Hi there! Welcome back to the Wheel of Time Reread Redux!
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapters 14 and 15 of The Eye of the World, originally reread in this post.
All original posts are listed in The Wheel of Time Reread Index here, and all Redux posts will also be archived there as well. (The Wheel of Time Master Index, as always, is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general on Tor.com.)
The Wheel of Time reread is also now available as an ebook series, except for the portion covering A Memory of Light, which should become available soon.
All Reread Redux posts will contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series, so if you haven’t read, read at your own risk.
And now, the post!
Chapter 14: The Stag and Lion
Redux Commentary
Yep, I did comment here about Lan’s pissiness. Throwing a bucket, man. I’m half-surprised he didn’t stomp his foot while he was at it.
Although, I will grant that he has more than sufficient cause for pissiness at the moment, what with Mat being officially too stupid to live re: shutting his mouth. I commented on the original post that right about here was where I started disliking Mat, but I think, in retrospect, my dislike was less about his character flaws (though he certainly has those) and more about being repelled by the character you sense is the most likely to screw everything up for Our Heroes.
Which he… pretty much is, throughout TEOTW and through a lot of TGH too. Though he is certainly not the only character to screw up in the early bits of the story (Hi, Rand), the Shadar Logoth debacle alone proves me right about Mat. And even when he doesn’t screw up, you were obliged to worry that he might.
So Mat was, objectively, a very effective source of narrative tension in the early books, before the sea change in his character in TDR transformed him from an obstacle to A True Hero™. Still an obnoxious one, granted, at least to most of his friends, but definitely no longer the source of vague dread he had been before.
So, yay for narrative tension, I guess, but in the meantime that still doesn’t make me want to slap him upside the head any less.
“Is it a dream?” the man said. “Does it matter?”
I think this kind of thing gets a specific name in the last three books (“dreamshard”, maybe? Or is that from something else? Brain go foom), and a technical explanation as well—like, this isn’t exactly Tel’aran’rhiod, but a cordoned-off bubble of it created by someone for a specific purpose. Which is nice, I guess, but I have to say I sort of preferred the more handwavey metaphysical nebulousness of it all that the early books indulged in. Possibly because Jordan had not yet at this point worked out all the nitty-gritty details of how exactly Tel’aran’rhiod worked, but either way it played a little better for me here. Because as Flameface points out, it doesn’t actually matter whether it’s a dream or something else. Or, well, it matters, but not in the sense that we need a dictionary definition of it.
I don’t think I noticed before how much of an infodump this dream sequence is, but it is a veritable goldmine of backstory, even despite how much of what Ba’alzamon says here turns out to be bullshit.
Although there is a grain of truth even in the blatant lies. Like:
“Are you expecting glory?” Ba’alzamon said. “Power? Did they tell you the Eye of the World would serve you? What glory or power is there for a puppet? The strings that move you have been centuries weaving. Your father was chosen by the White Tower, like a stallion roped and led to his business. Your mother was no more than a brood mare to their plans. And those plans lead to your death.”
Okay, so on the face of it, it seems ridiculous to suppose that the Tower “bred” Rand, or whatever Ba’alzamon (henceforth referred to as “Ishy”, because damn I hate typing that name) is trying to imply here, because they are clearly not nearly organized or knowledgeable enough to pull that off… but Gitara Moroso did send Rand’s mom to the Waste, presumably for the sole purpose of having her meet Janduin and eventually give birth to Rand. Of course, seeing as she sent Tigraine off as a result of a Foretelling, Gitara was acting there much more as an agent of the Pattern than of the Tower—in fact if I recall correctly none of the other Aes Sedai at the time even knew what she was doing or why—but that’s sort of a fine hair to split, I suppose.
Then there’s the whole thing about the Tower manipulating all the previous false Dragons, which got bandied about and used for political leverage so much over the course of the series that—and this is sad, I know—I can’t remember anymore whether or not we ever found out if it was actually true. I mean, I’m pretty sure the claim that the Red Ajah as a whole was setting up false Dragons was crap, but it’s certainly possible, and likely, that the Black Ajah could have done it on the downlow. I just can’t remember if we ever got confirmation of that.
And you know, I said in the original post that I thought the bit where Ishy claims he goaded Lews Therin into killing his family was a lie, but looking at it again now it’s actually perfectly possible that he did, in the same way he probably really did brainwash Artur Hawkwing into campaigning against the Tower back in the day.
Sooo… maybe it’s not so much bullshit, after all. In that special “maybe true but definitely completely misleading” way.
“The end of time?” Ba’alzamon mocked. “You live like a beetle under a rock, and you think your slime is the universe. The death of time will bring me power such as you could not dream of, worm.”
Though this is kind of a weird quote, in light of later revelations that Ishy/Moridin’s reason for wanting to destroy the universe is the much more petty and emo (and believable) “I just want everything to blow up and put me out of my misery!” than the “I want everything to blow up because Phenomenal Cosmic Power!” one given here. Not to mention, the latter doesn’t even make any sense. How can a person have power if nothing exists anymore? What would you have power over? A few random atoms floating in the void? Whoo, fun. Seems pretty dumb to me.
So maybe this one really is the one actual total lie Ishy told. Possibly to himself.
Chapter 15: Strangers and Friends
Redux Commentary
I wonder if the Superboys all had the Ishy dream at the same time, or if he had to take turns with each of them? I guess all at the same time, because Ishy doesn’t know who they are, yet? Still not sure how that works. When Egwene invaded people’s dreams I was under the impression that she at least had to know who they were, first.
Yay, Min!
And wow, she is totally fucking with Rand here, isn’t she? She knows exactly how badly she’s freaking him out, and thinks it’s hilarious. Kind of mean, Min. Amusing, but mean.
