can stand face-to-face with a woman who can touch the True Source and channel the One Power, even if only now and then, without knowing what she is? Just as you sensed the potential in Egwene.”
It’s amusing to recall how thrilling I found this revelation even in the midst of my general dislike for Nynaeve—a dislike I find less and less justified each time I reread the early books. Nynaeve in the early books has a major chip on her shoulder re: Aes Sedai, no doubt (well, actually I’m not sure she ever gets rid of that chip entirely, but it certainly was much more pronounced in the early books), but that’s not exactly a baseless grudge/fear on her part, especially if, as this chapter suggests, she subconsciously knew about her wilder status but refused to admit it to herself.
So yeah, girl definitely has issues, and the combative way she chooses to deal with those issues are definitely frustrating, but she is also quite unconsciously awesome too:
Before this she had been no further from Emond’s Field than had the boys. Taren Ferry had seemed strange to her; Baerlon would have had her staring in wonder if she had not been so set on finding Egwene and the others. But she allowed none of that to weaken her resolve. Sooner or later she would find Egwene and the boys. Or find a way to make the Aes Sedai answer for whatever had happened to them. One or the other, she vowed.
That kind of loyalty doesn’t just grow on trees, you know. Nor that kind of courage. Nor, er, that kind of bloody minded stubbornness. Unless you’re from the Two Rivers, apparently.
Anyway, people finding out they can channel gets kind of mundane through sheer repetition as the series goes on (also through gradual lessening of the stigma surrounding it), but finding out Nynaeve could channel at this point was quite the shocking twist, if I remember my initial reaction correctly. Which I may not; it has been a long time since I first read TEOTW, and my brain, she is like sieve sometimes. Or, uh, lots of times. Shut up.
“You see, Nynaeve, you are welcome to come.” There was a hesitation in the way Lan said her name, a hint of an unspoken “Sedai” after it.
Also a cool moment. Which of course Nynaeve immediately ruined by getting all prickly about it, instead of taking it for the bit of respect it was. And given that Lan has shown precisely zero respect for any non-Moiraine character he’s interacted with thus far, even a hint is pretty significant. But then, I guess Nynaeve doesn’t exactly associate “Aes Sedai” with “respect” at this point, so the reaction is understandable. Frustrating, but understandable.
Although, I’m not sure if Nynaeve’s interpretation of Lan’s respect was actually the correct one, now that I think about it. After all, Lan would assume that if Nynaeve were to go to the Tower, she would be a novice (since I doubt he would anticipate her eventual record-breaking promotion straight to Accepted), and not earn the title of Aes Sedai for quite some time. Novices are children to Aes Sedai, and the Warders all treat them the same way from what I remember, so the idea that he was giving her respect as a sister doesn’t totally make sense.
Respect for a person who had successfully tracked him and snuck up on him, though… that I could see.
And thus another post slips away, like a dream before your eyes—a curiosity! (Yeah, look, if I have to suffer SO DO YOU.) Come back next week for another post, and hopefully by then we won’t all still be singing this damn song! Whee!
Leigh, I do know what POV stands for, but I have to say when I was binge-reading the initial ReRead, there were several acronyms used that I never figured out! I was confused!
I laughed heartily at your introduction, especially the bit about the “dead-tree decking” ~ Ahhhhhh-hahahahahahahahahahaha! I never thought about a Christmas tree that way!!
I adore “Dust in the Wind”, but I probably wouldn’t want the song stuck in my head. I used to drive my kids crazy playing it over and over on Cassette in the car… some decades ago…..
In the initial ReRead, you mentioned that Rand had inadvertently used the one power. Where exactly? I just reread the chapter and am clueless. True, I have been clueless about a lot of things, especially making connections between historic names and character names, but picking up on uses of the One Power has left me wondering where, why and how.
I will be sad during the hiatus. The ReRead Redux is the highlight of my week! Alas, I do wishith yourth family a most hearty and beautitious holiday!
