With unspeakable horror, the Wheel of Time Reread Redux comes howling FOR YOUR SOUL. Yay!
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapters 44 and 45 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!
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 the meat (so fine, so fine to tear): JordanCon 7, The Con of the Red Hand is still totally a thing that is happening, and I am still totally a person who will be there. OH FRABJOUS DAY.
Ergo, scheduling note: There will be no Redux Reread post on Tuesday April 21st. But check this space anyway for report(s) on the madness of the con! Some of it might even be written sober! Whoo!
Onward!
Chapter 44: The Dark Along the Ways
Redux Commentary
Ha ha, I’m laughing at my original commentary. My theory on fantasy “physics” being the reason why I sucked at actual physics is nonsense, of course, but it does remain true that the Escherian nature of the Ways is something it seems to make perfect sense to me that it should be that way. After all, if you’re screwing around with time, by necessity you’re also screwing around with space—even I know that much—so why not make it work to your advantage?
I dimly recall a lot of (largely circular) debate among fans back in the day about the exact nature of the Ways and how all that could theoretically work, but mostly that was conducted among people who were a lot smarter and a lot more STEM-oriented than I was (or am). I mostly sat on the liberal arts bleachers and ate virtual popcorn for those discussions. Personally I’m pretty happy with filing it under “handwavy stuff that would be hella fun to see on film” and leaving it at that.
Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to know How Stuff Works, and I will definitely get just as irritated as the next fan if a fictional world blatantly violates its own internal consistency (or fails to be developed enough to have its own internal consistency), but as long as the world seems to work coherently with itself, and produces a strong enough vibe of “this makes sense even if I can’t actually explain it”, then I am generally willing to roll with it. As a general rule, I’ll get thrown out of a story that has inconsistent characterization a lot faster than I will from one that handwaves physics. Give me a Timey-Wimey Ball over an Idiot Ball any day, sez me.
(This is possibly fueled by the fact that “this makes sense even if I can’t actually explain it” is a fairly accurate summation of my entire reaction to Escher’s work.)
Other things!
Mat brought his dun-colored horse over by Rand. “Perrin’s making me nervous,” he muttered. Rand looked at him sharply. “Well, he’s acting strange. Don’t you see it, too? I swear it’s not my imagination, or… or…”
Rand nodded. Not the dagger taking hold of him again, thank the Light. “He is, Mat, but just be easy. Moiraine knows about… whatever it is. Perrin’s fine.” He wished he could believe it, but it seemed to satisfy Mat, a little at least.
“Of course,” Mat said hastily, still watching Perrin out of the corner of his eye. “I never said he wasn’t.”
It’s an interesting (if pointless) exercise to wonder how much of Mat’s later highly irritating skittishness around Rand is due to ingrained childhood prejudices re: men who can channel, and how much of it is due to the dagger’s influence—both before and after he’d been “cleansed” of it., since I think it’s made pretty clear that even after the Aes Sedai separated him from the thing he was still not really the same person after as he was before.
But then, he wouldn’t have been the same person anyway. You don’t need a diabolical magic dagger to change you after being through the things Mat and the others have been through. So, like I said, it’s sort of a pointless thought exercise—except that I find I have an easier time forgiving Mat his early douchiness if I decide that it was dagger-related, so I figure, why not go with that?
“Remember, good innkeeper, if you fear any trouble from this, write to Sheriam Sedai, of the Blue Ajah, in Tar Valon, and she will help.”
Eeek. Probably a good thing he never did that, eh? (He didn’t, did he? I don’t think so, but…)
Lan went past her, leading Mandarb, poled lantern in hand. His shadowy reflection approached him, leading a shadowy horse. Man and reflection seemed to step into each other at the shimmering surface, and both were gone. For a moment the black stallion balked, an apparently continuous rein connecting him to the dim shape of his own image. The rein tightened, and the warhorse, too, vanished.
I was irresistibly reminded here of that scene in Neverending Story. But that’s hardly the only place you see mirror-gates or reasonable facsimiles thereof in SFF: Lewis Carroll, the Narnia books, Harry Potter, The Matrix, Stargate… There’s just something about mirrors, man.