“The same kind of things as the rest. A sword that isn’t a sword, a golden crown of laurel leaves, a beggar’s staff, you pouring water on sand, a bloody hand and a white-hot iron, three women standing over a funeral bier with you on it, black rock wet with blood—”
My comment on her viewings in the original post (“Does Rand even have time to go wandering around as a beggar before Tarmon Gai’don?”) is also hilarious to me now, because I do kind of feel like the beggar thing got kind of fudged, timewise. The scene in TGS where Rand wanders around Ebou Dar in rough clothes, with a staff, and contemplates committing genocide is clearly meant to be what Min’s viewing (and, later, Perrin’s vision) is referring to, but that was, what, one measly afternoon of wandering? I dunno, I’d just pictured that lasting longer. I think I’d assumed it was going to be an analogy to Jesus wandering in the desert/wilderness and being tempted. Which, as you know, Biblical Bob, lasted 40 days. But I guess this particular Messianic figure was under more of a time crunch. (The “being tempted” part was pretty spot on, though.)
And, okay, looking at Min and Perrin’s actual wording, there’s actually nothing that says he had to wander as a beggar, just that at some point he would have beggar-like accoutrements. Which, fine, he did. Whatever.
The “bloody hand and white-hot iron” as a viewing for Rand still doesn’t make total sense to me, though. Because as I’ve probably said before, there’s kind of a huge difference between a hand that is “bloody”, and a hand that is actually severed. And yes, Rand’s hand was more “torched off” than “severed”, but that still doesn’t match with an actual iron. So I never really bought that Rand’s loss of a hand in KOD is what this refers to. Or at least I side-eyed it pretty hard.
It seems to me, actually, that instead of Rand, the two images would much more accurately refer to Mat and Perrin, respectively. I.e. Mat’s Band of the Red Hand, and Perrin’s forging of the Hammer of Awesome, or just a general blacksmithing reference. But then, if so, it doesn’t really make sense why this was a viewing for Rand, instead of Mat and Perrin themselves. Maybe it refers to how Rand and Mat and Perrin are all connected?
*shrug* I might be reaching there. Many other fans, I think, assume the vision refers to Rand’s heron branding on his palms, and that the iron might be when Ishy stabs Rand with his staff at the end of TGH, which is described as “burning like a white-hot poker”. Which, okay, I guess, except that again, “bloody hand” is not the same thing as “two branded hands”, and using the word “iron” to refer to something staff-shaped is weird, to say the least.
So I dunno. I’ve never come across anyone else suggesting that this viewing might actually refer to Mat and Perrin rather than Rand himself, though, so maybe I just came up with a new Looney Theory, super late in the game! Okay, probably not, but whatever. I like it. I’m keeping it.
Telling himself it was not because he had often daydreamed about walking the streets of a real city wearing a sword, [Rand] belted it on
This is totally a daydream of mine as well. Ha.
I’m trying to think if I ever felt the kind of disoriented, almost panicked awe that Rand et al feel upon first being confronted with A Real City. It reminded me of the story a friend of mine told me about his first trip to New York City, and how on about the second day he found himself standing on a street corner and straight-up crying, because the world was so big and so filled with billions of people who didn’t know him or care about him in the slightest. Because he knew that already, intellectually (he said), but actually seeing it for the first time brought it all home to him, and it was completely overwhelming to him.
I was kind of bemused by this story, because I never once had that kind of reaction to New York. I was often very stressed while I lived there, but that was for financial reasons, not existential ones. (Another friend opined “you can’t even breathe in New York without it costing you money”, which might not be literally true but is close enough that it doesn’t matter.)
But that kind of almost traumatic awe my friend (and Rand, to a certain extent) felt, I never had that. But then, the smallest city I’ve ever lived in for any amount of time was Austin, Texas. Which is, um, not exactly “small” at all, considering there were half a million people there even before it had its growth boom. So I guess if you’ve always lived in places where the population is counted in substantial chunks of millions (or many millions), New York City is… still awe-inspiring, certainly, but not overwhelmingly so. To me, anyway.
And that was… a tangent. Anyway, speaking of people screwing up, Rand does here, big time, twice. Though it’s hard to blame him for either trusting Fain (who he does, after all, actually know, or think he does) or for inadvertently taunting Whitecloaks while under the influence of Power Acquisition Fever Syndrome, because he wasn’t exactly right in the head there.
Mat, on the other hand, has no such excuse. Dumbass.
In my original commentary I mentioned how one of the major themes of WOT, namely mistrust, is brought to the forefront here, and it certainly is, but I have talked an awful lot by now, so I think I’ll come back to that discussion later. It’s not like it’s not going to come up again, after all.
And that’s our post, y’all! Have a lovely week, and see you next Tuesday!
Talk about a redemption arch for Mat! I know he’s now a cool great fan favorite, but did anyone love him for the first two books?
Re: Min and the white bar of iron. Well, she had not seen Bale-fire at that point, so maybe it was the best way she could think of describing her vision?
I will try to pay attention to see if Rand’s hands ever are bloody in the books, besides in the metaphorical sense.
About Ishy and the last “lie” at the end of the summary of that chapter.
I don’t know that it’s a lie, but more a symptom of insanity. As Ba’alzemon, he was essentially a dude who drove himself insane by using the True Power like a heroin fiend and seemed to legitimately believe he was the Dark One.
And then he was beaten three times by Rand, with the third actually sticking. And then the Dark One brought him back as Moridin and he was sane again. With it eventually being said that, at least to Ishy’s perspective, he was brought back as punishment for impersonating his master.
So I think I just read a lot of things like your quote by him as the sort of crazy “A GOD AM I” thing you get from evil overlord types. “After I destroy everything and everyone, I’ll rule the world!!!!!” while everyone else is wondering exactly what this person will be ruling after everything and everyone is no more.
This is way out of left field, but maybe the bloody hand and the white hot iron are the blood on Rand’s hands (metaphorical) and she is misinterpreting the white hot iron, which is actually the white glow-y brain covering that Nynaeve sees when she tries to cure his madness. As in, the twisted things he does while nearly insane and that which saves him
Leigh, I agree with you regarding the bloody hand and the white-hot iron. I did not see it anywhere in the series also. I beleive that as the series progressed, RJ realized that he could not fulfill this prophecy on-screen. The series had moved in different directions. Thus, it would fall under one of those prophicies that referred to after the Last Battle (i.e. after the series ended) or was fulfilled off screen.