I love love love the Listen to the Wind chapter. We get unfiltered Moiraine and Lan, straight no chaser. We get the awesome mice biting you on the ankle burn comment. We get Nyn impressing Lan yet again. We get great sensawunder of Moiraine’s explanation of power development syndrome that causes Nyn to sit down in shock. The story adds a new major player in Nyn and a new plot dynamic – the Two Rivers girls as the future of the White Tower (even if we don’t know what that means, yet, and haven’t met the other non-Aiel supergirl).
The first chapter….is fine.
@1 – on Domon’s boat – making the mast move into the Trolloc.
@3 RobM ~ Oh, I see! It did not occur to me that Rand was using the one power to move the mast. He thought it was luck, so I guess I thought so, too.
Nynaeve dosn’t just have a chip on her shoulder re: Aes Sedai. She also has Dale. And Monterey Jack and Gadget Hackwrench. With Zipper buzzing around her head.
re: protagonist
I remember that I never had any doubt that Rand was the OP wielding protagonist. I think it’s simply that I recognized WoT immediately as the classic LotR-ish High Fantasy epic it was and once those get the prologue out of the way they usually put you in the protagonist’s head and stay there for a good long while.
The same way I quickly picked up that ASoIaF didn’t have a classic hero protagonist, both due to the gritty realism and POV jumping. It didn’t read like LotR but more like a novel about European medieval history and I expected it early on to play out exactly like that, with tons of families/houses, political clusterfuckery of epic proportions and a significant crapsack-yness of the world in general.
I turned out to have vastly underestimated the total and utter crapsack-yness of Westeros though, so there was still room for surprise. Horrible, bloody surprise.
Two counter-examples re: POV characters.
1) Podkayn of Mars (Heinlein)
2) Newsflesh Trilogy (Grant)
@1 WDWParksGal
Rand’s inadvertent uses of the OP:
– de-fatiguing Bela on the way to Taren Ferry (adverse reaction: recklessness re: Whitecloaks in Baerlon)
– moving the mast on Domon’s ship to kill a Trolloc (adverse reaction: more recklessness while balancing on top of the mast on their way down the river)
– lightning strike to save them from Howal Gode on the way to Caemlyn (adverse reaction: several days of sickness)
– killing Aginor at the Eye of the World (adverse reaction: immediate sickness)
@7 Randalator
So, whenever Rand used the OP he had an adverse reaction? Was that because of the taint? At some point the adverse reactions must have stopped but then picked up again from what I remember. Thank you for the list. It would NOT have occured to me that Rand balancing on the top of the mast was an adverse reaction.
Jordan’s POV style is definitely a lot more similar to Tolkien’s – if I am remembering correctly (I’m in the process of re-reading), most of Fellowship is from Frodo’s point of view (although the POVs are not quite as tight, as there are usually some asides here and there, and the presence of a more authoritative omnicisent voice – really, the POV isn’t so much Frodo’s, but following Frodo). But towards the end, and much more pronounced in the other two books, the POVs shift, as is necessary from the breaking of the Fellowship.
@8,
The adverse reactions aren’t because of the Taint; it’s simply a side effect of trying to control the One Power and only kind of succeeding. Rand’s reactions are the equivalent of Nynaeve getting sick after she healed Egwene the first time. Both men and women who learn to channel without guidence have them, and it kills about 2/3s of them if I remember my WOT math correctly.
@8 WDWParksGal
No, it’s not the taint. As Moiraine explains, women experience the same when they first touch the Source unguided. Every contact with the Source creates an adverse effect that is more severe and happens with less delay than the last, until the adverse reaction happens almost instantaneously. If you survive that last reaction you’re safe.
Nynaeve almost died from her last adverse reaction as the Wisdom’s apprentice. 3 out of 4 do.
The OP sickness Rand develops later on is something else entirely.
IMO, the trick Jordan was going for was to make it obvious to us that Rand was the One but hide it from everyone else, including himself. It works because of all the suckitude inherent to being the one. Moiraine’s delivery really makes the Nynaeve reveal. It’s a little shocking in retrospect how quickly Lan’s loyalty to Moiraine wanes in favor of Nynaeve and Rand.