Loial looked around anxiously, then scrambled onto his horse with none of the reluctance he had shown earlier. The horse wore the biggest saddle the head groom had been able to find, but Loial filled it from pommel to cantle. His feet hung down on either side almost to the animal’s knees.
That horse hates the world, man. The WORLD. Heh.
Chapter 45: What Follows in Shadow
Redux Commentary
Interesting that Moiraine earlier claimed that Waygates were extremely difficult to destroy, and here she just cut her way through one like a dude with a blowtorch. Maybe she meant they were hard to destroy completely. Or maybe she’s just that badass.
I have no disagreements with my original comments that the Black Wind was very Lovecraftian and/or Kingian in flavor (King-ish? Kingesque? Sorry, Stephen, you should have been born with a name friendlier to adjectival suffixes), much more so than Jordan usually gets. Though when he does go for the horror vibe, he generally does it very well (a certain flicker sequence coming up later comes to mind).
I remember there used to be a fair amount of confusion and/or argument over whether Mashadar in Shadar Logoth and Machin Shin could be the same thing, or at least related phenomena. This was an issue which was exacerbated by Fain’s merger with Mordeth (who shared Shadar Logoth killin’ duties with Mashadar) and then later his… merge? Co-opting? Something—with Machin Shin.
It’s one of those ideas that seems perfectly logical until you actually examine it. The WOTFAQ sums up best why this is unlikely, I think:
- Mashadar dates from the Trolloc Wars, Machin Shin from the Hundred Years’ War. That is about a thousand years’ difference. Thus, the time scale does not agree.
- Mashadar is a slow-moving glowing fog that kills everything it touches. Machin Shin is a black, howling wind that eats your soul, but doesn’t kill your body. So, there is no similarity of appearance, or effect.
- If Mashadar could get into the Ways from Shadar Logoth, logic says it could get out of the Ways at some other point, and spread itself across Randland. This clearly hasn’t happened.”
So, no Mashadar/Machin Shin mashup for you! Suck it!
The Aes Sedai rubbed her fingers against her palms distastefully. “You feel the taint, the corruption of the Power that made the Ways. I will not use the One Power in the Ways unless I must. The taint is so strong that whatever I tried to do would surely be corrupted.”
Another instance of it seeming like the magic system was a little less rigidly defined in TEOTW than it became later on, since from a later perspective it doesn’t make sense that saidar would be affected by the taint on saidin.
But then again, the Ways screw with all the other kinds of physics, so why not magical physics too? Plus there’s an argument to be made that it’s different when you’re sitting in the middle of an entire dimension (or whatever, timey-wimey la la la) created by tainted saidin. So, sure, let’s go with it.
“Blood and ashes,” [Rand] mumbled, “can’t I even talk to a girl? You two are as bad as Egwene.”
The whole exchange re: Else and Aram and Min was funny, but Rand’s point is a good one. I was all set to be annoyed about how stupid it was for Egwene and Rand to be pissy at the other for even talking to a member of the opposite sex, and then I remembered that they are essentially high school age (at this point, both chronologically and emotionally), and that in high school, romantic drama is precisely that stupid. So, points for accuracy in maturity, I suppose—or rather the lack thereof.
(For the sake of argument, we’ll just blithely ignore the appalling number of adults who never progress beyond that level when it comes to relationships. Also for the sake of preferring not to remember those occasions when we have had to deal with such a person.)
“The Trollocs have discovered how to enter the Ways. […] That is how the Fades could gather a small army around Caemlyn without raising an alarm in every nation between the Blight and Andor.” Pausing, she touched her lips thoughtfully. “But they cannot know all the paths yet, else they would have been pouring into Caemlyn through the gate we used. Yes.”
I don’t know if you can rightly call this foreshadowing for what happened in AMOL, but hey, a happy accidental foreshadowing works just as well. Either way, it gave me a bit of a thrill.
And that’s our show! Say goodnight, Gracie! See you next week!
Goodnight, Gracie.
Kingly seems appropriate.
“So, no Mashadar/Machin Shin mashup for you! Suck it!”
See, this is part of the reason why I really love to read anything by Leigh. Rarely does something make me actually laugh out loud. When it’s Leigh, though, rarely does a post of hers NOT make me laugh out loud. Glorious.