I wonder what it would be like to have Min’s skills and be a young enough not to realize you should not discuss your visions. I am referring to the time she described how she used to tell everybody what she saw and was almost attacked by a mob of townsfolk. For me that would be scarier than if I understood them as an adult.
Was it ever confirmed whether other people (either during the AoL or the Third Age) had Min’s ability? Maybe she was the Light’s version of Fain. A wildcard never “seen” before in the battle between the Light and Shadow.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewB
AndrewHB, it’s told by Moraine as an “old talent, yet new” and later in the series, it’s said that the Seanchan Empress used to have a seer like Min in the past, but Min was the first real one in generations.
Re: Bloody hand and white-hot iron: Conceivably, could be when Moridin stabbed hiimself in the hand to seize Callandor in Shayol Ghul. Callandor might have been glowing so bright at that time that it looked like an iron in the fire rather than a sword.
Of course, I think the more logical explanation is that it’s Rand losing his hand, and the “burned off” v. “chopped off” is just a factor of Jordan not having figured out every single little tiny detail of the series during the writing of The Eye of the World, but the Shayol Ghul thing is an alternative idea.
I had the same thought as 1 – that the ‘white-hot’ part might actually be referring to balefire and not an actual iron. But I can’t recall if his hand is balefired off or not.
As for the beggar staff, I’m not sure if I even remembered that the staff referred to his Ebou Dar moment! Even though it was a short time, it was certainly a hugely significant turning point for him (and the world)!
I don’t know… Bloody hands and white hot irons sound like metaphors for war and mayhem. Both of which Rand will eventually have on his conscience.
IIRC, the “white tower manipulating the false Dragons” thing was a lie by Siuan Sanche to convince the Salidar Aes Sedai (still what I think of when I see the acronym SAS, btw) to take in Logain.
I was raised in a small town, more of a village really, outside of Columbus, Ohio, but I did manage to travel with family to visit relatives in West Virginia, Detroit and around. I would go with a friend to Cincinnati to go to the wonderful Coney Island Park long before there was King’s Island, and even took a trip into Windsor, Canada to go to a theme park there, so by the time my family took a trip in October of 1965 to see the final vestiges of the World’s Fair I wasn’t awe-inpired of New York City but was very impressed seeing that it was far bigger than the Big “C” cities in Ohio. I loved it for sure and later when I turned 18 spent a few days there with friends prior to flying off to Europe for a summer-school session. I’ve only been back once since then, but New York City is a fabulous place to visit.
Just yesterday, my daughter and I drove through Chicago and I had the passenger window open taken pictures of the cool buildings we passed, as she made her way through rush-hour traffic on I-90 on our way to Madison, Wisconsin for a business class my daughter needs to take. I adore big cities and could live happily the rest of my life in an apartment in a city proper if I could afford it. Being in a suburb or living out in the country, to me, is over-rated.
I agree with @1 that the “white iron” is bale-fire. It would have to look like a blazing white iron in a vision.
Speaking of visions, I was born with “the memories” as Native Americans will put it (I do have some Native American blood coursing through my veins, as does my husband, but we are both white as sheets to the point where we glow in the dark), causing me to be empathic. I could “feel” what others felt and often could “see” what others could see. I could see auras, ghosts and peek through the veil at times. I would just blab what I could see and hear and would get reprimanded in return; “there’s no such thing as a ghost” ~ “you don’t know what you’re talking about” ~ “children should be seen and not heard” ~ ad nauseam. When I was FIVE-years old I learned to keep my mouth shut and to adjust what I said to people to avoid being punished. My friends got used to me and never thought a thing about it, but it took until I was 13-years old for my family to come around to my way of thinking, which meant that they had to open their minds to more than what the eye could see. I cannot fathom how a person like Min would have dealt with the abject negativety received from others by simply telling people the truth of what she saw. No wonder she didn’t want Rand to tell others about her ability!
To be honest, Lan had a right to be pissy. He probably didn’t want to go to the Two Rivers in the first place, then he had to “baby-sit” a bunch of what he perceives to be “country bumpkins” on their way to Tar Valon? *Lan Smacking Forehead in frustration* ~Probably not his idea of a good time.
Since the WOT books were on my mind since I read them back-to-back instead of over twenty years, I remember thinking that Abou Dar was the place where Rand was like the begger. Rand had to be looked upon as a begger to move about freely without the show of a Lord’s clothing to keep other people at bay. He could then view the people going about their daily lives and see that they were not feeling particular oppressed or unhappy. He needed to see the masses outside of the bubble he had created for himself.
I’ll be using the term “Ish” instead of the other because it just sounds better to me. During the Bush era people would refer to the President and Mrs. Bush as “The Bushies”, which I found to be somewhat denigrating, so the “y” on the end of a name that doesn’t normally have a “y” at the end causes me to cringe.
Anyhoo, at the time I read about the dream sequence with Ish and the three caballeros I felt certain the dreams were happening simultaneously. A person with God-like abilities would probably have no problem overseeing three aspects-of-self interacting with three different people at once within the confines of a dream-world setting.
I laughed when Leigh said “dumbass” regarding Mat! Mat was quite the annoying character before he finally got separated from the “demon knife”. After that he was finally on his way to having some redeeming qualities, as well as on his way to becoming an actually favored character; however, I digress: My father simply didn’t swear, but when he was really annoyed, especially with himself, he would call himself a “dumbass”, which would make me giggle. It just sounded so odd coming from him. Personally, I swear like a long-shoreman (I don’t say sailor because one of my brothers WAS a sailor and swearing is adverse to him), so I don’t think a thing when I read or hear swearing, but reading Mat called a “dumbass” caused me to have a fond memory of my father.
It is understandable Rand would perceive he could “trust” Fain simply because he had known him for so many years as a peddler to his village. He had no way of knowing at the time he saw him turn-tail in the street when the two of them made eye contact, that Fain would end up being the bain of Rand’s existence. Rand was just glad to see him alive after thinking Fain had been eaten (shiver). Looking back, it was a horrible decision to make contact with Fain again, but hindsight IS usually twenty-twenty!