@7 Speculation: in this chapter, Moiraine lists the consequences of not learning to channel: adverse reactions that happen closer and closer to touching the source, followed by a approaching death. Did this happen to Rand, do you think?
@13 RoyanRannedos
What do you mean by “speculation”? We saw it happen from the first Power Acquisition Fever Syndrome in Baerlon to the last at the Eye of the World.
RoyanRannedos @13–You can also read #s 10 & 11 for an explanation. See what happens when you’re busy typing. :)
Fun facts on POV’s: During the entire course of the series, there are 145 POV characters. Three of them are not human (Loial, the Gholam, and Shaidar Haran). We get POV’s from every Forsaken except Be’lal (although we don’t get a Taim / M’Hael POV until A Memory of Light). We only get one Sharan POV (Shendla), and multiple POV’s from every other country. We get POV’s from all of the Five Great Captains except Agelmar Jagad.
Everybody says that they don’t like Mat that much in the early books — that might be because Mat doesn’t get a POV until The Dragon Reborn. He was always best as a character when you could see the weird dichotomy betweens the things he says and the things he thinks; maybe the absense of that in the first two books adds to the discomfort with him. Every single other person who left the two rivers except Lan (Rand, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve, Moiraine, Tom) gets a POV in the first two books. Aside from New Spring, Lan doesn’t get a POV until Towers of Midnight.
@11 Randalator
If I had known about the ReRead and the fan sites for the WOT series, it would have helped me a lot in understanding the books better. Reading them all in a three-month time span last year didn’t give me a lot of understanding of the intricities of the various aspects of characters, abilites and the warring factions.
I didn’t realize when Nyn was sick that it meant she was having an adverse reaction to using the OP. I do have a lot to learn! And, ultimately, understand.
I’m now reading the books along with the ReRead, so hopefully, with help like yours, I will be able to understand the books that much better.
Depending how you look at it, it could have just been an effect of Ta’veren.
Rand balancing on top of the mast could just have been some adreniline thrill-seek that most teenagers do.
Neverspeakawordagain @16: which book/scene did we get a Davram Bashere POV? I do not remember a POV from him. Of the 145 POV characters, how many are men? women? dead by the end of AMoL?
Leigh, techincally Perrin did not voluntarily go over the cliff. The horse went straight. At this point, Perrin was trusting the horse to “drive”. Perrin was looking back at Egwene. I guess Siuan was correct after all. One should never trust a “mode of transportation” that can think for itself.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewB
@19 well, to be fair, then it’s his fault for trusting a horse that was stampeding. Living in a mountainous cattle country I am sure he would have at least heard stories of maddened animals driving themselves off of cliffs. In this case its the equivalent of looking at his cell phone while driving, I think you can still blame him, or the Andoran Crown for not placing sufficient lighting or safety railing along the cliff edge, that civil litigation waiting to happen.
Andrew, we had a Bashere pov in CoT (I believe). He and Bael are looking at Caemlyn, bashere heads backto his tent, finds out that someone stabbed his wife(probably trying to find the seal) and he tells one of his lieutenants to go tell that person ( Logain) he will go with him
@19: Davram Bashere gets two POV’s. One in Path of Daggers during Chapter 24 (the big battle slog between the Seanchan and Rand’s forces) and one in Crossroads of Twilight during the Prologue (when he’s sitting with Bael outside Caemlyn watching the siege of the city, and then returns to his tend to find that assassins tried to / did? steal the seal on the Dark One’s Prison that he may or may not have been holding.