I wonder if Sheriam would have done (or been able to do) anything if Master Gill had written to her. She never seemed to me to be very active on the DO’s agenda, with the exception, I guess, of their time in Salidar.
And then there is Gollum…oh, Fain…following them through the Ways. I really wonder how he got into the Ways in Caemlyn…or did he get in somewhere else? I suppose he could have gotten out after the group headed to Fal Dara but was he immune to Machin Shin?
What is the difference between horror and terror? Is horror a little grosser, maybe?
I never really thought Machin Shin and Mashadar were the same at all. But the FAQ is awesome and I welcome any reference to it. :) I think it’s actually how I ultimately found Tor, because I think at some point it ended up on Dragonmount (but I don’t recall that it got updated) and then it was announced you were working on the original reread and then I got sucked into everything else here :)
I like Kingian :)
Are we discussing this as an emotion, or as kind of story? As an emotion, terror strikes me as more immediate and visceral. Horror is what I’d feel reading or hearing about something, well, horrible. Terror is what I’d feel if the horrible thing was chasing me with a knife.
I had always assumed that Machine Shin was something ishy had created when he was around during artur hawkwings time. It was never stated in the books but the ways would have been a safe means for the Aes sedai to continue to interact with the world even while besieged for 20 years.
But Moiraine does not destroy the Waygate, she merely cuts her way through it. Sure she damages it, but the very definition of destroy makes the addition of completely superfluous. Even the context in which Moiraine talkes about destroying a Waygate makes it clear that she means to make it unusable as way of travel, which she does not do to the Waygate they exit in Shinear, as Fain follows them out and she requests that Lord Algemar send someone to go ‘brick it up’ or some such.
BillinHI@@.-@
Fain does follow them through the Waygate at Caemlyn, it is mentioned later he murders the owener of the shop the Waygate is under when he comes to investigate the noise. And yes, he was immune to the Black Wind in a way, it found that he did not have a soul to eat, so to speak.
For reasons, I would propose Kingon. Maybe Kingoni if you were feeling sentimental.
The Black Wind was Kingon in flavor.
The Black Wind was Kingoni in flavor.
Yes. I think that works.
(P.S. @5 – Have a Happy Easter! Our chapel is next to the largest Catholic chuch in our area. I’m excited that both Easter and LDS General Conference fell on this weekend, meaning I avoid the crush of C&Es)
How did Liandrin learn to read the sign posts? IIRC, they were written in Ogier script.
That raises another question. When the Ways were first created, how and/or who labeled the signposts? Was their a Lewis & Clark of the Ways who mapped out the Ways it was first created?
If the Ways existed in our world and there was no Black Wind, I would so much like to take a journey through them. Even if it was all dark.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
I think “Kingy” is also a possibility.
I always assumed that the black wind was a DO thing and not the Mashadar. I don’t recall, but were the Trollocs and Fades affected?
@8
Also, there are few things in nature as powerul as an angreal-using Aes Sedai, and, up to this point, there are few angreal-using Aes Sedai as powerful as Moiraine.
Also also, I totally heard “Suck it!” in full Psych singing mode.
I’d always thought that the Black Wind was an outgrowth of the corruption in saidin from when they were made, and that it only showed up later because that was how long it took for it to emerge.
I also recall enjoying the idea that the Ways were this awesomely-cool, post-Breaking thing. (Even if just barely.) It seemed like a neat change from some classic “everything cool came from the Time Before” trope.
@@@@@ 10 In The Great Hunt, Liandrin follows a set of instructions constantly when she’s taking the girls from Tar Valon to Falme. My assumption was that she got the instructions of how to go from Tar Valon to Falme from another darkfriend or Black Ajah, the same one who ordered her to make the supergirls be captured by the Seanchan. Who exactly was this person (Lanfear? Ishamael?) it’s not very clear.
Liandrin’s experience might’ve been like navigating in the Chinese or Russian highway system, but with a few instructions saying: this is how Beijing is written / this is how Moscow is written. This is how “left” is written, this is “next exit”, this is “return”, etc. Now try to get there from Vladivostok.
Kinglish, I think, is what I would use. :)
@11: At one point, Machin Shin is going on happily about devouring Trollocs. So they’re not immune. I don’t know about Myrddraal.
