To Reread, or not to Reread, is that the question? Well, then: DUH.
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapters 46 and 47 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!
JordanCon 7, The Con of the Red Hand is ALMOST HERE ZOMG.
Ergo, scheduling note: There will be no Redux Reread post on Tuesday April 21st. But check this space for a report on what I am positive will be my absolutely fabulous time there! Yay!
Onward!
Chapter 46: Fal Dara
Redux Commentary
To my shame, I cannot quite remember which Borderland city falls when the Last Battle officially (more or less) begins; I think it is Fal Dara, but I’m not sure.
Actually, a lot of the events of AMOL, aside from the really huge ones of course, are kind of jumbled up for me by now. Which makes sense, really, considering I’ve only read AMOL (and TOM and TGS) twice-ish, as opposed to the *cough, mumble* times I’ve read most of the other books in the series (not to mention the years I spent yelling at people about them on the Internet).
As a side note, there is an appalling dearth of decent AMOL chapter summaries on the Internet as of yet, and I am trying my level best not to sigh mournfully in Bob and Gary’s direction, whose AMOL section is still under construction. (This is absolutely not a dig, mind you; no one knows better than me how long stuff like that takes to put together, especially when you’re doing it for free in your spare time. But man would I love to have that on hand right now.)
Anyway, I think it would be good if it was Fal Dara that fell, narratively speaking, simply because it is the first Borderlander city we see in the series. Coming full circle and alla that.
Rand noticed trees split open as if struck by lightning.
“The cold,” Lan answered when he asked. “Sometimes the winter is so cold here the sap freezes, and trees burst. There are nights when you can hear them cracking like fireworks, and the air is so sharp you think that might shatter, too. There are more than usual, this winter past.”
Man, I thought I got used to cold when I lived in New York, but there’s “cold,” and then there’s “OMG why would you live here what is wrong with you.”
Of course, there are a lot more reasons I would ask that of a Borderlander than the temperature, but it’s a good start.
Seriously, you have to wonder a little about people who voluntarily live next door to Hell. Literally. And spend their lives telling Hell’s denizens to get off their lawn. Also literally. Their frozen, desolate, zero tourist-industry-economy lawn.
Borderlanders, man. *shakes head*
But okay, the actual answer to that question (in all aspects) is the same as the answer to the one asking about the kind of people who explore Antarctica or join the Marines or are modern-day farmers: the extreme difficulty level, not to mention the risk, is part of the appeal. It’s a pride thing, also an accomplishment thing, to be able to do/achieve/maintain what most people either can’t or won’t (along with, perhaps, a soupçon of masochism, ahem). It’s a mindset that I can intellectually understand, but as someone who falls firmly in the “won’t” category (also, honestly, mostly in the “can’t” camp as well), that doesn’t stop me from occasionally side-eyeing it with a wee bit of skepticism.
“I only danced with Aram, Rand,” [Egwene] said softly, not looking at him. “You wouldn’t hold it against me, dancing with somebody I will never see again, would you?”
And so she does not ever see him again, at least unless I seriously forgot something. Which is, as usual, perfectly possible.
“Ingtar seems to believe you will defeat this threat as you have defeated many others across the years.”
“Aes Sedai,” Agelmar said wryly, “if Ingtar had to ride alone to Tarwin’s Gap, he would ride the whole way proclaiming that the Trollocs would be turned back once more. He has almost pride enough to believe he could do it alone.”
I wonder if Jordan knew from the moment he introduced him that Ingtar would turn out to be a Darkfriend. I mean, I assume so, but man is he good at camouflaging it, then.
“A small thing!” Agelmar’s chair scraped across the floor as he stood. “Peace! The tower watch is so negligent a man can reach the walls unseen, and you call it a small thing?”
“He is a madman, Lord.” Awe touched Ingtar’s voice. “The Light shields madmen. Perhaps the Light cloaked the tower watch’s eyes and allowed him to reach the walls. Surely one poor madman can do no harm.”
That said, in retrospect this is a rather suspiciously convenient bit of handwavery.
Speaking of which, it’s a damn good thing Agelmar wasn’t a Darkfriend, considering how Moiraine and Lan just flat out tell him what their mission in the Blight is about. But I suppose you have to trust people sometime. Maybe.
As to Fain, in light of what he eventually becomes, it’s sort of astonishing that at this point he can just be in a room with the Superboys (and Rand in particular, of course) and not have horrible things happen. He’s sort of like a deadly virus that at this early juncture just hasn’t quite mutated to become airborne yet. Eek.
“Ninte calichniye no domashita, Agelmar Dai Shan,” Moiraine replied formally, but with a note in her voice that said they were old friends. “Your welcome warms me, Lord Agelmar.”
“Kodome calichniye ga ni Aes Sedai hei. Here is always a welcome for Aes Sedai.” He turned to Loial. “You are far from the stedding, Ogier, but you honor Fal Dara. Always glory to the Builders. Kiserai ti Wansho hei.”