A lot of those characters are one-offs, and we know little or nothing about what happens to them after their POV’s (for example, Falendre, the Sul’dam whom Rand sends back to Ebou Dar after he’s attacked by Semirhage; or Barmellin, the guy delivering brandy to Tremonsien in Cairhien when he sees the Choden Kal glowing during the cleansing and flees in terror). If we cut it off at characters with at least, say, five POV’s*, then we have, in decreasing order:
Rand, Perrin, Egwene, Mat, Elayne, Nynaeve, Moiraine, Min, Faile, Siuan, Gawyn, Cadsuane, Lan, Morgase, Aviendha, Fain, Ituralde, Galad, Graendal, Elaida, Tuon, Furyk Karede, Sevanna, Galina, Geofram Bornhald, Pedron Niall, Verin, Moghedien, Demandred, Alviarin.
* – this is all before A Memory of Light, when the POV’s get seriously insane. For example, Talmanes has no POV’s in the first 13 books, then gets 8 in A Memory of Light. Rand has 36 different POV’s in A Memory of Light, which is more than anybody but himself, Perrin, Egwene, Mat, Elayne, and Nynaeve had in the entire series up to that point. If you count A Memory of Light, then you can add to the “at least 5 POV’s” list Talmanes, Androl, Pevara, Loial, Gareth Bryne, Olver, Logain (had no POV’s in the other books), and Tam (ditto).
It’s pretty clear from the distribution of POVs who Jordan intended the 6 main characters to be, although it’s not cemented plot-wise until the final book. Interestingly, I don’t think anyone would guess that at this point. Egwene and Nynaeve still look very much like minor characters, and Elayne hasn’t shown up yet. And Jordan created a matriarchal world but led with the male half of his leads (I think here he was intentionally playing with gender expectations and obscuring what he saw as and wanted to eventually show as equally important roles).
@23 – Herb26883: You’re right that the six main characters are definitely seen to be the six main characters by POV distribution. But it’s by no means equally distributed. Obviously there’s a gigantic dropoff between Rand and everybody else, but after that there’s a giant step-down in screen time from Perrin to Egwene, and then an even more giant step-down in screen time from #4 Mat to #5 Elayne. To think of it another way, Perrin has more than twice as many POV’s in the series as Elayne has.
The POV screentime leads do shift around from book-to-book, though. And the last book in the series in which Rand gets the highest word count is Lord of Chaos. The lead-times go:
New Spring – Moiraine
The Eye of the World – Rand
The Great Hunt – Rand
The Dragon Reborn – Egwene
The Shadow Rising – Perrin
The Fires of Heaven – Rand, but almost Nynaeve, 103,485 words to 102,467
Lord of Chaos – Rand
A Crown of Swords – Mat
The Path of Daggers – Elayne
Winter’s Heart – Elayne
Crossroads of Twilight – Egwene
Knife of Dreams – Mat
The Gathering Storm – Egwene
Towers of Midnight – Perrin
A Memory of Light – Mat
If you add in A Memory of Light, does the order of the people in the pre-AMOL rankings change?
Also, I find it kind of funny that the book named after Rand (TDR) is the first one where he doesn’t have the highest word count (I’m not counting New Spring as ‘first’).
When leaving Emond’s Field, Bela keeps up with all of the other horses. Of course, later we find out why. But here RJ tries to make sure we know something was up, because Bela cannot keep up with Perrin’s horse. And yes, I totally missed that the first few times I read EOTW.
Thom’s Gandalf impersonation is split into two parts. This foreshadows his second Gandalf moment in Whitebridge.
How does being trained by another channeler stop these problems?
Doral Barran was the oldest person in Emond’s Field. How old was she? Was she a channeler? (She does seem to recognize Ny as someone who can Listen to the Wind, but that could just be observing her Healing.) Do Wilders slow enough to make people wonder why they live so long?
Damn someone’s gone to a lot of work to figure out all that screentime. Really interesting to see how they all rank up with each other. Kind of surprised Moraine is up so high. I’d have thought being ‘dead’ for all those books would slow her down a bit more.
Damn someone’s gone to a lot of work to figure out all that screentime. Really interesting to see how they all rank up with each other. Kind of surprised Moraine is up so high. I’d have thought being ‘dead’ for all those books would slow her down a bit more.
