It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new book for me, yeah! Come join me for today’s Wheel of Time Reread Redux!
Today’s Redux post will cover the Prologue and Chapter 4 of The Fires of Heaven, originally reread in this post and this post, respectively.
All original posts are listed in The Wheel of Time Reread Index here, and all Redux posts will also be archived there as well. (The Wheel of Time Master Index, as always, is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general on Tor.com.)
The Wheel of Time Reread is also available as an e-book series! Yay!
All Reread Redux posts will contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series, so if you haven’t read, read at your own risk.
And now, the post!
Before we begin, a reminder that the format of the Reread Redux has changed: from now on I am only going to be commenting on chapters in which my reaction has changed significantly from before, based on the knowledge I had at the time. However, there’s no skip from last post this time (other than starting a new book), so it’s all good!
Onward!
Prologue: The First Sparks Fall
[In this chapter: Elaida’s small council discusses the State of The Randland Non-Union (verdict: hot mess) while ignoring Elaida, to which slight she responds with all her characteristic grace and restraint; Fain is in the Tower to steal back his dagger and be gross at everyone; Rahvin’s hobby of being even grosser gets interrupted for an impromptu Evil Plotting Symposium with Lanfear, Sammael, and Graendal.]
Redux Commentary
I said in the original commentary that “the truly annoying thing about Elaida is that she is really perfectly believable in her incapacity to recognize how fundamentally unsuited for leadership she is”, and that is, unquestionably, very annoying. But actually I think the MOST annoying thing about her is that even though she perfectly demonstrates here why she is a crap leader, she also manages to be the only person in the room who correctly identifies what the Tower’s overriding concern should actually be. Which is, of course, Rand, and that whole thing where he is supposed to save-slash-destroy the world.
Granted, I’m not sure how much kudos Elaida deserves for that observation, considering that the reason no one else is dealing with The Rand Issue is mostly because they’re being secretly manipulated by (a) the head of the Black Ajah and (b) an actual frickin’ Forsaken in the room. And Elaida certainly loses any kudos-ward claims whatsoever once it becomes clear later on what her eventual method for “dealing” with The Rand Issue is, because correctly identifying problems do you no good whatsoever in the Great Leader department if you then come up with the most boneheaded solutions possible to solve them. Ugh.
Elaida is, actually, a great character in an objective sense. I can’t stand her, but that’s because, as I said, she is so believable a tinpot despot: someone with the ambition and drive and hubris to claw for greatness, but with none of the intelligence or compassion or subtlety that would keep her from wrecking it once she gets it. She is weirdly pathetic in her inner (and not so inner) tantrums over why she isn’t just automatically given the respect she feels she’s owed, because she simply does not have the emotional maturity to realize that that’s not how respect works.
Well. At least this time around I can be content in the knowledge that eventually her comeuppance will… uh, come up. Smell ya later, Suffa!
[Aaand then we skip over some stuff. What we missed: Min, Leane, and Siuan go on trial; Leane stretches her flirtin’ muscles, but Gareth Bryne sentences them to community service anyway. Siuan makes them all swear the most excellent promise they can make to serve him, and then they all promptly run for the hills. Bryne is like How About No, and decides to go after them. High Lady Alteima comes to Caemlyn to curry favor with Morgase and also dodge that pesky murder charge back in Tear, but instead finds herself dancing to a certain Forsaken’s extremely rape-y tune, ugh. Rand argues with Moiraine about where he should herd his Aiel cats and starts visibly leaking Lews Therin. Then he gets subpar saidin lessons from Asmodean, yay. Mat sings thousand-year-old drinking songs and is accidentally badass, and acquires a potential Maiden assassin love interest.]
Chapter 4: Twilight
[In this chapter: Rand dodges the Maidens’ fussing and tries to go to sleep, but Aviendha insists on letting him know that she owes no debt to him and also that she hates him and he belongs to Elayne, and Rand takes exception to all of that. Then Isendre comes in all nekkid in the middle of their fight, which just makes everything worse, but eventually Rand gets to sleep and have nice dreams of Aviendha (and Min and Elayne) anyway.]
Redux Commentary
So I spun a delightfully semi-coherent theory in the original commentary to this chapter, in which I basically contended that even as annoying as it frequently was, it was the good female characters’ refusal to treat Rand as (and I quote) “Super Special Hero Savior Guy” that kept him sane throughout the books—or at least as far as KOD, which is as far as I’d read at the time. And contrariwise, it was the bad female characters’ treatment of Rand which came closest to breaking him.