Long ago, when asked about how he invented the Old Tongue, Jordan said: “The words come partly from Gaelic, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese. The grammar and syntax I believe I invented myself, although it’s possible that another language uses the same. Of course, just as with English, I have deliberately put in some very illogical inconsistencies.”
I can’t speak to the grammar and syntax assertion, but the Asian influence on the Old Tongue has always been very pronounced to my eyes, to the point where I originally thought that Asia was the sole region of influence on the language. Though on reflection, I suppose “calichniye” has a certain Russian ring to it. And it’s certainly true that I wouldn’t know Gaelic (or Arabic, mostly) if it walked up and kicked me in the shin, so there’s that.
Chapter 47: More Tales of the Wheel
Redux Commentary
I do like that ravens icon. Something about the sharp geometry of the opposing curves of the birds is very appealing.
I was a little sarcastic about Lan’s backstory in the original commentary, and while I wasn’t wrong about the prevalence of uncrowned kings in stories like these, that’s also sort of the point. Is a cliché still a cliché if you think it’s awesome anyway?
(I’m a poet and I don’t know it!)
Nynaeve had listened just as wide-eyed as Egwene, but now she was staring into her cup again, her face pale. Egwene put a hand on her arm and gave her a sympathetic look.
A look meant, no doubt, to convey “sorry your crush is a walking classical tragedy”, heh. I guess it’s not every day you find out the guy you like is (a) freakin’ royalty and (b) functionally suicidal. It’s gotta be a bummer.
Also from the original commentary, I guess we can go ahead and confirm that everyone currently in the room either already does or eventually will totally outrank Agelmar. Including Moiraine, who (in retrospect) wins by virtue of being Aes Sedai on top of being a king’s niece. One or the other may have been arguable (especially since I don’t know that we ever find out how closely Agelmar is related to the king), but the two together, I think, pretty much settles it. Agelmar loses!
Not that he would actually care, of course, but I’m just amusing myself here.
“When Fain returned to Lugard, Ba’alzamon came to him in a dream. Fain abased himself and performed rites that would strike you deaf to hear the half of them, binding himself even more tightly to the Dark One. What is done in dreams can be more dangerous than what is done awake.”
I probably wasn’t the only one who immediately began trying to think of what “rites” could entail that would be so bad as all that. It’s not a train of thought I recommend to those who don’t want to seriously squick themselves.
Anyway, Fain. Fain Fain Fain. Sigh. I’m pretty sure I’ve been annoyed by him on principle for nearly the entire time I’ve been reading this series – but not all. I think I was remiss in the original commentary by not acknowledging that at this point I was both horrified and fascinated by his story, and wanted to know more. It was only later that I started to grow weary of him. But, my later weariness of him was sufficiently extreme that it retroactively poisoned any early interest I may have had in his character, so I guess it’s understandable. It’s always nice when I can forgive Past Me for things!
“The old blood,” Moiraine said, “split out like a river breaking into a thousand times a thousand streams, but sometimes streams join together to make a river again. The old blood of Manetheren is strong and pure in almost all these young men. Can you doubt the strength of Manetheren’s blood, Lord Agelmar?”
Rand glanced sideways at the Aes Sedai. Almost all.
Genetic determinism, yay!
Okay, sarcasm very definitely intended there, but again, the importance of “blood” in These Kinds of Stories is a time-honored tradition that, problematic implications notwithstanding, lend a weight to the predestination/prophecy/symbolic import of it all that I even still find compelling, if guiltily so.
And thus the infodumpery portion of our TEOTW story is concluded! Sort of! Next week things begin to get temporarily endgame-y, though, so hooray! See you then!
Leigh your memory is good
It is burned during the Last Battle to prevent the Trolloc army from finding anything useful there (AMoL, Ch. 16)
Thanx
Fain’s denouement was something that Sanderson obviously ended up cutting short for time, but Oh My God was it disappointing what a red herring of an enemy he ended up being. For somebody who was built up for literally the entire series as this crazy wild-card bad guy, in the end he… showed up and killed some trollocs and Aiel and then was unceremoniously killed by Mat with no drama. Like, seriously, biggest letdown disappointment of the series.
I mean, Slayer had about fifty times the dramatic tension introduced into his demise, and Slayer was always WA Y less important to the dramatic arc of the series than Fain. Such an unbelievable let down.
Pretty much all the Borderland cities are taken, burned or evacuated in AMOL, with the possible exception of the Saldean capital (?). Elayne actually orders some of them razed and evacuated as over-all commander of the Light’s Forces in the Last Battle.
As for Igtar, he is a little different from your run-of-the-mill darkfriend in mindset. It is his fatalistic outlook that lead him to join up in the first place, as he wanted to preserve a bit of what could be preserved. This is what, IMHO, makes him so tragic, and also seems to make him seem so unflappable to the outward eye and ear.
