Of all the blog joints in all the websites in all the Internet, you clicked on mine: The Wheel of Time Reread Redux! You’re awesome!
Today’s Redux post will play it again, Sam cover Chapter 41 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 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!
Before we start, A WARNING:
Or, not really a warning, so much as an announcement, but people pay more attention to you when you say WARNING in bolded caps, because psychology.
*sage nod* Yes.
What? Oh, right, the thing: JordanCon 7, The Con of the Red Hand, DOTH APPROACHETH. And I will be there! And reporting on it for you! Right here on Tor.com! It is SO EXCITING OMG.
So you will still get to see/hear about the fun if you can’t go, but if you CAN go I highly recommend you do, because it truly is a blast, every year. It’s not too late to register: pre-registration closes April 1st! Hope to see a bunch of y’all there!
Onward!
Chapter 41: Old Friends, and New Threats
Redux Commentary
I find myself having a probably entirely unreasonable quibble with the comma in this chapter title, because it bugs me. Why is this comma there? It does not need to be there. I object to this comma. This comma and I are not friends. This comma is dead to me!
Shut up, I can have irrational feuds with random punctuation marks if I want to!
ANYWAY.
This chapter is the first time I posted an image of one of the chapter icons, and the reason why I hadn’t been doing so all along is either funny or pathetic, or both. I’m not going to bore you with the details of how posts got posted on Tor.com back in the day, but suffice it to say that I am not the most technically savvy of persons, and I simply didn’t realize until this point (probably for the very good reason that I didn’t ask) that I could totally upload any images I wanted to include in my posts myself. Oops?
So at some (later) point I spent a whole evening uploading gifs of all the chapter icons I had in my possession at that time, which were totally filched from the WOTFAQ. I don’t remember anymore who originally scanned them (it may have been Joe Shaw, but I’m not sure), but their work has had an awfully long Internet shelf life as a result. (This is why the newer icons are darker and clearer than the older ones, too, because the inestimable Chris Lough at Tor.com scanned them for me, and got much better resolution than the by-now decade-plus-old original icon scans. I thought about asking him to re-scan all the old ones, too, but I was pretty sure Chris had (and has) much more important things to do, so I didn’t. Also I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who cares about that detail in any case.)
Anyway, that’s the (lame) explanation for why there were no chapter icons in the original TEOTW Reread posts. Orange you glad I toldja?
Also, I love how I kept apologizing at this point for how “long” the summaries were, because clearly I had no idea what was in store in the future. Ah, the naïve credulity of tender youth!
(What, five years ago I was totally tender! …Or, um, something else that doesn’t sound quite so wrong. *whistles*)
Aaand I should probably talk about what actually happened in this chapter at some point, eh?
“I’ll take care of Mother Grubb,” the innkeeper said gruffly. “And I suppose I can lend you a couple of horses. You try walking to Tar Valon and you’ll wear through what’s left of your boots halfway there.”
“You’re a good friend,” Rand said. “It seems like we’ve brought you nothing but trouble, but you’re still willing to help. A good friend.”
Master Gill seemed embarrassed. He shrugged his shoulders and cleared his throat and looked down. That brought his eyes to the stones board, and he jerked them away again. Loial was definitely winning. “Aye, well, Thom’s always been a good friend to me. If he’s willing to go out of his way for you, I can do a little bit, too.”
Maybe it’s a little bit sad that good people feel like they have to come up with at least slightly selfish reasons for the good things they do, or else risk their motivations not being believed at all, but I guess that’s the way things are, mostly. I mean, I’m sure Gill was inspired by his friendship with Thom at the beginning, but at this point I think that he’s helping Rand just because he wants to. That certainly makes more sense to me than supposing he’s willing to go to the maybe-not-so-metaphorical wall just for a friend of a friend.
(Or because ta’veren, but I prefer to maintain a more charitable view of Gill than to assume he only did it because he got whammied with fate pheromones or whatever. There are some aspects of the “free will” question in conjunction with the concept of ta’veren that can get kind of uncomfortable if you examine them too closely.)
That’s a little bolstered by my belief that Gill would have reacted the same way to the Whitecloak douchenozzles who invaded his inn regardless of whether Rand was there or not, because Basel Gill is quietly badass. There are all kinds of possible parallels that can be drawn from the faceoff scene Gill and his patrons have with the Whitecloaks, anything from civil rights supporters standing up to Ku Klux Klaners in a Southern bar (maybe you think the all-white uniforms are an accident, but I don’t) to that iconic scene in Casablanca where the patrons drown out the Nazi anthem with the Marseillaise. Either way it’s a clear message of HATERS TO THE LEFT, and I love it. Basel Gill FTW.