At the time, of course, I was thinking of Rand being locked in a box and beaten for kicks in LOC by the Tower Aes Sedai for my best example of the latter, but since then TGS has blown that debacle straight out of the water, courtesy of Semirhage and the Sad Bracelets—a scene which still even now makes me want to kill it with fire every time I think about it.
That said, at the same time TGS also seemingly contradicted my former assertion, when Cadsuane and Nynaeve not only failed to shake Rand out of his downward insanity/rage spiral, they made it worse. Given that Cadsuane in particular was the quintessential example of the Not Treating Rand Like Super Special Hero Savior Guy Tactic, the fact that she spectacularly failed to keep Rand’s cheese from slipping off his cracker seems almost like a deliberate subversion of this ongoing theme from the earlier books.
The implication of the events at the end of TGS, therefore, is that after a certain point, there wasn’t anything that anyone else could have done for Rand re: healing his broken soul and finding inner peace and etc. In the end, it was just him. And Lews Therin and a phenomenal cosmic buttload of Power, but, basically, just Rand.
Which is interesting. I like it, and I agree with the idea, but I think I now recognize why it felt a little bit weird in a WOT context. One of Jordan’s central themes was always revolving around the binary/dual nature of the Power: that the greatest things were always done with men and women working together, that the balance between the two was essential for balance overall, etc. Which… doesn’t really fit, thematically, with most of what happened in TGS.
I dunno, what do you think? Am I totally off base here?
Tell me your thoughts, sez I! And then come back in two weeks for more delicious Reread Redux goodness, y/y? Later!
long time reader, first time comment.
Maybe the balance wasn’t in the female/male, saidin/saidar sense, I am thinking it was in the power/no power sense. The choice of use up the power to achieve the end, or cancel the power to achieve something better. It was a plain old comment from a (spectacularly) ordinary man that allowed Rand to give up the idea of using his power to end it all.
“Why do you fight?” Tam asked.
I always thought the effects of Fain’s influence on Elaida have been under appreciated, specifically the paranoia/obsessive qualities he seems to instill in his targets. It did not come to much over the remainder of the series, but at this point his ability to influence people towards the shadar logoth impulses of political paranoia and backstabbing were his main weapons. Although they never did get much emphasis in the conversation on Elaida in the boards I was a part of (WOTmania when this was newer territory).
I have not found a good timeline of how long Fain was in the tower with Elaida, anyone know a place to dig more?
Hello. I think the male/female dynamic was there, but sort of out of sequence.
Egwene was was doing a good job resisting the Tower Aes Sedai, but didn’t turn the corner and really impress everyone until she had her epiphany about embracing pain (putting the state of the world before her own pain). Then Rand had his epiphany later at the end of TGS.
So, if Brandon was able to pull those scenes closer together, I think the link would be more obvious, but it wouldn’t have worked, plot-wise
MadCarigan @2: I agree about Fain’s influence on Elaida. Elaida was always ambitious. But she was observant and smart. I think if Elaida was the Elaida who resulted after Fain’s influence took root, then she would not have been able to orchestrate pulling down Siuan. A Fain induced persona coupled with the head Balck Ajah’s manipulation leads to a broken loyalist Tower. (The broken state Egwene found when she was captured).
Even without Fain and the Balck Ajah, Elaida would have not have been the best representative to deal with Rand. The Red in her, plus her not realizing how dangerous Rand truly was (at least in her mind) when she saw him in TEotW, probably was too much for her to overcome. Yet not all Reds were unredeemable (see Pevara or Siviana). So maybe she could have seen reason. Or at least, to copy’s Egwene’s plan for the Aiel in ToM: use invisible binds to control Rand.
I believe the old man Rahvin sees when Graendal opens the gateway is Jain Farstrider.
I just noticed that Jain’s nickname (Farstrider) is similar to Aragon’s alias when he first appears in the Lord of the Rings (Strider). Could this be another easter egg that RJ put into the WoT to honor Tolkein?
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
Your bracketed synopses of the books are cracking me up.
I think there is a difference between how Cadsuane and the other ‘good’ characters treated Rand when it comes to not treating him like a special Savior Guy, but I’m a bit too tired to suss it out. Maybe just that the good characters still seemed to have genuine affection/respect for Rand, whereas Cadsuane seemed mostly to treat him like a wayward child?
Jain is the Marco Polo equivalent of Randland. That is what Farstrider refers to.