The resolution of Fain’s story arc is one of the big reasons I say that while Brandon did an absolutely excellent job of completing a monumentally difficult task, the story we got is not how it actually happened. Sanderson’s version is akin to an eye-witness account of the events of the Last Battle, which as any lawyer knows, is inherently flawed. Unfortunately, the video of the actual events was erased and Brandon’s account is all we’re left with.
Yeah, I have to agree that Fain didn’t have as much of a role as would have been satisfying in a writerly sort of way (although perhaps it is more realistic).
The ‘blood’ thing is one of my few complaints about Lord of The Rings, actually. Despite reading several personal writings of Tolkien’s that show he is emphatically not racist (at least not overtly)…the whole Numenorean blood purity sticks in my craw a bit. Although there is, I guess, an actual ‘genetic’ reason for that, since their ancestors actually did include High Elves/Maiar…
@5:
Yeah, if keeping the bloodline pure meant my kids got to live for 300 years instead of 67… I think I’m keeping the bloodlines pure.
Leigh and jaybird @1. I would disagree that Fal Dara is the Borderland City’s whose fall signals the “official” start of the Last Battle. IMO, that would be Chachin, the capital of Kandor, as well as the rest of Kandor. For purposes of timing, I would guess that Kandor fell the same night as Caemlyn.
Maradon fell before the start of the Last Battle (in ToM). By himself, Rand destroyed the Shadow host.
Did Agelmar survive the Last Battle? Bryne and Bashere die during the Last Battle and the Aes Sedai convince Ituralde to take the Arad Doman’s throne. I do not recall seeing any references to Agelmar after Lan convinces Agelmar not to kill himself.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewB
joeyesq @@.-@. Very insightful comment about Sanderson’s 3 WoT books.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewB
Re: Old Tongue influences, as a lifetime speaker of Irish Gaelic, with only a smattering of Japanese, for me the Old Tongue has always seemed much more like the latter. Though this may be due to the phonetic system of Japanese being very easy to master for an English speaker, whereas the Gaelic phonetic system is radically different. Reading the OT phonetically in English, the words look and sound very Japanese (to me!). However, my pronunciation could be way off, so it would be interesting to find out whether the OT would sound much closer to Gaelic were I to hear it spoken aloud correctly.
Really enjoying the Re-re-read! Thanks Leigh!
There once was a peddler named Fain
Who was more than a little insane
At a touch from his dagger
You’d gasp and you’d stagger
And die in unspeakable pain
I know he doesn’t have the dagger yet, but he this is when we’re properly introduced to him.
When he was among the Trollocs, they “talked so he could understand them, arguing about the best way to cook him.” According to Theoryland, Sanderson has said that most Trollocs lack the intelligence to speak the human tongue (i.e. learn multiple languages). That bunch apparently had some of the brighter ones.
Forgot to say it last week in the Ways chapters, but I too have particularly remembered the bit about Machin Shin braiding skin. Because how does an amorphous windy thing do a task which requires fingers??
To the Blight to the Blight to the BlightBlightBlight! *bounces happily*
I’m still holding out hope that the Encyclopaedia WOT will eventually be completed. I’ll never admit to re-reading the series at that site while at work (several times over the years).
@10: Fingers of Wind.
I always assumed it was Fain’s madness that gave him the kinship with the Black Wind, and his hatred of the Dark One that gave him his kinship with Mashadar, allowing him to retain a part of himself and merge with Mordeth, rather than be subsumed by him…
Not having Fain be intrical to the end sequence with Rand and the Dark One, was a very large missed opportunity, in my opinion. If not, then he needed to be dealt with prior to, or during, the cleansing of the Taint, when Shadar Logoth was destroyed. Letting him hang around until the end, basically having played no real direct role since the second book in regards to Rand, was a mistake. I guess we can just refer to Fain as Checkov’s Misfire.
I used to use encyclopaedia WoT for my re-reads too. It makes me sad that it has fallen into ‘disrepair’ (also sad that the FAQ didn’t really get updated as the new books came out) – totally understandable, but still sad.
Looking back on my first read through, which occurred a long time ago, this scene describing Lan’s backstory and upbringing was amazing. I can remember my 4th grade self saying, “wait… Lan’s a what!?!?!!?” Super baddassery incarnate.
@12: What? I thought that was Machin Shin gibbering in everyone’s ears, not Fain.
@12 Checkov’s misfire. I like that.
I wish Fain had died in the Path of Daggers. That one had such a wishy-washy climax. Or maybe Fain could have consumed Slayer to make one character.
The other misfire I saw was the stolen artifacts from GH. I wanted the DFs to pull out the chance-twister to use on Mat during the Last Battle. Pity.
@16 vegetathalas:
I think Winter’s Heart would have been a great moment for Fain to die, in Far Madding.
The thing that stood out to me most on this reread was Ingtar’s ‘The Light shields madmen’ quote. Really, Ingtar?! I think this world is one world where you could honestly say the Light has totally abandoned madmen. Not only are they subjected to the Dark One’s taint and forced to do horrific things against their will but you sure as hell see them coming when they do it! Still I guess he means the ‘ordinary’ madmen as opposed to channeling men, but it still seems a silly thing to say.