Evermore,
I assume Moiraine’s tally got inflated by her numerous POVs in New Spring. She got too few in the main series.
@WDWParksGal
Have you discovered the WOTFAQ yet, that Leigh helped edit and maintain? Its only updated through Knife of Dreams, but it is definitely worth a read:
http://wotfaq.dragonmount.com <– Most current
http://www.steelypips.org/wotfaq/ <– Leigh’s last version
I think I still have a hard copy from 1998 printed out somewhere, lol.
I find the following pretty good:
http://encyclopaedia-wot.org/index.html
If you click on any book, it shows a breakdown of the chapters within, including chapter summaries. At the bottom of the page is a “Plot Threads” chart which I find is a pretty cool visual that shows you a rough summary of the main characters storylines followed in the book. It doesn’t necessarily specify every viewpoint, just gives you the gist.
birgit @28
How does being trained by another channeler stop these problems?
It’s mostly about learning to touch the Source at will and in a controlled fashion. Most wilders die, but of those who don’t a significant fraction develop blocks. Unable to channel except in specific conditions. Nynaeve belongs to the latter group.
Doral Barran was the oldest person in Emond’s Field. How old was she? Was she a channeler?
NO clue. Possibly, though I do not know for sure.
Do Wilders slow enough to make people wonder why they live so long?
As a matter of fact they do. They slow just as well as if they do channel regularly. It’s one of the sticks up Nynaeve’s ass. Bad enough that she became Wisdom at an age that was generally considered unconventionally young. She can’t even age properly to the point that they’ll respect her for her age. She actually cries about it later in the series because she has a perverted wish to have gray hairs.
@neverspeakawordagain – I will admit to being impressed. Doing that POV analysis would definitely be a non-trivial exercise. Looking at the data, I’m most surprised that Faile, Siuan, Gawyn, Cadsuane, Lan, and Morgase all have more POVs than Aviendha. Of course it could be that hers were much longer in terms of total word count, but still it’s unexpected.
@28 – I think the difference is that when a person is trained they are consciously accessing the source as opposed to doing it inadvertently. Why the inadvertant use would have such severe consequences I don’t know. Perhaps the incomplete control of the power involved leads to eventual brain damage? If they’re not aware of what they’re doing maybe they end up not fully releasing the Source and the buildup of power leaking from the connection is the problem. Just guessing, really.
@28 birgit
How does being trained by another channeler stop these problems?
There is no explanation why, but apparently it makes a difference whether you touch the Source for the first time through conscious effort or inadvertently…
re: slowing
Every channeler slows as long as they’re not severed or burned out. The amount of slowing is dependent on a) the strength of the channeler and b) the amount of channeling they do.
So an undiscovered wilder like Nynaeve would slow (she’s 26 in EotW, but looks a couple of years younger) but not enough to push her past a ton of envious “phenomenal genes” comments. I’d speculate that without the events of EotW and just the occasional accidental touch (that sounds dirtier than intended), Nynaeve could have lived 110-120 years and looked 20-25 years younger at the height of her Slowing Discrepancy(TM). Compare Morgase who’s the weakest possible channeler and at age 42 looks to be in her mid- to late thirties.
@35 Nick31: I can’t take credit for that POV analysis; I didn’t do that work. It’s all included at the Wheel of Time Wiki; I have no idea who did the actual calculations. They broke everything down by book; I just totalled their calculations for the series. For example, here’s the statistical page for A Memory of Light:
http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/A_Memory_of_Light/Statistical_analysis
Somebody did that work for every book, breaking down the individual word count in each POV and the percentage of total word count for each chapter, and then totalled the total POV’s in each book for each character and the percentage of word count for that character for the book as a whole.
I’m a baseball fan, so I get way too excited about overly intense statistical analysis of things.
Oh, and just to make it easier to look at, there’s one page that contains the POV statistical analysis for the entire series:
http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Statistical_analysis
Since the sailors were already cutting the ship loose and it was moving away from shore, I just thought the boom moving was a natural phenomenon. Luck, just like Rand thought himself.