Machin Shin means “black wind,” right? But in what language?
Leigh,
the adjectival version of ‘King‘ must surely be ‘Koenigasque.’
I’d just chalk Moiraine’s statement about not using the One Power to ignorance and superstition. Along with a healthy dose of caution.
Also, Egwene is High School Age, but Rand is 19 going on 20?
On King… Kingonesque?
Re: Kingesque, et al…
Perhaps Castlerockian?
I always assumed Machin Shin was a result of the taint on Saidin. The Ways were created by male Aes Sedai after Saidin was tainted. And they made the Ways as a living thing. It stands to reason that the taint would corrupt the Ways in the same way that it corrupted male channelers. It just took longer.
Leigh quoted the following description of Machin Shin in the original Re-read:
The voices seemed to whisper in Rand’s ears, right at the brink of understanding, and within it. Flesh so fine, so fine to tear, to gash the skin; skin to strip, to plait, so nice to plait the strips, so nice, so red the drops that fall; blood so red, so red, so sweet; sweet screams, pretty screams, singing screams, scream your song, sing your screams . . .
That sounded very familiar to me, and I realized it reminded me of various descriptions of the Finn, especially the Eelfinn, with their human-skin garments and their lust for human emotions. I wonder if there is any connection between the dimension of the Finn and the Ways?
The laugh out loud moment in this post was “That horse hates the world, man. The WORLD”, I say! Hahaha.
Kinglish sounds too much like English. And Kingon like Klingon. Needs to be Kingish.
Machin Shin always sounded in my head like a modification of the Hebrew word Chamseen. With the gutteral Israeli chhhh (flegm) at the beginning. It’s the word for the piercingly hot, flay skin hot, dry wind storms that occur across the Middle East. I always wondered in RJ had heard that word in Hebrew.
Testing, testing. Just seeing how it works after taking the black. Now, hopefully, I can fix typos.
The adjective for king is of course royal.
Something killed Trollocs in the Ways. Moiraine thinks that the AS built traps for Shadowspawn into the Ways, but it could have been Machin Shin.
Does that mean in the same place or over the other Island?
Does Rand remember his promise at the end of the series? Loial certainly would like the opportunity to talk to Rand and get information for his book. Of course Loial was in Emond’s Field more recently than Rand and could show him how it changed.
Why do Trollocs have their own writing? If they are litterate at all, they should be writing in the Old Tongue. And why has a scholar like Loial never seen Trolloc runes?
Why is Moiraine’s channeled fire corrupted by the taint in the Ways? When Rand channels tainted saidin the effects of channeling are normal.
Are the Boltons in SoIaF related to Machin Shin?
Everybody is lovin’ on my handle this week. I’m so excited. ;-)
And that’s all I’ve got until I return home this weekend and can take a few minutes to re-read these chapters. No foolin’.
@23 – from a noise standpoint just Ramsey; Roose is too quiet. He may think about flaying and do it, but he wouldn’t tell anyone.
@22 – congrats. You can start by deleting “hopefully” – as the sign above the English grammar class says, “Abandon hopefully all ye who enter here.” LOL.
This makes the assumption that Aginor, or someone, taught the trollocs to read and write. More likely is that such a thing never occured to Aginor prior to the sealing of the Bore, and that the Trollocs developed their own writing system at some point after.
@16 Per the BWB (The World of the Wheel of Time), Machin Shin was named by the Ogier, so perhaps it is black wind in their language.
@27: Thanks! My BWB copy isn’t currently with me.
I thought Machin Shin came about because of the taint, like the Power congealed, or something, and Mashadar was a city’s worth of horrible thoughts turned into evil mist. Machin Shin is something gone mad, like the people who made the Ways, and Mashadar is something entirely dark, like the people became in the city (and Mordeth). So separate things but both growing out of feelings-gone-bad in a similar way… I want to say personification, but it’s more like mistification…
On the first chapter, when do Rand and Mat find out about Perrin and the wolves? Do they ever? They show quite a lack of curiosity, really, about what has happened to their best friend… I get respecting his privacy and being nervous and thinking it’s safe because Moiraine says so, but they hardly ever think about it for a very long time, when I’d expect them to definitely have become more curious, or suspicious. Here, they’re already wary, but they never act on it. …Do they think for a long time that Perrin’s like Hurin?