Re Fain I totally agree with you Leigh. I was really interested/horrified by him in the earlier books but then he just really went nowhere and it seems like such a huge letdown.
Was loial in. Room because if so then algemar outranks him
I assume BS did what he was supposed to with Fain, and which was basically, subvert the obvious Gollum-ness of his character. But I think such a subversion only works/is satisfying if he actually had played some important role in the climax with Rand, but wasn’t allowed the Gollum role of accidental ally (like, I don’t know, maybe Moridin had just swatted him dead all “thanks for playing but this is the grown up dining table”), or instead, made him an actual third front in the war as it sort of seemed to be going. But neither happened. So in that respect I agree that yeah ,I think I would’ve liked it better if he’d been killed at the Cleansing, which was pretty much the last time “Independent Evil” was important.
Or, conversely , not killed him at all. If Fain hadn’t leveled up so much, but was left wandering the lands in the aftermath, as a sort of a tease that the next Age wasn’t going to be without supernatural evil, even with the DO sealed back in. I was always kinda partial to that idea that Fain wasn’t meant to be a third front in the Last Battle, but that he would respresent the threat to come after the Battle. Anyway, as it stands, he’s just kind of the Wizard – lots of smoke and mirrors, but nothing behind it.
Maybe Ogiers automatically outrank all humans for being so much older and wiser and more mysterious?
Like everyone, I felt Fain’s story really fizzled out despite its great potential. The comparison made somewhere above with Slayer is a good one, I think – we had loads and loads of Perrin v Slayer consistently through the books (maybe slightly too much at the end, in my view, when it seemed they just spent their whole time running around in ever-crazier dream-circles…) and their rivalry was well-developed, including Perrin’s coming to be a match for him. But if Fain v Mat was supposed to mirror Perrin v Slayer, then it was really underdeveloped, with Fain being too much off screen and Mat rarely thinking dagger-thoughts. And Fain was always so focused on Rand that being killed so suddenly by Mat made him seem, to me, more like a silly villain who couldn’t get close to his goals. But I’d like to look more closely at just the Fain thread of the story and see if my view changes – I tend to think there’s so many threads and arcs in WoT that, when just thinking of the whole, it’s really easy for things to get lost.
(Edit: Ellisande @37 – I really like all those ideas. And at least his never-quite-did-anything-ness would have had more of a point if continued to be a wandering badness post-Last Battle.)
I like Lan’s story, but my first thoughts on reading it was a bit of disappointment that his past had been so carefully hinted at throughout the book and I was expected the mystery to unfold more slowly but then it’s just told to us, all outright in one chunk – and I found it really weird that Agelmar would think it was okay to tell these two random girls he’s just met a detailed story that a man he views as at least a lord, if not a king, has clearly wanted to keep secret.
But I did like Nynaeve’s reaction, because I liked that she didn’t just stay wide-eyed and go all ‘ooh and he’s a king too, how marvellous!’, but immediately saw all the horrible implications and really felt for him. Which seems an obvious reaction for her now, but I was still really unsure of all the characters at this point.
@12: I wouldn’t say ‘nothing’. Fain DID manage to get within paranoia-plague range of both Elaida AND Pedron Niall. While I don’t think it really affected Niall much (as a Whitecloak even if he isn’t as ‘frothing in the mouth and brain’ obsessed as Byar, ) save for his sending soldiers to Duopotamia, it’s obvious to me he’s a good reason of why Elaida later went batshit insane on her own people (not that there wasn’t fertile ground there to start with). One can also argue that it was his influence that made the Tower Aes Sedai so insular with each other. It was never like they all started snitching on each other, there was just a general ramping up paranoia. My theory is Alviarin got a mild case Fain cooties during their conversation, and she ended up a carrier to te rest of the tower.
Fain was more in therole of Chekhov himself than a Chekhov [Insert Term]. Chekhov’s Instigator? His significance was he set things up to go from bad to worse. Think Far Madding (or better yet, don’t). What could have been a simple ‘kill the rogue Asha’man and get out safely that same day’ mission snowballed into Rand getting his various psychotic ticks reinforced just by having Fain show up.
Random thought: Slayer explicitly spells out that having ‘two souls’ is what enables a connection to TAR, giving him his evil dream powers. Aren’t we all glad that ole ‘two souls’ Fain here NEVER got t play around in TAR? Because really, that would have been Freddy Kreuger-levels of nightmare.
Oh, right. I keep forgetting that Fain is supposed to be analogous to Gollum. On account of him not being aquatic, or having any of Gollum’s other charms.
re: .. almost all Fain talk, I guess? but especially @21 – I thought Mat killing Fain+co sort of closed the circle – since he was the one who went crazy/almost died due to the dagger all the way back in the beginning. when you have a walking representation of that paranoia, (even if he’s added Shaisam’s spun-sugar evil to the mix, and man was that level of annoyingness beyond what I ever thought possible – which was amazing in its own way) – seeing him fake the dead and then deal the death blow was way, way more satisfying for me than it would have been to see Rand somehow be the one responsible for yet another improbable thing in the midst of the biggest battle ever.