When reading WOT through the first time I found it annoying, if not down right crazy that there was a lack of trust and communication with the characters. I would get so frustrated at times wondering why Jordan would have the characters skirt around each other instead of just talking straight! In “real” life versus “reel” life, people just blab about their personal life all over the Interwebs without keeping too much secret. Secrets are for politicians after all!
Every second Rand spent with Fain in that alley made me tense as hell, even though I know how it all ends. I kept thinking, that guy will kill you in a heartbeat, get out of there Rand!
It does add a lot of tension to have Mat act the dumbass in this book, but it also seems really out of character. Mat is so much more savy and streetsmart than the other superboys, even before he got the extra memories. The practical joke on the Whitecloaks, ok, that’s the dumass Mat I know, but blabbing in front of strangers is not. In later books, he only blabs like that when it’s ta’veren at work, which I really don’t see here at all. Even taking the dagger doesn’t seem like the later Mat at all, but then, later Mat knows he can win any gold he needs.
Perrin: I hadn’t remembered that he’s already getting his emo on this early in the story. No I can’t go see the big city because I had a bad dream. I’ll lay here in bed all day and pout… It’s cool on RJ’s part because I really didn’t think Perrin had a personality at all until later books, but there it is. He’s just quiet.
I subscribe to a theory I first saw in Ye Olde WOTFAQ re: the bloody hand and white hot iron. It’s about Liah, the Maiden left behind in Shadar Logoth. Rand scratched the back of his hand bloody after leaving her there in the first place, and the white hot iron refers to the balefire he later mercy-killed her with.
You know, I think is has been brought up in the re-read before, but first impressions do tend to make a mark. I finished my first run through the published series about 6 months before Path of Daggers came out (So I started around the same time Leigh did). I remember going online and seeking out WOT stuff, and being gobsmacked by how much abject adoration was directed in Mat’s direction. Sure, he was a good comic relief on occasion and all that, but the first impression of these books was not a good one; and I guess that impression just… lingered with me for whatever reason. I eventually got over it though.
It is amusing now to watch Lan struggle with his new role as Mentor/Sensei/Cub Master to the boys. I can’t remember if I empathized with him on first reading or thought he was a bit “pissy”.
As for Ishy and the dream sequence, I kind of agree. I liked it when a lot of the metaphysical stuff was a bit more nebulous. I think the serious as a whole swung along a pendulum from more of a ‘High Fantasy’ poetic imagery to a more political, machiavellian oriented scheming and more scientific type magic powers. I’m not saying either one is a good or bad thing, it is just an observation.
I don’t really have anything to say about the bloody hand & hot iron except that: yeah, RJ sure didn’t have any idea how long it was going to take to tell this story, did he? Hard to work everything in.
“Flameface.” X-D
When reading and writing about Ishmael (by Daniel Quinn) for a high school class, I wrote “Ishamael” instead atop all my writings about it, being obsessed with WoT at the time. Nobody seemed to notice.
I attended a tiny college in a rather seasonal Maine town. In winter, it became hard to remember that giant cities and billions of people still existed somewhere, even though my hometown is somewhat larger.
Probably, but I don’t need much convincing that there was a frequent rush to judgement.
I do love these chapters for all sorts of reasons but… can we work through some open issues re the various Min visions? Can we get definitive rulings?
– What is the “laughing face” associated with Mat?
– Do we agree that Min’s visions are supposed to be forward looking or is that unsettled? Because, if so, the obvious Owyn reference with Thom doesn’t work (and I can’t think of a good forward looking non-Owyn alternative) and the Lan vision with the baby would refer to his future baby with Nyneave rather than to him as a child.
– Why would Perrin in particular have trees flowering all around him? Was he supposed to rediscover the growing song but BS never got there?
I think the bloody hand is an oblique reference to the wound on Rand’s side. Every time it breaks open, Rand sticks his hand under his coat, and his hand comes out bloody. A little far fetched maybe, but he does it a LOT in the later books, yet it’s a detail that tends to squeek by like a grey man sighting unless one of the girls is around to make a big deal of it.
So how long did it take everyone else to twig to the fact that Ba’alzamon was not the Dark One and was actually Ishamael and had been all along? I am probably considerably worse than Leigh always claims to be about picking up on subtle hints, but IIRC I think I didn’t understand what was actually going on there until I read it in the FAQ at some point, which would have been years and years and many books into the series. It’s obvious now, with all we know about Ishamael and the Dark One and the nature of everything, but I think I was not only totally not aware of it, I had no particular idea that there was something I wasn’t aware of.
re: How can a person have power if nothing exists anymore?
Uh, I think Ishy is speaking “in character” here as Ba’alzamon a.k.a. The Dark One a.k.a. The Great Lord of the Dark. The DO’s goal is to destroy creation in order to remake it with him in total control of every aspect of it. That’s what Ishy is referring to.
re: white hot iron and severed hand
Yeah. Unresolved prophecy to be fulfilled post AMoL, me thinks.
@18 Purple Ajah
re: Ishy is not The Dark One
I think I caught on to that pretty much immediately. I don’t know why exactly, but for some reason WoT never seemed to be that kind of story, where “the devil” was an actual physical actor in the story.
I mean it starts with the DO being imprisoned in the prologue and the whole mythology we get early on is all about “he’s still imprisoned and so are the Forsaken”. I guess, I just figured that with this setup there must be some sort of gradual progression and not just “Nope, he’s free and doing whatever”.
Ragnarök starts with the Fimbulwinter. Is there also a mythical equivalent for the DO’s summer or is that just an analogy to the winter?
Lan probably knows about Logain because Moiraine is of course interested in (false or real) Dragons.
It would make more sense if the three boys were sharing a room. They were just separated for plot reasons.
Saa are based on a real eye problem called mouches volantes (flying flies) in French. That fits for the Lord of Flies.
Ishy likes boasting villain rants, but it actually makes more sense than in many movies because he wants to convert Rand and not kill him.