With the hint of “feelings of exhiliration etc” that we get of after-Power use effects in the next chapter, and the upcoming mast-climbing in the next Rand chapter, it is obvious that he moved the boom by channeling, but I realized that only upon re-reading the series.
I don’t think that this instance of Power-use by Rand was much less subtle than the first, though. They do get less subtle later on, such as when Rand blasts the wall out of the building they’re trapped in, but at this point in the story, I had no clue about male channelers whatsoever.
Right you are ValMar
Over 3/4 of Morraines word count comes from New Spring. I guess I kind of forget about that book sometimes.
Lurking.
Enjoying the comments!
Have a new appreciation for TEotW and RJ’s cleverness this time through.
@16 re Mat POV – And it doesn’t help him that every perception of him from the other characters’ POV’s is that he’s a trouble maker, scoundrel, shouldn’t be off his mother’s apronstrings, not serious about anything, doesn’t want to work, etc. etc. We don’t have the feeling of actually knowing him until he starts to get some serious POV time.
@32 AnthonyPero and @33 Plum
Those are great links. Have them both bookmarked now.
I was floored to realize Avienda had fewer POVs than other characters, even fewer than Cadsuane. The statistical breakdown is interesting in itself.
I remember reading that the novices who were sent or ran away from Tar Valon were located when possible and checked on, presumably to make sure they weren’t going crazy. Then, to find so many wilders living without issue for hundreds of years in later books was confusing to me. Those women must have had guidance to avoid the “sickness”, otherwise they couldn’t have existed on their own for so long.
@43 WDWParksGal
No, the WT didn’t keep tabs on them to make sure they weren’t going crazy. Women don’t go crazy from OP use like men do/did and by the point they were sent or ran away they were past the point of any Power Acquisition Fever Syndrome.
The WT kept tabs on them to make sure they didn’t abuse their power as channelers, discredit the WT or claim to be Aes Sedai in general.
Also there is no significantly increased number of actual wilders in later books, only a staggering number of potential learners (as opposed to sparkers like Nynaeve who go on to be wilders if undiscovered) or ex-Novices/Accepted no one in the WT was aware of…
Considering everything, I have to agree Jordan wasn’t trying to fool us regarding Rand’s Chosen One status; after all there were several places where he could have changed to another’s POV well before this, such as–to Mat, Perrin, Egwene, or Nynaeve to show what was going on back in Emond’s Field on Winternight (but this would have ruined the surprise and suspense of Rand’s flight through the Westwood and what he discovered upon emerging); to Perrin back at the Stag and Lion; to Mat when he and Rand were in Baerlon and met the Whitecloaks; to any of them in Taren Ferry; to Perrin or Mat in Shadar Logoth when they met Mordeth; and so on.
But I also think that staying with Rand so long not only let us know he was the Chosen One, it made the other characters more opaque, so that we couldn’t be sure of their motivations, if they were secretly Darkfriends, or what their stories would be like. This may have instilled the dislike so many had for Mat and Nynaeve which they found hard to shake no matter how awesome they became later, but it certainly added uncertainty and mystery to the story. And personally I found the reveals very enlightening.
With Nynaeve (as seen in Chapter 21), I had already not hated her the way so many readers did, so getting into her head was for me merely a confirmation of the awesomeness and good heart I suspected (or hoped) were really there. But it was nice to know she really did have their best interests at heart; that she wasn’t evil; and that as much as she was hypocritical, a bit xenophobic, and all the other insults often lobbed at her (with most having at least a grain of truth in them), she was still good-hearted and often funny, though much more of that came out later.