Shienaran architecture sounds like Black Forest houses.
Lan’s father was elected as king, but Lan seems to be the heir by blood. How does choosing Malkieri kings work?
How does the flickering Ishy apparition work? The best I could think of is that he is in TAR and keeps opening and closing gateways, like looking through Deathgates from TAR to the real world. But why would he do that? If he has to talk from TAR because he is still partially bound, why can’t he just open a more permanent gateway?
“Almost all” is a strange way to say two out of three.
@25 – I’d bet that the previous king died without an heir;then the noble families with a claim got together and chose a king from their ranks, so as not to have a leaderless Borderland country on the edge of the Blight. And about Ishy’s apparition; it makes sense to me that if he’s partially bound to The Bore he may not be able to pull enough power to free himself completely or make a permanent gateway out at this point. As the seals weaken, since he is closer to the sealed “surface” of the Bore than most of the rest of the Forsaken, he gets an earlier opportunity to free himself.
I always thought that Fain became an issue because Mat changed so much.
Go back to book 1-3 and I can totally see Fain being the Evil Mat. They’re both shifty rogues that are good with manipulating people and want gold.
If I stop reading at the end of Dragon Reborn and then skip to Mat and Fain in aMoL then the characterization of Mat there makes perfect sense.
However, starting in Shadow Rising, Mat’s character arc takes a hard right turn rockets somewhere completely different then where he was originally going. It sort of leaves Fain dangling so he sort of becomes Rands Nemesis and when Mat and Fain meet in aMoL it feels like a regression for Mat.
AG@15 RE: @12:
Huh?
@27:
The only problem I have with this theory is that it was ALWAYS Rand that Fain was obsessed with. If Fain is/was a Gollum analog, then RAND is the precious. He barely cares about the other two. That is made very clear from the first book on.
@20:
Yes. The leveling up. Fain became THREE LOTR analouges. He started out as Gollum, then after adding the Mashadar element to his character, became both Wormtounge and Saruman as well. Right down to the razing of the Shire.
@22:
As I said, no DIRECT role. His role as secondary advisor to non-evil antagonists is by no means direct.
@25 RE: “Almost all”
But its NOT a strange way to say 4 out of 5. She is including Egwene and Nynaeve, I believe.
Lisamarie@13: Yes; it annoys me that the answer to ‘Is Aviendha pregnant?’ is still ‘no’ when now, of course, she is. (Well, not now, since her life is thousands of years in the past/future, but you know what I mean.)
@28: Whoops. You started with a concise reply to me (“Fingers of Wind”), and I thought your subsequent talk about Fain and Machin Shin was also part of the reply. My bad.
@31:
Ah! No worries. Lord knows I’ve done that at times. It just confused me, I wondered if perhaps you were responding to someone else.
My larger point was directed at the whole Mashadar/Machin Sin conversation in general, which was probably last week’s post. Some in the past have used Fain’s… partnership… with the Black Wind as evidence that Mashadar and Machin Sin are related. But I always just thought that Fain was nutso already, and the Black Wind recognized a kinship with him because of it.
caien@9 It’s not my first language, but my 10 or so years of Irish in school agrees on a lack of recognition of any Irish in the Old Tongue, which always seems to be a mash of Japanese with Spanish and Russian to me. Maybe Jordan meant Scots Gaelic, rather than Irish? I don’t know if there are any Scots on here who can comment on the resemblance?
(for reference, Irish looks like this, with far more accents and fewer apostrophes than the Old Tongue:)
Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmad?
Tá deireadh na gcoillte ar lár.
Níl trácht ar Chill Chais ná a teaghlach,
Is ní bainfear a cling go bráth.)
Hi guys! I’ve been quietly enjoying your conversation, but now I feel I need to add my two cent to the Old Thongue discussion: it does not look anything like Russian to me, and I should know since it’s my first language :)
But its NOT a strange way to say 4 out of 5. She is including Egwene and Nynaeve, I believe.
That doesn’t sound like it includes the women.
Leigh-
I emailed Bob around this time last year to ask if the AMOL summaries would ever be finished. Didn’t get a reply :-(
Gary mentioned lots of big plans to revise the site at JCon in 2013. I’ll follow up with him on status and post a comment here.
I have to feel bad for Fain, but that’s what you get for choosing the wrong side and bargaining with the DO.
@24: But Mat had really already got over his dagger issues, or so it seemed, so it didn’t feel to me like a circle that needed closing. Whereas Fain went on and on about Rand but little came of it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Rand should have had a showdown with Fain, I think that the connection between Mat and Fain could have been emphasised more so that it didn’t feel like Fain was just inept.