It has been some time since I read TFOH, because I remember thinking: that´s a lot of Aes Sedai there with Elaida, you know, names I probably don´t need to remember since they most likely won´t be that important later on… Now when I reread it… Light! Alviarin and Evanellein and Mesaana herself… I almost feel sorry for Elaida. And Teslyn and Joline… is this the first time they appear? And Shemerin… I was just rereading TGS the other day. Actually, TGS – the Egwene chapters are the ones I reread most often. So I remember how this all ends really well.
I wonder, how differently would things go without Fain´s influence. Would Elaida be more predictable, and thus easier to be manipulated by black ajah?
I agree with #5 – The difference between Cadsuane (and to a lesser extent the Aiel Wise Ones) and the other female protagonists is why they treat him that way. Egwene/Elayne/Aviendha/Nynaeve/Min all treat him like an arrogant idiot because they either remember the humble boy he was or genuinely love him (in a romantic sense) and want what’s best for him, not the necessarily the world.
By contrast, the Wise Ones are explicitly in it to save as many of the Aiel as possible. That this often dovetails with making him a wiser, more compassionate leader doesn’t erase the driving motivation. And frankly, Cadsuane often struck me as someone who was in it as much for the street cred of “training” the Dragon Reborn as she was for saving the world. And certainly not for Rand, who she doesn’t know from Adam.
Moiraine is the best example of this. Once Rand comes to realize that her loyalties have shifted from the Tower to him, their relationship becomes much more comfortable, something Moiraine herself admits. Part of that is the exigency of how the plot changed from TeotW and TGH to the more epic nature of the series after tDR, I think.
And this makes sense in all his other relationships. His most trusted subordinates are invariably the ones he doesn’t suspect of using him for some other purpose. Dobraine and Bashere are talented men content in their position. Berelain wants protection from Tear, but also is put in power because she can be trusted (or is incapable, politically) of not using it to advance either Tairen or Cairhienin interest.
And given that TGS-Rand is literally going insane due to pure evil seeping into his brain, it’s not really kosher to blame him or them for the way. You could also stretch the previous point by saying that over the course of that novel Rand suspects that Nynaeve’s priorities are shifting from helping him to helping Lan by manipulating him into moving north.
The difference in the females who don’t treat Rand as the Big Special Hero comes down to this:
Aviendha/Elayne/Min: Treated Rand like a man, not a boy, and asked “What are you going to do?”
Nynaeve/Cadsuane/Egwene-to-some-degree: Treated Rand like a boy, not a man, and said “This is what you should(n’t) do.”
And now, for fun, I will post a snippet of ISAM’s Wheel of Time summary, one that covers roughly the chapters that are covered in this Reread-Redux:
Elaida: Fain, I am looking for a new advisor. Tell me your qualifications.
Fain: Well, I am filthy, insane, and evil.
Elaida: You’re hired. Advise me.
Fain: You must become crazier. Look how well it’s done for me.
Elaida: Good advice.
—————
Gareth Bryne: I used to control Andor’s armies. Now I preside over local trials involving livestock burning. You have killed a man’s livestock. You will work for me. I suddenly love you.
Siuan: I used to control the White Tower. Now I hide in barns. I agree to work for you. I must run away. And I suddenly love you.
—————
Egwene: Rand al’Thor! As an honorary Aes Sedai, you must listen to me!
Rand: I thought you were an honorary Aiel.
Egwene: I’m both. It’s called “Aiel Sedai.” It’s when you’re arrogant enough for two cultures.
—————
Nynaeve: I’m wearing a green silk dress with slashes of white with snowy white lace in a floral pattern. It has the faces of cherubs sewn into the sides, and the picture of deer running gracefully through a wooded stream in the skirt. It shows generous cleavage.
Elayne: I’m wearing a dark blue silk dress with a pattern of black lace. It has actual thread-of-gold woven into the bodice, telling the story of my childhood, including the part when I skinned my knee trying to climb a leatherleaf tree in Master Hanson’s orchard. It shows generous cleavage.
Nynaeve: I miss good, stout Two Rivers woolens.
Elayne: Maybe you could by some wool dresses.
Nynaeve: I’m far too important for that, according to my estimation of myself. Since we’re keeping only the bare essentials on our mission to save the world, how many dresses have we packed in our wagon?
Elayne: Five hundred and eighty-four.
————-
Rand: Too bad no one killed Couladin when we had the chance.