“Moiraine didn’t look at anything any more than Lan did. She led us back and forth through all those streets so many times, like a dog hunting a scent, that I thought you couldn’t be here. Then, all of a sudden, she took off down a street, and the next thing I knew we were handing the horses to the stablemen and marching into the kitchen. She never even asked if you were here. Just told a woman who was mixing batter to go tell Rand al’Thor and Mat Cauthon that someone wanted to see them. And there you were”—she grinned—”like a ball popping into the gleeman’s hand out of nowhere.”
Still not really sure how she did this, since Rand and Mat didn’t have their coins. Maybe it gets explained at some point, but if so I don’t remember it.
I’m also trying to remember if I thought Mat was actually going to die at this point. From the hindsight of how pivotal he is to the rest of the series, that idea is fairly absurd now, but on first reading of TEOTW… there was a case for it, I think. For most of TEOTW, after all, Mat had been more of an obstacle than anything else, with the exception of his Old Tongue shoutings earlier, and thus I don’t think I would really have been all that surprised if he had bitten it at this point, back in the day.
Obviously I’m glad he didn’t… but I could have seen it, here.
From the original commentary:
(Insert incoherent parenthetical observation here about the Law of Contagion in magic systems, and the reiterated parallel to biological warfare. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here, but I’m sure it’s something.)
Yeah, I’m still… really not sure what I was trying to say here. So, points for consistency, I guess? Yay?
(As a rule I try very hard not to incorporate magical thinking into my real-life behavior, but I have to admit that I too really might hesitate to put on the sweater of a serial killer.)
And lastly, I was chuckling over the intro to the original post, because I still remember exactly how that train door ripped off my TEOTW cover, and how hilariously indignant I was over it. (Also, it’s probably some sort of miracle I didn’t get injured myself; mind the gap, yo!)
And there’s a very nice story connected to that event that I don’t think I’ve mentioned before: shortly after I posted that post, Mr. Pablo Defendini, my original… handler, I guess you would have to call it, at Tor.com, arranged to meet with me (at the same Barnes and Noble’s I would eventually spend a surreal evening signing copies of TOM with Team Jordan), ostensibly to discuss scheduling of the blog, but mostly so that he could give me a surprise from the Tor folks: a brand new hardcover of TEOTW to replace the paperback damaged in the subway—along with hardcovers of the next six books in the series, which I had mentioned offhand I only had in paperback at the time.
It was such a sweet gesture, I was floored. Still am, really. Listen, the folks at Tor.com are just buckets of awesome and I am totally not saying that because they pay me. They are just good people, y’all best believe it, and I am proud to have been able to work with them for so many years. Mwah, darlings.
And since it is clear by now that I’m really not into talking about actual TEOTW things happening this week, I think we’ll stop here. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and I’ll see you next week!
Leigh – they actually pay you? I never knew that. *ducks*
^^
See you at JordanCon!!
Hi Leigh!
::waves::
I duuno about that whole magic thingme. Ask yurselves, “WWHDD”? This would stump him because you would lose the connection to said person with the transference of the coins. Maybe Moiraine is just clingy and the boys are imprinted on her.
Gill. See? It’s not just Santa. There are many good people in the world. Or maybe it is because of who Gill is that he has resisted the crappieness of the world around him longer than some. The WC thing… well, that’ll teach you for not having a “no soliciting” sign on your door. At least they didn’t hand out pamphlets.
Woof™.
Awww that is so sweet :)
Also, I discovered Casablanca on a trans-Atlantic flight this past fall and it is lovely :)
@6 I’m sure it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship between you and the movie….
No reason not to think Matt could die here — Jordan had at least 5 characters apparently on parallel Hero’s Journeys. Using one to make it clear that the journey was dangerous would have been perfectly reasonable. Lots of modern fantasy authors would have done exactly that.
Re: Gill…
Gill is the man, but I read that comment more as “I’d do this for any good person, and even though I don’t know you that well yet, I trust Thom’s judgement, and he clearly counted you among the good ones.”
Re: How Moiraine found the boys…
If you look at Moiraine talking to Nyn about how she’s been intuitively using the One Power for years, there’s a whole bit about how she can sense people she’s previously healed.
This quietly disappears in later books, as the magic system becomes more concrete and less mystical, but at this point Moiraine being able to sense the boys once she’s close enough makes perfect sense — because she’d washed away their fatigue previously.
@8, I thought Moiraine said when she realized that they had gotten rid of the coins that she would have been able to find them easily with the coins, but even without them she could find them if she got close enough. Regarding the 5 characters on a Hero’s Journey (which I now always think of as a Hiero’s Journey), which 5? I see Jordan as having intended 6 main characters.