The difference between the first and last Rand – Ishy dream shows how much Rand developed during the series.
Ny was teaching Rand Dreamwaking before she even knew it existed!
Ishy probably sent Hawkwing’s son over the ocean because of his book of dark prophecies.
Rand’s channel reaction is cleverly hidden with Perrin’s reaction to the dream, at least until the Whitecloak incident.
Why did Moiraine tell Min her real name? Just because Min recognized her as AS doesn’t mean she cannot use a fake name.
A few things:
a. I don’t think ‘the end of time’ has to be equated with the end of everything; whether the idea of things existing outside time actually makes sense or not, it is part of some religious and philosophical traditions. I think especially of Revelation 10.6-7 (KJV)
‘that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished’
(though more recent translations say something like ‘no more delay’). So, perhaps Ishamael wants to destroy time and rule over a timeless world. Or at least he is pretending that that is what he wants.
b. Ishamael reminds me of Galadan in The Fionavar Tapestry, who is the dark lord’s chief lieutentant, and also wants to destroy the world. Though I think he is redeemed in the end, which as far as I know Ishamael is not.
c. I think the difference between the Pattern arranging for Rand’s conception and the Tower doing so is really quite important; one does not imply a conspiracy as the other does. There may be problems with free will and predestination, but it doesn’t remove freedom in the same way that direct manipulation by humans does. But what Ishamael says is initially plausible, because the Aes Sedai recall another secretive order of women in another series, which is engaged in a breeding programme.
(I have some thoughts about Min’s visions, but I’ll come back to them later.)
@16 “Why would Perrin in particular have trees flowering all around him? Was he supposed to rediscover the growing song but BS never got there?”
I always thought that was a reference to the trees his family were buried under.
@22, oh, that is depressing :( I was wondering if it was a more metaphorical thing, based on his future angsting over the decisions to create vs. destroy, although it would make more sense if the vision had more blacksmith-y imagery. Or maybe just some nebulous connection to the Tinkers?
I never thought Min’s visions were specifically forward facing, but were just things that were significant about the person and would play a role in the coming events – so I think it makes sense that the vision around Lan represents his heritage (which, in a way, he hasn’t fully claimed yet) or that Thom’s represent Owyn (which is still affecting his decisions to this day and in the future Moiraine will provide him with The List).
Yeah, I remember Mat being an incredibly annoying character and it really took me awhile to warm up to him.
I wish I remember what my earliest reactions to thinkgs like Ba’alzamon were. I tend not to try and figure stuff out as I read…I just let the story carry me along and trust it will be revealed in due time, so it’s possible I didn’t even really think about it one way or the other.
Mat has quite the character arc. I thought he was an ass at the beginning of the series…but a fun ass. Good at detecting BS, and calling people on it, sometimes to his own dismay. But he does come around….and retains that insight into people for the most part.
I always assumed that the bloody hand and the white hot iron was Rand losing his hand with Balefire, which might look like an iron bar, since at this point, Min didn’t know about Balefire. I just can’t see it being anything else ??
NYC digression: I grew up in a mid-sized clump of towns in the Midwest, and had visited Chicago, a large and fine city all by itself. I’d fallen in love with NYC in movies, and decided when I was quite young that I had to live there. I got to go for the first time when I was 16 with my dance teacher to study there for a week, and flying into LaGuardia, up the east river is one of the greatest sights on earth. The towers of Manhattan loom on the the west side of the plane, and Rhapsody in Blue plays in your head. There’s nothing like it. It’s magic. (I did move there for 8 years after grad school, and it’s still my favorite city in the world.)
I thought the laughing face associated with Mat was the JOKER in the pack, as Mat is the wildcard. Could also be a reference to Mats penchance for practical jokes.
Bloody hand and white hot Iron, could refer to Rand having metaphorical blood on his hands when he balefires Natrins Barrow and kills hundreds of innocents, and the Angst he shows about it.
RobMRobM @16
The laughing man might be a reference to Mat as the trickster. On Min… I don’t think it always points to the future. It points to a particular detail about the person, but not necessarily the future.
Purple Ajah @18
I think Moiraine realizes sometime during the 2nd or 3rd book. She actually monologues about IIRC.
Randalator @19
The only power I can think of in that case is being to blame for what happened. It’s a strange way of looking at it, but everybody agrees Ish was pretty much insane by this point.
birgit @20
Separating the boys makes sense if Moiraine wanted to isolate them from each other.
I found early Mat to be slightly more worldly than the others, and definitely a troublemaker, very similar to my younger (not youngest) brother. Shadar Logoth was a combination of not being as worldly as he thought (“ehh, who cares what we were told, what’s the worst that could happen?”) and Plot- uh, the Pattern- needing him to get those memories and staff.
Power Acquisition Syndromyness went straight over my head.
And I don’t remember when I realized Ishy was a senior lieutenant and not the top dog.
Oy. I just finished reading a book series not being discussed hereablouts (Keys to the Kingdom) whose ultimate villain’s motive proved to be explicitly “destroy the universe in order to destroy myself, and then have someone else remake it without me.” So someone like Ishy could be thinking the first part of that, ridiculous though it is.
Moiraine etc realize that Baal is Ishy by end of Book 3, after Egwene passes along the centuries-old hint received from our favorite black/purple Ajah practitioner.
Min’s Visions
RJ confirmed that there have been others similar to Min.
And that her visions are foretellings, (but not the same as AS foretellings.)
And he confirmed many times that she only sees the future.
As always, thanks, Terez.
Re: Iron and Blood vision.
Fairly sure Semirhage blew Rand’s hand off with a fireball and not balefire. Wouldn’t even a touch of balefire unmake someone in any case?
I like the idea that it’s in relation to Natrin’s Barrow. It’s a bit abstract but I guess that’s the nature of things, haha.
Could also relate to Liah, I suppose. Both work for me although I’m more partial to the former. Although, it’s always possible that RJ changed gears on what it was meant to signify as the series ballooned.
Re: Mat
I found him frustrating at this point too. I empathised a lot more with Perrin, ha.