@27: I agree, great point. It’s kind of what I meant with Mat not thinking dagger-thoughts – he’s no longer shadowy enough to be fitting for Fain. But I also agree @29, that Fain was focused on Rand from the beginning – but he was also focused on the dagger, which I think means he works as a match for Mat only if Mat remains focused on the dagger, which he doesn’t.
I often found it odd how vehement Fain was in his POVs about Rand, when the dagger stuff would have made a Mat-focus more fitting, plus one of the worst things he ever does is murdering Perrin’s whole family. So on the one hand, that makes him extra-scary because he does that as a kind of casual ‘don’t like that guy either’ action. But on the other hand, I don’t think he does anything equally dreadful to Rand, which makes him, again, seem ineffective.
Hear ye, hear ye (Leigh).
PSA follows…
Gary responded to my PM asking if the AMOL section of Encyclopaedia-WOT would ever be completed:
Woohoo!!!
@35:
Fair enough.
@37:
The whole
Razing of the Shiredestroying the Two Rivers was meant to draw Rand away from his stronghold and into the Two Rivers. Fain didn’t think Rand would send a “lackey”, but that he would come himself. Everything Fain did in the Two Rivers (at least anything he did with premeditation rather than spur-of-the-moment cruelty) was with this intention in mind.I do believe he did think during the sequence that hurting and killing Perrin would also hurt Rand, so even that could be attributed to his obsession with Rand.
@25 It’s not very clear how succession occurs normally, but it seemed to have been passed between a set of lords who voted by ‘casting rods’. Lan, being Lan, would have been crowned king instantaneously by the surviving lords, as New Spring explains, though around the time of New Spring they had not voted.
@25 It’s not very clear how succession occurs normally, but it seemed to have been passed between a set of lords who voted by ‘casting rods’. Lan, being Lan, would have been crowned king instantaneously by the surviving lords, as New Spring explains, though around the time of New Spring they had not voted.
Okay so I started listening to a audio book for the very first time and I chose The Eye of the World as my first. I noticed something in chapter 7 in the audio book but chapter 13 or 14 in book, that I hadn’t before and was wondering if anyone has talked about it before. Having read the book a 13 times and having followed the re-read the majority through, I can’t remember whether it was mentioned or theorized whether or not Ishamael bonded Rand in the room with the fire placed just before releasing him from his… Dream.
Any comments?
Specifically the section wherein Ishamael pointed at Rand inducing him into a state of pain very similar to another time.
EDIT- I believe audio book chapters have multiple chapters and so the passage in question is in chapter 13 towards the end. But in the audiobook it’s located toward the end of chapter 7.
Z
ZEXXES: If you mean bonded as a Warder is bonded, I don’t believe the Forsaken knew about bonding, calling it something that had been discovered after the Age of Legends ended. And given that the current (female) AS used saidar for bonding their warders, I don’t believe Ishy could have learned it from them.
I don’t know if you’re listening to the audiobook on CD or on an MP3 player, but I know what you mean about the different chapters. I have a large collection of audiobooks and most break the book chapters into separate files but for the longer ones (like all WOT books!) they put more than one chapter into one file for ease of downloading. Since I sometines read the Kindle edition of an audiobook while I’m listening, you may find some minor errors in wording, probably due to the narrators using an earlier version of the printed text. Although, I do remember (vaguely) an instance of swapping names, saying Elayne instead of Egwene or vice versa. But these errors are minor and I have always found that, for me, the audiobook can be more immersive than reading either the print or Kindle edition.
The actual start of the Last Battle (if you don’t count the attack on Caemlyn) is when Heeth Tower is attacked in the prologue of ToM, and then later when Chachin falls–we never see it on-screen, but Queen Ethenielle mentions it when they talk at Merrilor of Kandor having fallen. However, Fal Dara *is* destroyed (along with Fal Moran and all the other Shienaran cities) when they decide they have to abandon the cities to leave the Shadowspawn nowhere to hide and turn into fortresses like they did during the Trolloc Wars. So though we don’t see it, yes Fal Dara does fall, and it is treated with the proper gravity by Elayne and Agelmar when it happens.
I too am looking forward to seeing the chapter summaries on the encyclopedia, as I am most interested in all the references and connections made which will appear in the footnotes. It will be awesome seeing it all tied together, particularly since I’m sure there are associations, revelations, and explanations I missed or never thought of.
Nope, Egwene never sees Aram again–by the time he and Perrin make it to Caemlyn (and then Cairhien) to meet Rand in LoC, she’s already gone to Salidar. I also am startled and pleased that when Rand tries to get the girls (and Loial) to stay behind, Nynaeve not only she understands what he was trying to do and why, she shows sympathy to him for it rather than resentment.