@9 – agree. Moiraie said it would have been easier if they had kept the coins but that there was enough of a tie she could find them if she were close enough.
Moiraine is quite the decisive bad-ass in these chapters. Great to see her take charge.
Ditto re Basel Gill, who is one of my favorite smaller characters in the series.
Re Basil Gill — not many people would sell a profitable business and run of with a pushed aside queen (and her motley crew). To paraphrase what was said about Charlie Brown: “Basil Gill, you are a good man.”
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
Jordancon already? Crap. Gotta see if I can go this time!
Is there a secret thumb-to-pinky sign for Leigh’s Loonies to recognize each other with? or does most every attendee read Our LeighDB?
Thanks once more, Leigh!
It’s true. It is an unnecessary comma. That said, ellipses are frowned upon by the modern establishment (like the semicolon). We know there’s a dramatic pause, chord, what-have-you. ;-]
Comma onward!
Rand is a prince, his mother was supposed to become queen.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (insert evil laugh here)
I really didn’t think Mat was long for the WOT world upon the first reading, so I was surprised he went on to be a major character throughout the books. At this point in the book during the first read-through I most certainly didn’t think he would become one of my favorite characters!
I look forward to reading about Jordan-Con!
On the subject of Basil Gill in particular, nice folks in general and “ta’veren”…
There is a long line of- um- “facilitators” (for immediate lack of a better word that includes the concepts of “helpers”, “teachers” and “way pavers”) that stretch back throughout my life. Each one of you can probably point to examples from your own lives as well.
I can think of five types of individuals that have influenced and assisted me.
The first of course are family, friends and aquaintances.
The second are Good Samaritins- strangers prepared to help anyone in time of need. Many times never seen again.
The third group are those who didn’t know me, but we had an aquaintance or aquaintances in common. “If ______ thinks you’re ok then you’re ok in my book too”.
The fourth group are those willing to throw their fortunes in with mine, for a time at least, and share the adventure.
The fifth group might be a subset of group two. These folks were inspired to help me out at my request when they had no intention of helping anyone. By the mystified wondering looks on their faces as we parted, it seemed that they were struggeling figure out what had just happened; why they had acted out of character, for them, at all.
That last gives me pause to consider the case to be made for the existence of concepts similat to “ta’veren’. In Christian Theology one is called “grace”, unmerrited favor.
I certainly don’t consider myself any more deserving of such gifts than the next guy or gal. The wisdom to be found here is to recieve it with gratitude and thanksgiving then pay it forward when the chance comes around- for it certainly will.
Master Gill is surely a member of all five groups.
Whoa… they pay you, Leigh? Damn..! And here I thought we got your scandalous snark and wonderous witticisms for free (I was looking for “this blog brought to you by {insert
giant evilcorporate sponsor here}” but I don’t see one…). Well, so much for that bargain deal… On another note: why are you picking on the poor comma in the chapter title? It didn’t ask to be so jarringly misplaced and abused! For shame! You, a famously witty and literate blogger picking a fight with a poor, hapless comma who prints at the whim of anyone who might press its key? For shame!!*chuckles* Not that I didn’t enjoy Leigh getting worked up over puncutation, or her reminiscences about the chapter icons and her book cover and replacement copy of TEotW, but since she spoke so little about the chapter itself I’ll just have to address that alone.
First off, while the following chapters are even more about converging plotlines, I had to hand it to Jordan for how well he brought so many elements together here to both explain a lot of mysteries and set up for what was to come. The chapter icon alone (as well as its title) let us know Moiraine would be back. We get Gill being heroic, first in agreeing to help Rand and Mat get away from Caemlyn, then standing up to the Whitecloaks and even trying to keep Rand from rushing to the kitchen in case it wasn’t his friends. (While Gill’s line about “Who knew I could be a hero?” does suggest a bit of ta’veren tugging, it’s clear it just brought out what was already in him to begin with. Which is awesome. I was cheering him the whole time!) The Whitecloaks themselves were there because of Perrin (does that mean Bornhald’s group made it there, after the attack by Moiraine and Lan? Or did news of Perrin and Egwene’s escape get sent ahead to Caemlyn?) but Rand doesn’t know that and is understandably confused. Then we get everybody back together again, the news about Thom is shared, and finally the reveal is made about Mat.
Let me pause a moment to unpack here. The foreshadowing with Loial was chilling–Rand was sure Mat wouldn’t hurt or attack him, but he lashes out immediately upon seeing Perrin, Nynaeve, and Egwene, and actually tries to attack Moiraine. I had to chuckle a bit grimly at Moiraine’s look when Rand explained about the dagger, because his whole “Mordeth didn’t give it to him, Mat took it” was such an Aes Sedai answer it had to really rankle her even as it was true. I remember being annoyed upon first reading that she didn’t seem to believe he didn’t know about the dagger until after the separation, but re-reading it now it seems more to me like she was more commenting on the awful timing of the Wheel’s weaving, coupled with her determination to impress on him the gravity of what had happened: “Fine, you didn’t know. But here’s what else you didn’t know, and what will happen because of it.”