Re: Bloody Hand and red-hot Iron.
I’m of the opinion that this was meant to refer to Rand’s losing a hand, but when the moment came to fit this event into the story, it came out differently than RJ originally envisioned.
The bloody hand and red-hot iron hint at an amputation plus cauterization. This also fits well with one of the parallels for Rand’s character, the Norse god Tchew, who sacrifices a hand for the sake of trapping Fenrir the wolf.
It’s important to remember that these are infodump chapters, and that we’re seeing the visions which represent the key aspects of our characters. For this reason I prefer an imperfect fit to a character-defining event than a smoother fit to a less significant event.
Re: Min’s Visions – future, or past+future?
We’ve discussed this at length before. My opinion is that in TEOTW Jordan had not yet decided that Min’s visions are future-facing only, and used them to give us hints about the background of the secondary characters, and the future of the main protagonists. Even Min’s description of her ability is time-neutral; Moiraine says she sees “pieces of the Pattern”. Not “Pictorial Foretellings”.
All the quotes about this by RJ are from well after TEOTW was published. If I ever see an earlier one, I may change my mind.
Re: Thom
Something I only noticed the umpteenth time I read through the book.
Thom keeps laughing at the Emond’s Fielders, and hides it by rubbing his mustaches.
Chapter 4:
Chapter 14:
I’m just going to assume that by now someone has commented that Rand’s “bloody hand” was laying on the ground after it was cut off in KoD. I assumed that was the fulfillment of Min’s vision. I didn’t read it that the bloody hand and the white-hot iron were the same vision, just that she ran them together, like afew other ones. So, Rand getting branded is one vision, and rand losing his hand is another.
Aaand… that’s why I should read the comments first.
Blown off with fire, not cut off.
Still, might be a bloody mess, and I don’t think the two thoughts need to be related to one single vision because the author/copy eidtor didn’t add a comma.
Interesting, I had never seeen that quote regarding Min’s visions before. I think some of the ‘past’ visions can still be hand waved a bit by saying that they will end up effecting their future quite a bit (such as Lan re-founding Manetheren as he is the true heir). But I agree that on a meta level, RJ just hadn’t quite worked it out yet.
For me, the most satisfying fulfillment of the hot iron/bloody hand is Rand getting his hand burned off (thanks for clarifying that it wasn’t balefire – I didn’t think it was but I honestly couldn’t remember) since that could seem to imply a hand getting cauterized off somehow. The Natrim’s Barrow is just a little too vague for me (even though obviously a prophecy can be pretty vague) to the point where it just becomes kind of meaningless and any vision can apply to anybody. There’s a fine line between making the prophecy/vision have a bit of a twist so it’s not immediately obvious what it means but then when you realize how it all fits you get a nice ‘ah-ha!’ moment, and making it such a stretch that it’s no longer satisfying because you could make it work for anything.
But I do like the idea that they could also just be separate visions, since to me white-hot iron evokes balefire, which wasn’t part of losing his hand.
re: New York distress
Wow, that’s…wow. I can’t put myself in your friend’s mental shoes. At all.
I grew up in a small village but I’m a city person. I love living in a big(-ish) city. When I’m in London with its ~10 million people in the Greater London conurbation I feel right at home. No angsting whatsoever…
What struck me most in this Reread was the fact that Ishy mentions LTT reaching out to ‘his’ precious One Power. Nice and subtle reference there that Ishy has access to the True Power.
Had to laugh about Min’s visions on Rand. “Oh, just the usual”, a sword that is not a sword, and your blood on the rocks (of Shayol Ghul)…
On the discussion whether or not RJ had already fully built his world etc., I always thought RJ was the ‘architect’ type of writer, which is confirmed here by already mentioning Mat losing his eye.
Of course, at this point, RJ still had this plotted as a trilogy, and a major event like that was already on the radar, but still. It does seem odd that he would have had that set up, and not figured out the workings of the dreams, channeling etc.
Randalator @19: it wasn’t Ba’alzamon in character as impersonating the DO. Ba’alzamon never was a name for the DO, it was always for Ishy. I think the two got confused because Ishy was not bound as everyone thought he was… And Ishy got a bit carried away at times…
Bouke,
Tom Doherty has said he originally offered RJ a six book contract for the series. RJ thought he might bring it in with less books. Brandon commented in one interview that he thought the original treatment ended with the acquisition of Callendor.
I wouldn’t say that RJ was the same kind of writer as Brandon is. I would bet BWS can tell you right now the major plot points for each of the remaining 8 book in Stormlight Archive. Not all of the details, but the overarching stuff, and what goes in each book. And that is probably how it will be written. I don’t think RJ was quite that way. I believe he could tell you the major plot lines, but not say, this is book 6 , and this is book 7, …
Jay
@37 Bouke
Ba’alzamon is the Trolloc name for the Dark One. (TGH, prologue)
People think Ba’alzamon is the trolloc name for the DO. It is not clear if the trollocs know better.
Min’s visions: I think the first of the two quotes from Jordan doesn’t settle the matter, because the questioner was assuming they were about the future; the question was only whether they were definite predictions, or probabilities. But the second seems quite definite, given that the questioner specifically referred to this passage; so whatever Jordan was thinking when he wrote this, he must at some point have found an interpretation of the vision for Lan in which it did relate to the future.
But what I found most striking about this passage was the vision for Egwene. ‘She’s not for you, or you for her… When I look at her, I see the same as when I look at … Mistress Alys…. I know what that means. She won’t refuse it.’ So, Egwene has a vocation as an Aes Sedai, and that means she won’t end up with Rand. And yet, while it’s not normal for Aes Sedai to marry, they can, and indeed Egwene will. So there must be more to it than is being made clear here.
Just popped in to say hi to everyone, I’ve had a very busy year and completely missed out on the awesomeness that is the WOT re-re-re-read. Will try to stay updated from now on!
@18 – I had a hard enough time just keeping up with re-reading the books and reading the posts and I am on my 9th re-read (just finished The Great Hunt) and finally now all this is starting to come together in my head. Love RobRobRob’s questions about Min’s viewings and diving into all the obscure unanswered questions. It’s really giving me an alternative spin while I’m going through my present re-read.