Not sure if Jordan knew from the start that Ingtar would be a Darkfriend, but even if he did, that wouldn’t necessarily mean Ingtar was being dissembling here. The things he says in TGH, especially when he makes his confession, seem to suggest he only came to his ‘logical’ realization about the Shadow recently, which means (especially if it was indeed Alviarin who corrupted him) it hasn’t happened at this point, may not have done so until right before he lets the Fade in to free Fain. Then again, it’s clear he’s been worried about Shienar falling to the same fate as Malkier, Caralain, and Hardan for some time now, and his overconfidence here is clearly forced…perhaps he fell before this, and it’s only the victory at Tarwin’s Gap (and appearance of the Horn) that starts making him think he should come back to the Light. If so, it’s odd he still lets the Fade in, and only after the Horn is stolen does he fixate on it for his salvation.
Either way though, I doubt Ingtar knew who and what Fain was at this point (unless Fain was able to flash him a Shadow signal), so it’s likely just one of those Pattern-woven ironies Jordan so loved. Even if Ingtar did know, he certainly couldn’t have known how much trouble Fain would be!
As to Agelmar, I’d imagine Moiraine and Lan had plenty of experiences from the past to prove his Lightside allegiance to them. Which of course makes what Graendal does to him during the Last Battle even more ironic. I do like the bit with him, Lan, and the poetry…it really speaks to what is at the heart of the Borderlanders beyond just bravery and honor (and it certainly fits the Japanese samurai culture Jordan gave them). And it shows what we saw with them in AMoL was a nice bit of character continuity.
It really is shocking, seeing Fain in the same room with the boys, but then at this point he isn’t fully integrated with Mordeth, let alone in possession of all the power he has later, so it makes sense. Still…knowing what we do of the dagger at this point, it is rather frightening them being so close to him. I always forget about this scene, when things like the scene with him in his cell in the next book tend to stand out more. We had no way of knowing what was going on here, but the clues are all here that he’s already pulling Mordeth’s Evil Chancellor trick, and it’s a testament to either everyone’s willpower or how weak he still is at this point that no one (particularly Agelmar) is swayed by him. Another bullet dodged.
Regarding the Old Tongue, I am hardly an expert, but I have seen enough Gaelic words to say that at least a few words are spelled similarly or at least reminiscent.
While we know one of the most famous examples of the uncrowned king (and a Trope Codifier) is of course Aragorn and Jordan was continuing to do deliberate Tolkien shout-outs here, I am fairly sure there were examples before LOTR. I can’t think of any specific ones offhand, but I’m pretty sure some Greek and Roman examples exist…also in Arthuriana, and I want to say the Chanson de Roland, too. So it’s definitely an old idea that continues to appeal because it’s not broken.
Speaking of old things, I can’t help thinking the story of Breyan, Cowin, and the fall of Malkier is rather similar to the legend of the drowned city of Ys, where the daughter of the king was (in some versions) beguiled by the Devil into opening the gate so that the sea could flood and drown it. In any event, it’s certainly quite the epic tragedy, what with the Lady Macbeth vibes, the king being forced to kill his own treacherous friend, Jain Farstrider’s involvement, and of course the oath sworn over Lan before he’s taken to safety (shades of Aeneas and Troy) and his parents stay behind to face their deaths. (What with the Seven Towers, anyone else getting Krypton echoes here? Lan pretty much is quite the Superman.)
Completely random side note: I wonder what sort of stories Agelmar could have been telling that would make Egwene and Nynaeve laugh like that?
The funny thing, of course, is that while Agelmar has no way of knowing of the future ranks of everyone in the room, at this point he treats them as if they already are that special and powerful, solely based on Moiraine vouching for them, claiming they are ta’veren needed to fight against the Shadow, and saying they are of the blood of Manetheren. (And if we needed any more proof of how awesome Mantheren was, having a Borderlander lord and one of the Great Captains know of it and be in awe of it sure does the trick.)
Ugh…just the thought of what those Shadow rituals might be is… *shudders* Speaking of being horrified, it’s amazing how, even once we find out how long he’s been a Darkfriend and some of the things he’s done, the story of what happened to Fain can still engender pity. He may have sold his soul to the Shadow, but I can bet you he was originally no different than Sheriam, in the sense that he joined for power and status and never thought he’d have to do anything truly evil, at least not anything that would involve Shadowspawn and his life and soul being in danger. Of course, again, we still don’t know at this point about Mordeth, but I remember feeling my heart drop into my feet when I read of Machin Shin both fleeing Fain and finding a kindred spirit in him. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what he becomes later, but right here it was certainly a hint he was much darker than we had any inkling of.
Hmmm…all I can say about the “blood” issue is that it really isn’t about genetics per se, in my view, at least not in the sense of being special just because of what family you happened to be born into. In fantasy stories it’s about destiny, which to me makes the “bloodline of prophecy” be more about, well, magic, something in the soul as much as the body. So in that case, it’s believable someone could be chosen out for a special role, and that something in them makes them suited to it–not in who their father was, but something instrinsic to their inner nature which actually goes beyond blood. That sort of thing I can get behind. Though I admit the idea that one can be strong, brave, and important simply because you’re related to someone else who was, is irresistibly attractive.
@2 neverspeakaword: Agreed. I do like the symmetry of Mat killing him, but the way it was set up and how little Fain got to do really was a letdown.