Sian17 @29
They probably thought… “hey, Perrin’s my bro. if it’s really bothering him he’d tell us.”
In chapter 44, they stop at the first Guiding in the Ways and Rand is studying what he can see of the Ways by the light of their lanterns. After going through a bit of detail about all of the bridges and walls that are seen/hinted at, and the overall architecture scheme, Rand gets the impression that it seems somehow familiar.
This description sounds very familiar, in my head at least, to the location that Rand meets Ishy in one of the dream sequences earlier at the beginning of chapter 24. Does anyone think they are one and the same or at least one being a dreamshard representation of the Ways?
Here are the two sections I’m referring to.
From chapter 24 (page 349):
“There were stone bridges and railless ramps everywhere, all sprouting off from broad, flat-topped stone spires, all polished and smooth and streaked with red and gold. Level on level, the maze stretched up and down through the murk, without any apparent beginning or end. Every bridge led to a spire, every ramp to another spire, other bridges. Whatever direction Rand looked, as far as his eye could make out in the dimness it was the same, above as well as below. There was not enough light to see clearly, and he was almost glad of it. Some of those ramps led to platforms that had to be directly above the ones below.”
From chapter 44 (page 670):
“The edge of their light caught other stoneworks, what appeared to be stone-walled bridges arcing off into the darkness and gently sloping ramps, without railings of any kind, leading up and down. Between the bridges and the ramps ran a chesthigh balustrade, however, as though falling was a danger there at any rate. Plain white stone made the balustrade, in the simple curves and rounds fitted together in complex patterns. Something about all of it seemed almost familiar to Rand, but he knew it had to be his imagination groping for anything familiar where everything was strange.”
And then on page 671:
“After an interminable climb, curving continuously, the ramp let off onto another Island just like the one where it had begun. Rand tried to imagine the curve of the ramp and gave up. This Island can’t be right on top of the other one. It can’t be.”
Not a whole lot to say about these chapters, since they’re really just very atmospheric set pieces before we get to the final act of the book.
Despite being one of those who love finding out How Things Work, I think I too was content to just sit there and marvel at the Ways without trying to wrap my head around it too much. I’m not sure if that’s because my logical mind just gave up, or if my creative mind was so awed it shoved the logical side away. :P The mirror effect going in and out is particuarly creepy and awesome; the number of SFF stories which make use of mirrors in some way just shows how prevalent the idea of them having power really is, even after all the centuries they’ve existed. Ancient humans feared reflections, and that fear became superstition, which leads to us still making mirrors strange, magical, and powerful in our stories even today. We probably always will. What’s ironic here of course is that the mirror effect is completely harmless, only marking the gateway…it’s what inside the Ways that is actually dangerous and scary. And let’s not forget the mirror business between Rand and Ba’alzamon in the dreamshards.
On the subject of Moiraine’s many powers: what she does to the lock of the cellar rather makes me think she had some ability with Earth, which is rather nice to see in another main character besides Egwene (and to lesser extents, Nynaeve and Elayne).
Re: Mat’s doucheyness, I suspect the answer is both. Namely, that the dagger made his suspicions and prejudices stronger, more ingrained and unable to be overcome easily, but that their source was obviously what he’d been taught growing up in the Two Rivers. So while we can blame the dagger for making them worse and plaguing us the rest of the series, sadly their actual origin would have to be all the stories of the Breaking that turned everyone against the channeling men.
Yeah, very good thing indeed that Gill never contacted Sheriam. Even if she wasn’t truly evil, she still was Black, so who knows what she’d have done or who she’d have told. But at least one mystery was later solved: she told him to contact Sheriam, not because she was Mistress of Novices, but because they had been friends as Accepted and she trusted her.