@23 I think for me the general concensus was that Min’s visions are forward-facing. In re-reading many of her scenes with Perrin, especially related to the tinker Leya, she says repeatedly that she sees lots of things and sometimes she knows what they mean, and that no matter what, it is going to happen. I don’t recall offhand of any conversations where Min looks back on something and says, “I prophesized that”.
What @30 J Dauro says!
AnotherAndrew 41
Considering what we know of how Moiraine’s life ended up… It could be anything from accepting her end in a fight to the death to agreeing to marry the man when he comes along.
44. thepupxpert
Darlin’s crown?
In Chapter 14, the sentence “He finished with his mouth still open, then snapped it shut, appearing surprised that he had said so much.” indicates in my opinion that the bath attendant Ara talking about trollocs was caused by being near to ta’veren. Is this the first time we see ta’veren influence?
Yeah, I remember being very peeved at Mat for almost giving them away to the serving man. I also remember wondering, though, why he thought it would be safe to mention Trollocs even if he left everything else about their situation out. Even if nobody thought it suspicious they had Shadowspawn after them and thus reported them to the Whitecloaks, simply being told something so unusual and momentous would make them stick in people’s minds, thus making it easier for any Darkfriends or others who might want to cause trouble for them to follow and find them. But it’s pretty clear Mat is ironically a lot like Aes Sedai–ready and willing to find ways around oaths, to figure out exactly how far he can stretch the truth, and to be coy and (he thinks) circumspect so that he can still otherwise get away with saying and doing whatever he wants. So that side of him is at the moment winning over the side which should be more suspcious and careful and which we see more of later, thankfully.
Side note: rather hilarious in hindsight that after Ara leaves and they all speak to Lan, it’s Perrin who asks about the trouble in Saldaea.
I am as bemused now as I was upon first reading by Rand wondering if Lan knew Logain, just as I am by him thinking Thom’s eyes were like Lan’s, implying he too was a Borderlander. The latter is most likely just his lack of familiarity with eye colors outside the Two Rivers (Thom is brave and bold, no question, but he doesn’t seem to have the peculiar kind of honor we see in Borderlanders), and as for the former, unless Moiraine had reason to travel in Ghealdan I can’t see how Lan could ever have met Logain or heard of him, and he and Logain don’t seem to show familiarity with each other when they’re together later. It is a bit odd he’d call him by name like that if he doesn’t know the man, but then again if he didn’t know him as a lord (or at all) beforehand, there would be nothing else he could call him but Logain.
I don’t mind finding out what dreamshards are, but I have to say that even being told what they are after the fact doesn’t completely lessen the mystique for me, since we still don’t know exactly how they work. We know they involve intersecting TAR with one’s own mind, and the result allows you to impose your own imagination on someone else’s dream the way you can TAR (which proves, as if we needed any more evidence, that Ishamael was as much a Dreamer as Rand/Lews Therin), but we don’t know exactly how he does it. Is it all just a matter of will? The testing ter’angreal the Aes Sedai have prove it is possibly to cordon off or reproduce a bubble of TAR using weaves, so are any involved with dreamshards? There don’t seem to be, but it’s hard to tell. And undeniably the effects are still disconcerting even when we know more about how they work.
I have to laugh at how much Ba’alzamon is used for infodumping. I guess it makes sense, since between everything he knows from being the Dark One’s highest lieutenant, to being free from the Bore throughout history, plus being a philosopher in the Age of Legends, who better is there to have a more vastly-encompassing view of this world so as to tell us about it? His being evil and working to manipulate and corrupt Rand is a the same time a great justfication for why he either doesn’t tell everything or what he does tell is full of lies, half-truths, and things out of context.
Though I also have to laugh at why he brought up the Eye of the World: what in the world made him think Moiraine or any Aes Sedai would have told him about it, let alone that it would serve him? Obviously knowing it’s a pool of pure saidin explains why it would be useful, but I got the impression very few knew this–Moiraine had to research it, though we don’t know why she did or why she was seeking the Green Man the first time she met him. (Please let that be in the encyclopedia!) So no one had any way of knowing what it was or why it would be useful to any male channeler, let alone the Dragon Reborn. Why did he mention it, then? Did he think one of the boys would ask Moiraine about it and freak her out? That the Aes Sedai knew more of it than they did? Or was it mentioned in the Prophecies in some way, which he knows from having been out of the Bore, and so he thought Aes Sedai would know of it and its role?
I don’t think we ever do find out if the Tower had anything to do with the false Dragons; it’s possible they did Guaire Amalasan, what with him coming from Far Madding where the Guardian would have let any channelers know of him and his power before he could ever become a danger with it, and that this might also factor into why they weren’t happy with Hawkwing defeating him instead of them, but beyond that… I do think the Black Ajah probably did use at least a few, if for no other reason than Ishamael ordering them to do so would explain why he’d make such a claim–he has personal knowledge that they did! As for his bit about gaining all power to rule the world, he is after all absolutely insane on the True Power at this point, so I don’t think we can trust anything he says. It’s also possible he believed this at this point (maybe because the Dark One had told him he wouldn’t destroy all of reality, something we learn in AMoL was only one possible outcome of him winning anyway), and that it’s only after dying, being reborn, and being punished for thinking/acting like he was the Dark One did Moridin start wanting to end it all and achieve oblivion. I.e., he used to want all power to rule the world, but fell into nihilism later.
I still love the seemingly irrelevant conversation about Sara and her cat that ends up being quite important when it’s off-handedly revealed about all the dead rats with broken backs found lying around. Very chilling, not to mention completely pointless other than to scare the boys silly. (I also had to laugh at Master Fitch trying to placate Sara with how Cirri is the best cat in Baerlon. It’s little side convos like this that always make WOT so real and enjoyable.)