Rhuarc: That would violate ji’e’toh.
Rand: ji’e’toh restricts you from stopping madmen warlords?
Rhuarc: Yes. The rule is madmen warlords can try to kill you, and everyone near you, and everyone else who isn’t near you, and everyone they know, and everyone they thought was looking at them funny.
Rand: What does ji’e’toh let me do?
Rhuarc: You can mutter under your breath.
Rand: Shaido dogs.
Rhuarc: Now you’re getting it.
————-
Melaine: Sorilea, you must help me marry Bael.
Sorilea: I will give you the Offer Dagger, which you will use to stab him in the shoulder as a sign of your love.
Melaine: I hope he will club me with the Acceptance Club, which will show his acceptance of my offer.
Sorilea: Then you will whip him with the Joy Whip, which will show your joy,
Melaine: And he will pelt me with the Honeymoon Pebbles.
Sorilea: And eventually, you will attack him with the Childbirth Spear.
Melaine: Then we will all beat ourselves with the Moron Bat.
“someone with the ambition and drive and hubris to claw for greatness, but with none of the intelligence or compassion or subtlety that would keep her from wrecking it once she gets it. She is weirdly pathetic in her inner (and not so inner) tantrums over why she isn’t just automatically given the respect she feels she’s owed, because she simply does not have the emotional maturity to realize that that’s not how respect works.”
That sounds remarkably like President Shit Demon.
@10 Is it possible to be civil when it comes to politics? If someone had said the same thing about President Obama, the Moderator would have deleted their comment and given us a friendly reminder be of the rules in the comments section. I get you hate President Trump, but name-calling gets us no-where.
Edited to add: Yes, that does sound like President Trump. I suspect that’s what Leigh was subtly inferring.
@10, 11: Sometimes commenters are able to chime in faster than the mods, but yes: let’s please keep the Moderation Policy in mind, here, avoid name-calling, and stay on topic/avoid derailing the conversation. Thanks.
KalvinKingsley @9. I liked the Melaine and Sorilea conversation from the ISAM WoT summary. Biologically speaking, however, I think Bael should have been the person to wield the Childbirth Spear. Just saying. :)
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
@9: Thanks for alerting us to the ISAM summaries! I saw some of them somewhere long ago, but had forgotten about them and their greatness.
Evenellein, Javindhra, Teslyn…how does he come up with these names?
Well I’m finally caught up. I started rereading the Reread when I started my new job back in August 2016 and it has taken me this long to catch up to everyone here in the Redux in real time. Granted, I was actually working also :) Now on to the Dune reread!
Lurking and enjoying the redux as I (slowly) read the series again.
What’s the problem with at least two sections this morning? Both the Dune re-read and the Wheel of Time reread redux will not show the comments. And the “skip to newest” and “skip to unread” buttons do absolutely nothing.
Not a lot to say about the Prologue, but what I do want to say is, I think, some interesting tidbits and observations.
First, confession time: why I don’t know, but before I ever read TFoH in its entirety, I happened to be glancing at the starts of the chapters (I think to see the icons?), and thus I about had a heart attack (and then started snarling and saying very ungentlemanly things) when I saw the first line identifying Elaida as the Amyrlin. Since I had not yet read the coup chapter in TSR, I think my reaction interestingly paralleled how Egwene reacted when she found Elaida’s letter in the TAR Amyrlin’s study. Of course I was then champing at the bit, fervently praying Siuan wasn’t dead and wondering when the other characters would learn what happened in the Tower. So I made a whole new kind of suspense for myself!