Mat of course gets revealed to be excruciatingly funny, as well as having the heart of a true hero no matter how much he denies it, and while at least a good portion of him becoming more likable came from him being cleansed of the dagger, I think the majority really comes from getting into his head and knowing how he thinks, why he acts as he does. It casts everything which came before, even when he was at his most annoying and off-putting, or when he was under the dagger’s influence, in a different light, as you wonder just what he was thinking back then which could have explained, excused, or at least modified his behavior with humor, as well as of course proving that even at his most undependable, he never would have knowingly and intentionally betrayed them. And none of this would have been possible if we had gotten into his or Nynaeve’s head earlier on (and the latter would in fact have given away her main character status sooner, though I’m not sure if Jordan was trying to hide that).
As far as the others go, seeing Egwene’s thoughts sooner might have mitigated some of her brattiness (though maybe not, since we later find out how desperate she is for acceptance and approval) but it also would have let us know exactly how determined she was to be the best and master whatever she had to to make a difference in the world, something that made her character shine more later. Perrin…he’s the one I think Jordan most could have afforded to let us into his head sooner, since I don’t think anything was revealed that would have given away where his character arc was going. Mostly I remember just being pleased to find out that the Big Guy in the group was if not a Genius Bruiser then at least much smarter than he appeared, and also kind, gentle, and insightful into human nature. He really was a dependable rock for many people, save of course when he let his angst or his single-mindedness get in the way.
Anyway, it can be argued whether or not holding back on getting into the other characters’ heads and thus delaying us truly getting to know them or their motivations hurt our conception of them, but I don’t think it can be denied that the delay itself was something Jordan wanted as much as he did letting us know Rand was the main hero. It just may be the case for some readers that the delay was a case of Gone Horribly Right, where they were so suspicious/put off/dismissive of characters that no amount of getting into their heads or later character development would undo first impressions–too little, too late for them. I don’t think so, but obviously some readers do.
Otherwise not much else to say about the first chapter except to note that Jordan really got a lot of mileage out of the “seemingly coincidental” party split-up which Mashadar and then the Shadowspawn cause–not only do we get to get into other characters’ heads now, and see more of the world, but the individual groupings set up character interactions, plotlines, events, and more that have ramifications throughout the whole rest of the series. Perrin and Egwene get to set off the wolfbrother plot, the Tinkers (and Aram), and the Whitecloaks; Nynaeve gets set up for her own White Tower destiny (and further development of her romance with Lan); Thom ends up going off on his own which sets up for what happens in Cairhien; and Rand and Mat being on their own allows the dagger to get hold of Mat (which it couldn’t have done if Moiraine had been there to catch it sooner), which I don’t need to explain how much that affects the entire plot later on, while Rand gets to meet Loial, Logain, Elayne and the rest of House Trakand, and Elaida, which of course creates the Web of Destiny that so floored Leigh (and many others, I imagine) upon first reading. And none of this would have happened if they’d followed Moiraine’s original plan of going to Tar Valon (or wherever she planned to hole up with the boys), even if they’d gone through Caemlyn first. Now that’s what I call great plotting and planning!
Oh, and to wave hello to Domon (he was always one of the minor characters I liked right from the start, despite how he’s initially presented here as a bit ruthless and menacing). And then there’s Gelb, ugh, but he does offer one important bit: as much of a lazy selfish scoundrel as he turned out to be, I always got he was genuinely confused and startled over how the boom got loose, which was the clue we needed that it was not in fact luck which caused it to swing and save Rand.
Rand’s last line of the chapter, where he bemoans his not being able to take care of and protect Egwene, has so much resonance and is even more painful after we know of what happens to her at the Last Battle, and Rand’s reaction to it…
Not a lot to say about Nynaeve’s chapter I haven’t already touched on. Although it is amusing that right in the middle of the now-long-dead mystery of how the Shadowspawn were traveling about in such large numbers, Moiraine notes that even if the Forsaken were loose, she didn’t think all of them together could move that many Trollocs. Aside from being a hint (not that we needed it) that Ba’alzamon was a Forsaken and foreshadowing the appearance of Aginor and Balthamel at the Eye, this seems to contradict what we learn later about just how powerful the Forsaken are…except that even then, they still couldn’t have moved that many since it’s revealed Shadowspawn can’t go through One Power gates. Foresight in planning, Jordan had it. Still, even though the explanation then was the same as it is here (the Ways), I have to chuckle at Moiraine being amazed at “a thousand Trollocs” when we later see extremely huge numbers appearing in armies, including the hundreds of thousands who ambushed Algarin’s manor in KoD. Just another quaint sign of how little we knew, at this point, of how epic and vast things would become later.