I’d forgotten Loial and his horse. Still one of the funnier images of the series. About as funny as a dwarf riding a horse. ;)
Moiraine’s further mystical commentary: I don’t see a discrepancy at all. Aside from the fact she said “almost” nothing can destroy a Waygate, there is indeed a big difference between breaking one open and obliterating it completely. And I also note that she when she spoke of the Ways tainting anything done in them with the Power, she specifically says “anything I did (i.e., the weaves themselves and the effects they produced) would be tainted”, not saidar. And the fact the Ways were a whole separate dimension created by saidin makes it a lot more likely the place could corrupt in the manner she described. It certainly seemed to work on the staff, and if her theory that Machin Shin was once a creature of the Ways turned evil and insane by the taint is correct, then…
Speaking of, while I can see why people would connect Machin Shin to Mashadar and become confused by them because of Fain, I never really thought they were the same, and not just because of the reasoning offered in the FAQ. From the beginning they just always felt different to me somehow. Mashadar, while it obviously went for everyone in Shadar Logoth, always focused on Shadowspawn–as it should, considering the Shadow was Aridhol’s enemy even as its people became like it. Machin Shin, however, never seemed to care one way or the other about Light or Shadow, attacking all indiscriminately (until it encountered Fain). Which suggests that if Machin Shin was indeed corrupted by the taint, it certainly couldn’t have been of it or dependent on it to function, or else it would have been repelled by the essence of Shadar Logoth in Fain/Mordeth. (Though granted, he wasn’t anything like he would be later, and didn’t even have Mashadar with him this early on.) From what we find out later, the taint and Mashadar destroy each other, so there’s no way Machin Shin could have been created from Mashadar or vice versa. What is clear though is that despite this opposition, Mashadar and Machin Shin were at least kindred spirits in what they did to living things…and Machin Shin bonded with Fain well enough. Probably because the combination of the Dark One’s imprint and Mordeth made Fain different from both to the point his nature wouldn’t drive Machin Shin away.
And speaking of Fain: having him following them through the Ways (though we had no way of knowing it was him at this point) was of course another Tolkien shout-out, to Gollum in Moria, and in fact the dark and quiet and oppressiveness of the Ways is a perfect parallel to the Mines, just as Machin Shin makes a nice Balrog stand in (if horrifying in a completely different way) for Moiraine/Gandalf to face off against. (Leigh already noted the broken bridge feeling like that scene in Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring, so the connection is already established.) Interestingly though, it seems Jordan only included this for the creepy horror and the threat, since he didn’t “kill” Moiraine off here (saving that for later). Regardless, the whole Machin Shin sequence, especially following right on the heels of the discovery of the broken Guiding and bridge to Tar Valon and the Trollocs trapped in stone (Bilbo’s trolls?) is still one of the more viscerally disturbing moments in the series, especially early on, and it’s always stayed with me. *shivers*
So it was really nice getting that hilarious exchange between Mat, Rand, Perrin, and Egwene…particularly since this is the last time for a good long time to come that anything fun and lighthearted happens…in this book, or the whole series, let alone with all of them together for it. :(
Foreshadowing of the ToM attack through the Waygate: I don’t think Jordan knew this early on exactly what would happen to Caemlyn, but considering all the Arthuriana he introduced in this book, and Caemlyn’s similarity to Camlaan, I feel confident in saying Jordan knew all along the city would fall in some way. So I bet this really was intended as subtle foreshadowing, especially when combined with the Trollocs gathering around the city to begin with.
One interesting note: it’s never explained why the Avendesora leaf was gone from the Waygate. Fain was behind them; the Shadowspawn obviously never used it. So…what happened? It couldn’t have just fallen off. Was Ingtar already corrupted, and he removed it somehow? Were Liandrin or Alviarin already in Fal Dara, and one of them removed it? Liandrin does have knowledge of the Ways later, and if the army at Tarwin’s Gap hadn’t been stopped, having the Fal Dara Waygate open and ready for them would have been a very effective plan to start invading the cities of the south undetected. (Which would definitely suggest Alviarin as the one responsible.)
@7 Chrysippus: Now that’s an interesting theory I’ve never heard before. Granted, it just could have been chance that it took until the War of the Hundred Years for the Ways to begin to darken, but in a world where there’s a Pattern woven by the Wheel of Time, and people like Ishy can also actively manipulate things, being given that date does seem suggestive, doesn’t it?