As to the content: I find it very important to note, with the hindsight of having completed the series, how many of Elaida’s council were secretly of the Shadow: Danelle/Mesaana, Alviarin, and Evanellein; plus Javindhra later gets Turned. We don’t know about the other Reds or Whites, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more of them were. As for the others…we have Joline and Teslyn who get shipped off to Ebou Dar, Shemerin who I still feel sorry for despite her clear lack of fitness to be Aes Sedai (forget staying calm, she simply doesn’t seem like she can handle stress or pressure in general), and Andaya who was just a replacement Sitter courtesy of the Ajah Heads. So basically everyone in this council we know by name is either of the Shadow (or will be), or ends up removed or made irrelevant in some way over time. This cannot be an accident–I’m sure Alviarin (either at Mesaana’s behest or more likely on her own initiative) made sure the council had these specific members–heck, she could even have known Teslyn and Joline would end up rubbing Elaida the wrong way and thus they wouldn’t be a problem. So right from the start, Alviarin had Elaida under her thumb, and she didn’t even know it yet. I take my hat off to you, Ms. Freidhen. :P
Side note: love the irony that not only do we not know yet that Alviarin is Black (let alone how high a rank she has), or that Mesaana is in the Tower, but Alviarin doesn’t know she’s sitting right in the same room with Mesaana. Well done, Jordan. Similarly, note how Alviarin is all “I’m having forged letters from Elayne sent to Morgase to keep her complacent” and doesn’t even know Rahvin is Gaebril and Compelling her (so to a certain extent this subterfuge isn’t that necessary). Her commentary on Bashere, Tenobia, and Taim is rather fun too, since it had to be Blacks sent by her who intercepted Siuan’s party she sent to recapture the false Dragon, and I am still convinced Be’lal pulled her into TAR in order to get her to specifically help bring Taim to the Shadow for Liandrin/Joiya’s plan (even if it ended up co-opted by Demandred and Moridin). Unless I’m wrong about the reason he did that, the fact Alviarin claims in the prologue of ACoS that she didn’t know why he pulled her in and gave her orders suggests this is another genuine point of the Shadow having conflicting plans it doesn’t explain to its minions.
On Elaida: let me just point out two things which only further underscore how she is almost a good leader but misses the mark in ways to screw things up badly. One, the triptych of Bonwhin. The fact she wants to remember a great failure of the Reds could have been a sign of wisdom, that she wants to learn from the past and do better. But instead why does she have it there? Not to tell her what not to do with Rand, but just to remind her what happens when the Tower fails (or Reds in particular). Ugh. Two, when she’s thinking about Siuan and Moiraine having known who Rand really was, she immediately jumps to “ALL the Blues must have known!” and that she’ll not rest till she destroys the Ajah. I don’t think I need to mention what this sort of all or nothing, everyone is against me conspiracy thinking sounds like in current politics, so I’ll just say that a leader who makes generalizations like this is a very poor one indeed.
Also, whatever else can be said about Fain, his assessment of Elaida is totally on the mark. Don’t you hate it when the only one who understands people and is thus able to counter or manipulate them to their own ends is a villain? On a related note, we can only assume Fain got in to see Elaida by claiming to have knowledge of Rand (from his visits to the Two Rivers, of course, and more). Very clever indeed, probably one of the few things at this point that could catch Elaida’s attention, especially from a man.
But why did Alviarin give Fain that look, anyway? In the scene later when he steals the dagger back she doesn’t seem to know what he really is…could she have sensed the Dark One’s Hound aspect of him, due to being so steeped in the Shadow herself, but nothing else?
And speaking of looks, I admit to being skeptical of Elaida’s assessment of the entirety of her council being frozen, unable to speak or look at Rand’s portrait–or more specifically, Danelle. (Evanellein, yes–Liandrin and her coven point out several times in their thoughts how much they still think like their former Ajahs, and a number of Blacks specifically still show fear/revulsion toward men who can channel. Sheriam and Delana come to mind first and I’m sure there are others. The point is, old habits die hard, and most Blacks were Aes Sedai first before joining the Shadow and so would hold to the prejudices and culture of the Tower in a lot of ways.) Anyway, but Mesaana should have no reason to react to Rand this way, so I am guessing either Elaida completely misinterpreted her face/stance, or she didn’t even look at her because she’s just a lowly Brown, or that Mesaana is a good actress and so feigned the same reaction as the others.
Finally, I have to agree it’s odd Fain still wants the Horn of Valere. The only thing I can think is that he can sense the link between it and Mat, and he wants it to lead him to Mat because his Mordeth half still hates Mat for stealing the dagger in the first place.
As for the Forsaken Symposium of Evil Plotting, I have to say that while bringing the villains out of the shadows may have made them less creepy and disturbing for the most part, I always enjoyed them just because I found the Forsakens’ different personalities and interactions fascinating as much as they were often repellent. (Case in point: the ‘standards’ they have which allow them to judge/look down on each other even as they continue to do horrible things–Rahvin seems to find the fact Sammael kept his scar and wouldn’t heal it until Lews Therin was dead to be petty and ridiculous, which it is, but he also judges Graendal for not being as ‘finessed’ as he is with Compulsion. While this may be true on a technical level–she can leave her victims themselves, as when she Compels the Great Captains, but usually she ruins their minds; what he does to Morgase is awful but does genuinely leave her mostly still herself–it ignores that what he does is still just as horrible, even more so in some ways. And of course he also combines it with rape; I’m not sure if Graendal ever goes that far with her pets, despite being a sensualist and hedonist I don’t think it’s ever confirmed.)