@3 gadget: Maradon was saved but still pretty ruined. We know Chachin fell, and they destroy Fal Moran themselves. The only one we never hear for sure about is Shol Arbela, but it’d be weird if it somehow survived, especially since we know the Shadowspawn were in Arafel too.
@7 AndrewHB: We never see him again after that scene. But since Harriet and Team Jordan told us that anyone not specifically named to die lived, then we can assume Agelmar survived.
@12 anthonypero: Makes sense to me on how Fain survived/what kinships he had.
@16 vegetathalas: That would have made Fain being the one to have killed Perrin’s family actually have resonance at the Last Battle… And yes, sad those ter’angreal turned out to be red herrings, but what can you do?
@20 Ellisande: Fain as a post-Last Battle threat…very intriguing.
@21 Sian: Point, but I also suspect that, Lan’s feelings aside, Agelmar probably figured these two country girls were unlikely to run around spilling the beans on Lan wherever they went, certainly not in the Borderlands which is where it most mattered to Lan it be kept secret. As to why he told them…I suppose in Nynaeve’s case he might have caught some of her looks and realized she was into Lan, so he thought she deserved to know what she was getting into? Or since he believe they were Aes Sedai in training, whatever Moiraine said, he automatically gave them the trust and respect he did her.
@22 scm: Yeah Fain was definitely a catalyst in a lot of ways. And thank you for that TAR image, now I won’t sleep soundly… Though I will say it seems something special is required for the two-souls-TAR-access…Perrin was born a wolfbrother, then had his ability drawn out by Elyas. Isam and Luc were joined somehow by the Dark One. We don’t have evidence that the way Mordeth tried to absorb Fain led to a similar situation. I don’t know if he even dreamed any more after the merge.
@25 birgit: Chalk it up to Aes Sedai dancing around the truth again. By saying “almost all” she’s technically telling the truth, but without specifically saying two out of three she keeps Agelmar (or anyone else) from prying too closely and finding out which one she left out (and why).
@24 I Agree. That was the proper way for Fain to finally get killed off. Full circle indeed. Fain was too much of a murderous slimeball to deserve going out in a blaze of glory.
@11 OKCBuckeye. Does the screen name mean you’re from Ohio? If so, O – H!
@25 birgit. Thanks for the link to the Black Forest Houses. Very interesting.
@46 Macster. I really enjoy reading your comments; you’re insightful and explain things that make it easier for me to understand passages of the book.
ReReading the original ReRead, as well as the chapter commentaries and all the comments, along with reading the book along with the ReRead posts is the highlight of my week. :)
I find it a bit curious that not just Agelmar, but everyone in Fal Dara, seems to recognise Lan as soon as they see him.
Lan’s story is the ‘lost king’ story which is often (though I think this may be exaggerated) seen as the typical plot of epic fantasy; I like it that here it’s assigned to a side-character. (Rand, though of royal blood, is not a lost king. since the throne he’s connected with is one only women can inherit; his real significance is something quite different.)
I take it that, as Macster says, ‘almost all’ is a deliberate fudge. If she says it with enough confidence she can get away with it; later Agelmar may think ‘wait a moment, almost all of three? What does that mean?’, but by then it’s too late to ask.
I think it’s also worth noting that when Moiraine speaks of ‘pure’ blood, she doesn’t mean ‘pure’ in the sense of ‘unmixed’; her point is that even though there has been mixing the old characteristics can sometimes turn up in a very notable way. So yes, she believes that character is shaped by inheritance, but she isn’t decrying intermarriage or anything like that.
Count me as another not updating wot summaries for aMoL. I might get to it.
On Fain’s death — I’ll point everyone to this comment on reddit:
I had never thought of how Fain has the same parallels to Mat, but it makes sense. Fain, rather than being an embodiment of Fortune, is the embodiment of Misfortune. The man, the darkfriend, the Peddler, has the worst luck in the world. The terrible things that happen to him reflect the good things that happen to Mat, after a fashion. Where Mat has the holes in his memory filled by memories of battles, Fain’s mind is pushed aside by Mordeth/Mashadar, and eventually Machin Shin. Mat is overcome but in control, where Fain is aware but completely dominated by the evil essences within him. His death was destined to be so anticlimactic.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/19pnn2/i_have_a_theory_about_slayer_and_padan_fain_amol/c8q6yb9
Super late here, but personally I think the original plan for Fain as the ‘wild card’ would have mirrored the fate of Shadar Logoth itself. Specifically Saidin being filtered through Shadar Logoth so that Mashadar and the taint annihilate each other, leaving Saidin cleansed and Mashadar/Shadar Logoth destroyed. So my personal theory is that Fain was intended for the same role in the final battle, his presence somehow being what allowed for the Dark One to be safely sealed away, the Mashadar-taint being used to intercept the Dark One’s attempt to taint the One Power when being sealed, leaving it once again destroyed and the Dark One safely tucked away for another few Ages.