Also, as much as it might have been annoying to some how Nynaeve blamed Moiraine for everything and was determined to make her pay if something happened to Egwene or the boys, I just felt sorry for her in this chapter. So clearly out of her depth, but trying so hard to do the right thing, to help those she had personally adopted as her charge, and being forced with ill grace to go along with the ones she thought were, if not responsible for all that had gone wrong, at least a source of danger and intrigue because she knew they were right and she had no other options. Having to face the fear of learning she could channel was also rather distressing–and I have to say that although we never got to see it happen in-story (any more than we did the rotting death for maddened male channelers), I still find Moiraine’s description of what happens to women who don’t learn control to be chilling and horrifying.
As for her vow regarding Moiraine…even setting aside what we know now (both of her good intentions and heart and the fact she genuinely was manipulating the boys and Egwene, albeit for good reasons), the fact Nynaeve was willing to stand up to her even before she learned channeling, and was determined to learn how if she had to in order to get back at Moiraine…well. You can call it petty revenge, and something that ends up being counterproductive even if it does provide the impetus to her character arc for the next several books, but to me it was what proved how much Nynaeve cared about the boys and Egwene. This wasn’t just about distrust of a “Darkfriend Aes Sedai” (oh if only she knew!), or insular Two Rivers culture, or even a slight against her authority as Wisdom–it was the fact she was certain something terrible would happen to one or all of them, and that if it did she would make sure to repay that loss.
It’s the same motivation that compels her to learn to Heal things everyone says is impossible, and to fight the Shadow and its agents directly, but here it just shows that, whatever she may say against Rand and especially Mat, right from the beginning Nynaeve cared and would do anything not of the Shadow to save them. That, more than anything, made me admire and love Nynaeve, and forgive any lapses and hypocrisy and bad attitudes. It’s the same sentiment as in the quote about how far she’d been from Emond’s Field before this, but here it comes after she’s had it confirmed she can channel, and thus actually has the power to truly punish Moiraine if it came down to it…but at the same time she’s learned Moiraine is determined to do whatever it takes to win against the Dark One. But she’s still willing to do it anyway. Because even if Moiraine is as good and noble as she claims and is trying to save the world, Nynaeve cares that much for her charges.
@12 Herb: Yes, I thought that too. We were always supposed to know Rand was the one; it was only a mystery to the other characters. What was a mystery to us was exactly what the purpose of the other characters was, how they would fit into the story and what their destinies would be. That was indeed much more obfuscated until later on, and definitely satisfying to learn as the story progressed.
@16 neverspeakaword: Interesting info! How odd we never hear from Be’lal or Agelmar… And yes I agree about Mat, as I stated above.
@27 J. Dauro: Damn, I missed that too!
@28 birgit: Didn’t miss Thom’s Gandalf impersonation though. ;)
@43 WDWParksGal: In addition to what Randalator says, the Kin were led by a number of women who had trained in the Tower and either failed their Accepted tests, quit before finishing, or ran away. Having trained in the Tower, they knew how to guide and train others, at least enough to prevent them from succumbing to channeling sickness and death. So not only would they not suffer from it, they could have made sure all the wilders they found and took in were also safe.
Honestly, I LOVE Nynaeve in this chapter. Especially after having read the other books, and having read New Spring, reading Nynaeve trying to one-up Lan and getting annoyed at how he was able to find her horse, is so reminiscent to me of how Moiraine kept trying to one-up Lan and poured water all over him in New Spring. The similarities between Nynaeve and Moiraine are utterly hilarious to me.