Ironically, this scene is also the one that I think cemented for me a liking for Graendal despite her horrific use of Compulsion. She’s just so deliciously nasty and snarky toward the others–I absolutely enjoyed her cattiness toward Lanfear and I still do to this day. While there was a certain amount of such attitude from all the Forsaken in this scene, Graendal got the lion’s share…and since this is the first time we see her onscreen, it left far more of an impression on me than Sammael and Rahvin did.
(Side note: there are some fun comments in this scene between Lanfear and Graendal that I think were clues toward Graendal killing Asmodean at the end of the book and why–that per my theory, they were once allies. First, the whole catty bit. When does this happen? Right after Lanfear reveals Asmodean has joined Rand. As if Graendal very much wanted to change the subject? Because she didn’t want anyone to pry too closely into what Asmo might know or why he went over?
Then in retaliation for this a bit later, Lanfear suggests Rand might make Graendal into his pet instead, and notes she “won’t even be able to make Asmodean’s choice”. This is in the context of not being able to teach Rand because she’s a woman, but it is certainly interesting if read in the light that Lanfear knows very well Asmodean and Graendal had been allied…since she would basically be implying Graendal would make the same choice (change sides). Because they have something in common? Because they had been allies? Lanfear is certainly drawing a line between the two of them with her statement, thus justifying further Graendal’s fears of being linked with Asmo, and this being a reason to kill him.)
Lastly, Graendal’s old man. For so long everyone thought this was King Aslalam, something which was disproven by ToM. But it isn’t until the Companion we had it confirmed it was the other main suspect: Noal Charin/Jain Farstrider. We can only assume that after he left Stedding Shangtai, Ishamael found him again and gave him to Graendal for use as a Compelled spy, thus explaining his screwed-up memories. But for whatever reason (I suppose because she didn’t want to do Ishy’s bidding? Because she wanted to cause more trouble for Sammael, once she found out he was seeking the ‘greal stash in Ebou Dar? Because she was more interested in Arad Doman?), she decided to send Noal to Ebou Dar and didn’t do anything further to or with him. Thus explaining why he could have been Compelled and had his mind damaged but not turn out to be a secret mole to betray Mat. Though before doing this, I still think she could have used him to give information about the current Age to Asmodean, to help with his Jasin Natael disguise. (Jain did, after all, translate a version of the Karaethon Cycle himself.)
Okay so there was more to say than I thought. Quelle surprise. :P But there really isn’t much to say about Chapter 1, or the ones Leigh skipped. I think she covered the whole thing with Leane and Domani ways quite well the first time around, and agree–as offensive as it might seem to some to have women use sex (or at least, sexual attractiveness) as a weapon, not only does this have a very long tradition, if you are weak/stupid/controlled by your desires enough to fall prey to it, you deserve your fate. Particularly when you should be focused on something as important as the merchant trade, diplomacy, or (as with Bryne) legal proceedings. The fact Bryne didn’t fall prey to it (but was still able to appreciate and critique her technique) is both funny and says a lot about him as a character.
Also: interesting that Leane described her previous life as an Aes Sedai (and not a seductive Domani) as “she was masquerading as someone else, and after a while it seemed too late to ever take the mask off”, since this rather resonates with Min’s vision of her screaming through a mask of her own face. While obviously that vision referred to her stilling, it seems it could have a second meaning.
While obviously Siuan’s oath and how she gets out of it is both typical Aes Sedai evasiveness and proof of her being freed of the Oaths, I actually think she is absolutely correct in her assessment. Bryne obviously expected her to be swearing service to him immediately (so the timeframe was implied), but she really didn’t say when…and as long as she didn’t, she could easily return at a later date to fulfill it. And I think if matters had gone otherwise, she would have. But instead her rightful insistence that getting to the Blue gathering to bring down Elaida and help Rand so the world would survive the Last Battle was more important than serving now, plus that look in her eyes, drew Bryne after her and the rest is history.
And: “this land had belonged to his House for a thousand years, since there was an Andor, but now the line would end with him.” So it would…damnit. *tears up*
On a lighter note, I still love Bryne’s assessment of Siuan, and what she would do to an “upstart claimant.”