@10 AndrewHB: All we know is that she was given a set of instructions by someone in the Shadow. Mesaana was probably not released yet but even if she was, she was trapped in the Bore when the Ways were made. So I’d guess the instructions came from Ishy. (A philosopher and intellectual like him would surely know Ogier script.) And I assume since the signposts were written in Ogier that it was Ogier who explored the Ways and marked them. :P
@13 Jason Ipswitch: I agree about Machin Shin’s origin. And as for the Ways being a cool post-Breaking thing, I also liked that the male Aes Sedai managed to make something beautiful before they all died out. It’s just too bad the taint eventually took them too.
@14 Ryamano: It was Ishamael. He bragged to Rand at Falme that the girl he cared about, the Dreamer, was going to be taken far across the sea so he’d never see her again. And Suroth and Liandrin spoke of having the same master, not mistress. (Plus Lanfear’s interaction with Egwene didn’t start until TDR, and was limited to them meeting in TAR; at this point she was focused only on Rand.)
@20 mikeinphoenix: Not in the way you mean, but Moiraine said Sindhol (the world of the Finn) was “folded” in unusual ways (explaining the way the halls all kept looping around and leading into each other and the overall weird geometry), and quite clearly the Ways are folded in some way too, to explain how the Islands and ramps can be above each other and how, even apart from time running differently there, it’s possible to cross so much territory without going through the land between, even if it was gone or changed thanks to the Breaking. So perhaps the Ways and Sindhol are dimensions with similar laws of physics. Then again, maybe Machin Shin used to be some sort of fey creature like the Finn?
And as another point to consider: is the Skimming place at all related to the Ways too? If so, it’s clearly disconnected enough to not have Machin Shin, but the way the endless dark void is described is certainly telling. Perhaps the male Aes Sedai tapped into the Skimming place, or mirrored it somehow, to create the Ways? A separate place, but with similar properties that could let you similarly travel great distances, only not requiring a Traveling gateway?
@23 birgit: Could have. We never see Machin Shin do anything to those it attacks which suggests turning them to stone/trapping them in bubbles, but then we never actually see it successfully attack someone…
Well as you say, Loial gets to see Emond’s Field in book four, and while we never get to see Stedding Shangtai ourselves let alone with Rand, he does visit Stedding Tsofu in book two. They just never get to go together. I hope they do, after the series ends.
While it’s true Trollocs were created in the Age of Legends, they were made from animals too, and bred away from humanity by Aginor, so would naturally develop their own language assuming they had the intelligence for it. (Which they did, barely.) Also once the Bore was sealed and they were left to their own devices, their language would have developed even more, and during the same time the Old Tongue was dying out.
Reaching through the thin film of taint to the Power is different, I imagine, than making weaves from a separate Power and putting them and their effects in a realm completely surrounding them with taint.
@29 Sian: Nice explanation of the difference between them.
Well Mat barely gets to be with Perrin much after this–he goes back to Tar Valon to be Healed in book three, and they’re only together in the Stone a short while in book four before Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers and Mat heads off to the Waste. The only time they were together was in book two, and I think Mat does believe he’s like Hurin at that point. As for Rand…I think he suspected (he mentions here realizing what Perrin’s eyes remind him of) but never confronted Perrin about it because so much was going on (heading to the Eye) and then immediately after this he finds out he can channel and suddenly he has a lot more to worry about than Perrin and wolves. And then again, of course, he also gets separated from Perrin for quite some time.
@31 Bayoubilly: Um…the short answer is yes. As far as I know it’s never been debated that they weren’t the same exact place, the descriptions clearly include identical language as you point out. The encyclopedia also notes that Rand finding them familiar is from his earlier dream with Ba’alzamon. The question as to where it was they were actually meeting would seem to be clear too, I think: aside from the fact we’re told almost every one (if not all) of the dreams Rand had in TEotW took place in dreamshards, I find it very hard to believe even crazy Ishy would risk having Rand get caught and driven mad by Machin Shin before he had joined the Shadow, which is what could have happened if he somehow pulled him into the real Ways. But if he created a dreamshard version, he could alter that however he saw fit–which would not only include keeping Machin Shin out, but also changing the Ways to (I am guessing from the chapter 24 description) how they originally looked before they darkened. What’s interesting is there’s still a murk in that description, which suggests Ishy is showing Rand how the Ways looked as they were in the process of darkening, rather than either fully pristine or fully corrupt. Nicely symbolic of what he was trying to do, and Rand’s whole dilemma through the series of being caught between sane and mad, savior and destroyer.