Min’s viewings: while it’s true the part with Rand and the beggar staff didn’t last long at all (I keep thinking Sanderson said it was originally meant to be longer, but he had to cut it down?), the fact his visit to Ebou Dar and resisting the temptation to destroy it is what led to his epiphany on Dragonmount I thin makes the event worth being represented in a viewing. Short, but very critical to Rand’s character arc. As for the bloody hand and white-hot iron…while it’s possible Jordan hadn’t yet worked out how Rand’s hand would be lost, and the white-hot iron could be either balefire or Ishy’s staff, I like your idea that these represent Mat and Perrin, and she sees them around Rand to represent just how important the tripod is going to be to him.
The first time I visited a big city was Chicago, in middle school. I remember being awed and feeling quite small, but I don’t think I was scared, freaked, or completely overwhelmed either. But I can understand why the Two Rivers folk would be.
I always found it interesting in retrospect that while Bornhald ended up being so important to Perrin’s plot (and a thorn in his side), the first hero he meets in the narrative is actually Rand. Who never meets him again. Makes me wonder if this coupled with Rand’s ta’veren nature is why Perrin got involved with him (after being led to cross paths with Geofram).
As for Fain, while I had said on a previous post that my familiarity with fantasy tropes made me slightly suspicious of him when he first appeared (even as he was still somewhat likable), it was here that those suspicions really started taking off. Because however much we’ve been made to think at this point that Aes Sedai are not to be trusted, Fain’s fear of Moiraine and determination for Rand to not reveal him to her always struck me as big red flags. As if he were hiding something he didn’t want her to know? Of course I had no idea what he’d become…
@2 Robert: Exactly.
@6 neverspeakaword: That’s a very interesting theory!
@7 Lisamarie: It wasn’t, Semirhage used a fireball of some sort.
@11 Nif: I don’t know, maybe Rand’s ta’veren nature did make Mat do those things. Even the dagger, since it had to happen.
@16 RobM: Some people thought the laughing face referred to the mask Balthamel was wearing. Which is odd since he didn’t do anything to Mat at the Eye, and the only other time they interacted in the series was when Halima danced with him in Salidar. I always thought it was just representative of Mat being a Trickster archetype. I always thought visions could mean the past too, but Team Jordan said they only indicate the future. So I guess the baby with the sword is Lan’s son, and the man juggling fire is Mat, since he got fireworks from Aludra for the assault on the Stone? As for Perrin, some have theorized it meant Loial singing for Perrin’s family among the apple trees. Could also mean the Great Trees Rand grew at Merrilor while Perrin was there.
@17 scm: Interesting possibility.
@18 Purple Ajah: I knew right away he wasn’t the Dark One–it was too obvious, I never thought the Dark One could have or appear in a human form, and he seemed too much like the guy in the prologue. What I didn’t know is who he was among the Forsaken (i.e. Ishamael).
@20 birgit: LOL, so Nynaeve was! As for Moiraine, I guess she told Min to get her to trust her and confide in her?
@23 Lisamarie: It could be the Tinkers too. And ah yes the list…we can be sure Moiraine will be giving that to him post-AMoL, I think.
@31 Astus: While I loved Rand from the beginning and didn’t start pulling back from him till he started getting dark, Perrin was always my favorite and the one I identified with. Even his emo didn’t bother me that much–I did want him to get over it, but I understood why he felt that way and really it all came down more to “I want you to get back to being awesome again”.
@33 anthonypero: Another good possibility.
@41 AnotherAndrew: Well it is possible to not refuse being Aes Sedai but still marry despite the tradition–if you’re Green for example, which Egwene always thought of herself as before becoming Amyrlin and even some after.
@48 Puzzle23: I would have to agree, yes it is.
macster @49
Your description of a dreamshard looks suspiciously like a mix between Dreamwalking and Compulsion. Particularly where you impose your will on someone’s dream and by extension their mind. That said, considering how it is driven repetitively that TAR is extremely susceptible to being imposed upon by strong wills, it’s not really surprising. Even nightmares gone wild in TAR are conquered by a Dreamwalker imposing her will on them, and what are nightmares but dreams run out of control?
It’s not far-fetched for a variation of this to be used to create a dreamshard. Perhaps there is even some Weave involved. Remember that ter’angreal are often created to duplicate or enhance skills or gifts that can be done with the One Power. It’s not a particularly long leap for me to imagine that a fully trained AS from the AOL would know of a way to do so. And of course as a trained philosopher, Ishy wouldn’t exactly be short on mental discipline.
Little known fact: Instead of Dreamsharding, Ishy Dreamsharted once…that was awkward when he woke up.
imagine how is wife felt?
@20 “Ny was teaching Rand Dreamwaking before she even knew it existed!”
I think that was the Wisdom before Ny.
I’m a little late here, but to macster @20 – I think Ishamael’s repeated mentions of the Eye of the World were in fact a trap. Of course the Aes Sedai wouldn’t have told Rand about the Eye, but he is dropping hint after hint about the Eye in this and future dreams in order to influence Rand to go there (and for the good guys to think that was their plan in the first place). After all, using the pure saidin at the Eye is what accelerated Rand’s channeling ability, which was key for advancing the Dark One’s timetable so Rand could be turned. And don’t forget Aginor and Balthamel were handily waiting to show up at just the right time.
“Blinding” the Eye of the World was also an empty threat. What would the male Forsaken have needed with all that pure saidin anyway? They have the Dark One’s Black Cord Taint Filters (TM) attached and have an unlimited reserve already that won’t drive them mad. The Eye is not an angreal, and it doesn’t increase the channeler’s Power capacity, as Aginor learned. Just a one-time use Well, irrelevant for any other use because it was immobile. There’s probably no way Ishamael knew that the Horn and the Dragon Banner were there, or he might have been more circumspect about the Eye.
It was a trap. Just didn’t turn out so well for Team Dark.
@@@@@ fernandan: Well said. I was pretty sure it was a trap in one sense or another, but thanks for explicating it in more detail. :)
Regarding Rands post channelling sickness – we weren’t MEANT to pick up on this until returning to reread, as this phenomenon isn’t introduced to us until Moiraine is talking to Nynaeve later. Currently doing my first ever complete re-read of the books since the series ended!