If we needed any more proof how astute Morgase is, even when under Compulsion: “A frightened shepherd boy, trying not to show it. Yet thinking back, he seemed to be looking for some — escape.” As for the whole plot with her and Gaebril, and where her life goes after this…much more to be said about this later. But while I’m not sure I am completely satisfied with where she ends up (aside from her subplot being an example according to Jordan of how the Wheel/Pattern can make the high low), I will say I am very happy she got to find love again with Tallanvor and do what she does for Perrin and Elayne. So it makes it a bit better reading this, knowing where she’ll end up.
Minor continuity error: in ToM we find out Graendal has a Tairen High Lady as one of her new pets, and it is assumed from her description it is Alteima, claimed when Graendal was in Caemlyn and killed Asmo…but the Companion says she fled Caemlyn after Rahvin’s death and the fading of his Compulsion, and ended up becoming a refugee and lady’s maid. So…was the High Lady Graendal had someone else? Or did Sanderson change what Jordan had originally decreed as her fate in the notes that became the Companion?
The only thing of consequence I have to say about Chapter 2 (since the Aiel’s plight is quite obvious and heartbreaking) is the bit where Moiraine reveals the heartstone of the seals is able to be damaged. Because I remember the first time I read this reacting like Rand, along with “Oh, shit!” Even though nothing will come of this for a very long time, Jordan was very good at planting these seeds early to show how dire things are, or will be, so as to slowly up the stakes. Great way to deal with a coming apocalypse without having it, er, come too soon.
Oh, and the Lews Therin voice. I think I’ll leave that until he becomes prominent (and actually speaking) in LoC, though I’m pretty sure I mentioned my thoughts on him in relation to TGS. I will say it seemed perfectly reasonable to expect in a fantasy world with this specific conceit (both the Wheel of Time itself, and Rand’s nature as the Dragon Reborn specifically), and I seem to recall being both fascinated and rather worried. Foresight, I has it!
Chapter 3: Don’t particularly feel like getting into matters of the Power, strength, and gender; after already speaking before on my thoughts regarding fighting saidin and surrendering to saidar, I don’t think I need to say more than that while I can understand the desire to twitch at seeming sexism, people made it clear on the original post that generally speaking, on average more men are stronger than more women, and that the exceptions (of weak men and strong women) correlates well to how Asmo speaks here of men and women using the Power, and leave it at that.
Instead I’ll poke briefly at what is my usual wont, Asmo and Graendal–the obvious link in him having been in Arad Doman where she was (surely doing research at the Terhana Library while allied with her), and also that the Forsaken whose locations he knows (Rahvin, Graendal herself, Moghedien, and Sammael) match the ones Graendal knew of, and the ones he didn’t (Semirhage, Mesaana, Demandred) were the same ones Graendal hadn’t located yet. QED. Also his story about the man on the cliff, and Rand asking if he saved him, being strikingly mirrored later with the story of the bird choking on the fish that Taim told Pevara in ToM, which I mentioned then.
Mat scene: Ah, so much nostalgia, the first appearance of “Jak o’ the Shadows”! And of Mat thinking about his memories and how they work, which…yeah, literally mind-boggling to contemplate. Utterly cool magic though. I’d also forgotten about the bit with the dagger in the wood, and the chilling moment when Rand only answered Mat after being called Lews Therin… So Mat didn’t trust Kadere even without Rand’s advice? Does that mean he suspected he was a Darkfriend on his own? Or is this Mat’s usual distrust of strangers at work?
Lastly, I always liked Melindhra and her relationship with Mat. It’s a shame she turned out to be a Darkfriend.
Chapter 4: And we have the necklace from Egwene that will bother Rand for several more books, rather like Elayne’s two letters. Oddly, unlike the letters, the necklace amused me. Probably because there was such a simple solution, but Rand didn’t think of it–or if he did he figured Aviendha wouldn’t tell him, and since he’s also avoiding Egwene because of how close she is to both the Wise Ones and Moiraine…
The belt buckle: Rand still has this later, I’m certain of it, but I can’t recall where it gets mentioned again. Is it when he goes to Shayol Ghul?
Still feel sorry for Isendre. Oh, and the bit where Rand is thinking of the Darkfriend merchant woman he killed back in TDR I think proves I was right to single out this incident (both that it happened at all and the manner in which he did it) as the source of Rand’s insane line in the sand regarding his morality.