Just a couple of questions for the record, since I’m so late to this party…
Is Moraine’s staff mentioned again in tEotW? It’s not mentioned in any of the subsequent books, so maybe she ditched it after emerging from the Ways. It was blackened and charred after she fought her way out, perhaps not worth carrying around any longer. Suppose we’ll find out.
And was that balefire she used in the Ways, or just an angreal-enhanced weave of fire? The description sounds a bit like taint-contaminated balefire, and Rand compares it to the pure white flame in Emonds Field and Shadar Logoth. IIRC, one of both of those “flames” were indeed balefire.
On the subject of Moiraine’s many powers: what she does to the lock of the cellar rather makes me think she had some ability with Earth, which is rather nice to see in another main character besides Egwene (and to lesser extents, Nynaeve and Elayne).
When she creates fire and earthquakes against the many Trollocs earlier she says that she isn’t that strong with Earth, but the earthquake still was something impressive, even with an angreal. Of course she is a strong channeler and strength isn’t the same as skill.
Is Moraine’s staff mentioned again in tEotW?
She drops it after leaving the Ways and leaves it there.
And was that balefire she used in the Ways, or just an angreal-enhanced weave of fire?
She probably learns balefire when she visits Adeleas and Vandene later. If that is true, she can’t have used it here. It sounds more like cutting with normal Fire, not making the stone vanish with balefire.
birgit @35
It does seem that Moraine left her charred staff at the waygate. I would posit this solves the mystery of why it never appears again (but I want to get to the end of this tEotW re-read to be certain).
Re: Moraine using balefire here
I was thinking she already knew the weave because she uses it later in this book to kill Aginor. Checked my notes…and that is not correct. She does use it to kill Be’lal, but that doesn’t happen until TDR, so I expect you are correct.
There should be a problem with Moiraine having to channel without her staff and the second learned weave limitation discussed (endlessly) in later books in the series but…retcons.
@36:
She also specifically references having learned things while away from Perrin that make her more dangerous than she was before… and then she proceeds to use Balefire on the Darkhounds Sammael sent after them in TDR. Granted, that’s not the most direct evidence, but it is suggestive.
@34 Ways: If it were balefire, even tainted, it would simply have blasted the Waygate and made it vanish. As resistant to destruction as Waygates are, nothing can withstand balefire except cuendillar, and the gates certainly aren’t that.
@35 birgit: True, but I did say “some” ability, not large amounts. But your point suggests that what she did know were weaves that Aes Sedai get taught in general, if they have any ability with Earth at all.
@37 RobM: That only applies to weaves she learned with the staff. There are plenty of things she does in this book without the staff, and things she does in later books that she never did with it, so she clearly learned weaves in multiple manners.
@37 & @39
The White Tower would never teach a channeler weaves that are dependant on carrying around a silly ornate staff. Early on she clearly stated that the staff is only a focus for her power, which to me means that having it may enhance certain applications of certain weaves, but the lack of it would not hinder her power or ability to create those same weaves in a different context.
Side note: No wonder Thom wants to get in her shawl, she has a flare for dramatic showomanship.
@40 kinosupremo: No one was suggesting the Tower did that. Others were pointing out the second learned weave limitation, which would presumably apply to any weaves she learned with the staff–not that they could only be learned with it or that the Tower would deliberately teach her weaves for it, but if she just happened to learn some with it. My point in response to this was to observe that there were clearly plenty of weaves she used later that she had never used with the staff, and that most of what she does with the staff she doesn’t do later, so if there were weaves she learned with it that would be affected by the second learned weave limitation, they didn’t affect her ability to be powerful and effective later. But as you rightly point out, it’s also very possible every weave she learned was without the staff, and it’s just that she obtained it some time during the 20 years between NS and TEotW–so all it ever did was enhance what she already knew, and so no effectiveness was lost and she didn’t have to worry about learning weaves a second time.
Also, LOL about Thom!