As for Mat himself…before we ever meet Fain again and find out what Shadar Logoth and Mordeth did to him, Mat seemed far more like Gollum here than the Lugarder ever did, until later on. Or perhaps Ring-tainted Frodo, to stick with the LOTR parallels. I don’t think I thought Mat was going to die, but I did think he was going to be trouble a lot longer and more darkly than he ended up being. (Thank goodness for that angreal, eh?)
The things Mat said were freaky as hell, and still are. What is most terrifying about them, as Leigh said in the original commentary, is that it was definitely still Mat, simply saying things he never would have on his own, acting in ways he would never bring himself to do…but based on what was inside him. It was his personality enflamed into one of suspicion and hate, his phrasings, and yes, his insights. I do have to wonder exactly how much he saw though, and how. He could tell Perrin had changed…was it just the eyes, or something more? He correctly predicted Egwene’s futuring Dreaming–how? As far as Nynaeve goes, that just was him drawing upon her role as Wisdom and her character and youth in contrast to it…but even that is startling, since it shows a perceptiveness in him (particularly in regards to Nynaeve) that we hadn’t seen before. Granted, we later find out Mat is actually far more perceptive than people give him credit for, but at this point we didn’t know that (not having been in his head yet), so this gives us a window into his future awesomeness, oddly enough.
(Side note: I am really glad Jordan waited to show us Mat’s own thoughts until TDR–not just because of the questions of his loyalty which come up in TGH, but because I really would not have enjoyed seeing what they were like under the influence of the dagger…)
Speaking of badassery though, Moiraine’s assertion that the dagger would fight and eventually corrupt the essence of whoever carried it, again lets us know ahead of time that there’s much more to Mat. The fact that, as Leigh noted earlier when she said Mat staying loyal to Rand for so long, defending him against Darkfriends, helping him escape, pleading with him not to leave him…in other words, that even if as Moiraine said the battle was almost over by the time she got to him, the fact it took so long to get Mat to this point, and that even right up to the end he hadn’t turned on Rand, shows just how strong “what Mat is in the heart” is.
What the dagger could do, of course, was horrifying. I can’t remember if I thought it was just this brush with it that Min’s vision foretold (not that it wasn’t momentous enough at this point), or if it would have greater ramifications beyond this book. But setting aside what ends up happening with Mat and Fain in AMoL, we know it’s all because of the dagger that so much of Mat’s fate comes to pass–it draws Fain, so he takes it along with the Horn, thus leading to Mat blowing it when they recover both in Falme; it creates the holes in his memories, thus leading him to the Finn and eventually his great general status, and it may even have enhanced his luck. All that being the case, no wonder Min saw it as such an important image around him!
But for now we just get the after-the-fact explanation that makes the whole trip to Caemlyn make sense (no wonder Shadow agents kept finding them everywhere) and also explains other stray bits of info–the mysterious shapes around the city, the inn cats having so many rats to chase despite Elaida’s weaves in the city. Speaking of foreshadowing: Rand’s vision of the “new Trolloc Wars come to Caemlyn” points ahead to ToM where it happens in truth.
Two other quick points: people keep saying Moiraine was just being Gandalf or that Jordan hadn’t worked out the magic system yet to explain how she found the boys without the coins. But when the Finder weave is described in KoD, Elayne notes that it is attuned to the person who creates it, and that while it lasts forever on metal, it also lasts for weeks on clothing. From this I got the impression that even though the weave was laid on the coins, the fact said coins were in the boys’ purses and/or close to their clothing caused some of it to rub off on them too. That combined with Moiraine’s connection as the creator of the weave was enough to let her track them even without the coins. It’s a retcon, but it makes sense to me to explain how she found them.
As for the second point: this is the first time Gill meets Perrin. Who’d have thought he’d end up with his group in Ghealdan later? I have to wonder how Gill felt, meeting him again and finding him so changed and intimidating; clearly he’d never have predicted such a thing happening.
@8 clintack: Your reading of Gill’s line matches mine. Also, good point about the fatigue-washing.
@10 RobM: Me too. Quintessential innkeeper, but a truly good man, and much of what he does here will have resonance throughout the rest of the series, let alone how he helps Morgase later.
@14 birgit: Jordan loved his ironical foreshadowings, didn’t he?
@16 thx: Beautifully put.