Finally as for Leigh’s theory about women vs. men in how they treat Rand. The original theory was pretty neat (and not anywhere near as badly articulated as she made out), and I agree with it…and the exception she pointed out now in TGS doesn’t, IMO, invalidate the theory for several reasons. Aside from Semirhage obviously being another example of a bad woman whose mistreatment of him made his lot worse, Cadsuane has…obviously not held a soft spot in many readers’ hearts, most especially for the methods she used with Rand. I.e., they wouldn’t actually consider her one of the “good” women around Rand at all. So to have her turn out to be one of the women who end up being bad for Rand even though she is also one of those who doesn’t treat him like he’s Super Special Hero Savior Guy wouldn’t really surprise most readers–because in her case the fact she doesn’t let him get a swelled head is trumped by her attitude toward him which is as geared to infuriate him as much as Elaida or any Aes Sedai who isn’t Moiraine or Siuan.
At the same time, it can’t be denied that, whether a particular reader (or Leigh) agrees this was well done or not, it’s pretty clear that the interpretation of events in TGS which Team Jordan intended was for Cadsuane’s mistreatment of Rand to have indirectly done the best for him out of any of the women in his life–since the whole business with Tam and what Rand almost did to him is what led to Dragonmount and the “laughter and tears” she was always supposed to teach him. So even though she had to push him to absolute rock bottom to get there, in the end Cadsuane was still one of the women who was better for Rand: because she saw he needed laughter and tears to be the savior and not the destroyer, and by trying to ground him in his humanity and non-specialness she was pushing him toward that realization.
Finally, the lack of balance thing. This is likely intentional, because Rand himself was out of balance. So even apart from Cadsuane’s role in the matter, Rand being so unbalanced would indeed mean that in the end, he’s the only one who could fix his balance. At the same time, keep in mind both Nynaeve and Cadsuane were involved in the plan, and also Tam, so that’s an equal number of men and women; just because the final moment involved Rand alone doesn’t mean there was no balance beforehand. And lastly, keep in mind what Min said, when Cadsuane, Nynaeve, and Tam were arguing about what happened: that as much as they were trying to save Rand’s humanity for the world’s sake and his own, the reason things got as bad as they did was because they were trying to make him be/do what they wanted. So instead of acting as a balancing force in his life by treating him normally, they were trying to force the issue. The theory worked when it just involved women’s regular everyday interactions with him, it only went out the window when the women actively tried to make him into what they (rightfully) thought he should be as a sane and heroic figure. Because at that point they weren’t saying he was just some guy, but that because he was the Chosen One without whom they would fail, he couldn’t afford to be or act like anything but a normal sane guy. As true as this was, it took the matter out of the realms of reassurance of normalcy and into “your destiny and our survival is too important to leave this to chance, but you have to act like you’re still normal. No pressure.” So it became unbalanced and failed. At least that’s my take.
@1 Samadai: Good point! Also remember that the other thing which helped save him was remembering Ilyena, that she could live again too so he’d get another chance at love. So a woman was still key in helping him achieve balance.
@2 MadCardigan: Agreed, though notice that she was acting pretty nutty even before Fain got hold of her (see my point about instantly assuming all the Blues were in a conspiracy against her just because Siuan and Moiraine knew the truth about Rand). So he probably didn’t have to do much. (And he wasn’t there long, just long enough to get the dagger and split. Steven Cooper’s timeline says it was only about 20 days: http://www.stevenac.net/wot/tl0999.htm#book5 .)
@3 FSS: Interesting point.
@@.-@ AndrewHB: Re: Jain/Aragorn–now that’s something I never thought of. Intriguing and fun, could well be!
@5 Lisamarie: Yes. Even after the Domination Band scene, Rand listened to and trusted Nynaeve because he knew she cared about him rather than just the Last Battle. So even though she was involved in bringing Tam to him, the negative fallout of that is not really her fault, just Cadsuane’s, thus allowing her to still be in the “women who see Rand as Rand and want to help him for his own sake” camp.
@7 Tessuna: *grins* Glad to see I’m not the only one enjoying the significance of Elaida’s council.
@8 Andy: Well said.
@9 KalvinKingsley: LOL! I will never stop laughing at ISAM’s parody.
@10 olethros6: That’s exactly what I thought too, and absolutely loved Leigh for her spot-on commentary.
@5, I think the difference is Elayne, Aviendha and Min love the ordinary man under the savior/chosen one and are reaching out to him and supporting him while Cadsuane doesn’t much care about the man under the role but is intent on knocking down hm down to keep him humble. Like her.