Heeeeeeey, Tor.com. This here is a Wheel of Time Reread Redux, and don’t you forget it!
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapter 7 of The Fires of Heaven, originally reread in this post.
All original posts are listed in The Wheel of Time Reread Index here, and all Redux posts will also be archived there as well. (The Wheel of Time Master Index, as always, is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general on Tor.com.)
The Wheel of Time Reread is also available as an e-book series! Yay!
All Reread Redux posts will contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series, so if you haven’t read, read at your own risk.
And now, the post!
Before we 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.
What we missed from last time: Moiraine tries to sweat-hug it out with the Wise Ones, and mostly fails. Egwene learns more about the wacky world of ji’e’toh, and doesn’t even notice how well she’s already following it. Rand gets threatened-slash-perved on by Lanfear, and can’t kill her because his other name is Captain Stubborn McChivalry. He kills some Darkhounds with BALEFIRE OMG, and Moiraine is so unnerved by this she offers to swear an oath of fidelity to Rand, which unnerves everyone else in turn.
Onward!
Chapter 7: A Departure
Redux Commentary
[In this chapter: Egwene creeps on everyone’s dreams, because hahaha ethical boundaries what are those; Rand makes it rain in Rhuidean, yeah baby; Moiraine and Lan argue over her new oath of fealty to Rand because Lan has A Bad Feeling About This.]
Aviendha’s dream had been too painful to watch for long. Naked but for that ivory bracelet, and that seeming to drag at her as if it weighed a hundred pounds, Aviendha had been running as hard as she could across a cracked clay flat. And behind her, Rand came, a giant twice the size of an Ogier on a huge Jeade’en, slowly but inexorably catching up.
It’s funny how in stories people’s dreams always seem to be some kind of fairly direct clue as to either their character or their current dilemmas. Because in my experience, actual dreams tend to be a lot more random/obscure. Like the nightmare I had a few days ago where I dreamed I was trying to sell my customers Slurpees (FYI I’ve never worked anywhere that would remotely require Slurpee distribution), but every time I tried to make one, cockroaches would fall from the ceiling into the drinks, and no one would take them.
I mean, that probably means something, but compared to Aviendha’s dream that Egwene spied on, it’s pretty maddeningly unspecific. And gross. Egh.
Also, stop snooping in people’s dreams, Egwene, that is hella uncool! Even if it helps with exposition!
I mentioned in the original commentary to this chapter that I couldn’t quite picture Moiraine being in a romantic relationship with anyone, even Thom, and that if Brandon actually managed to pull off a successful romantic scene with her and Thom that I would be very impressed.
And now that the series is finished, I… think that Brandon actually did deliver on this, sort of, in the sense that Thom and Moiraine’s reunion-and-engagement scene in TOM was refreshingly pragmatic and, well, unromantic AND romantic at the same time. I confess, I’m rather a secret fan of the style of proposal which amounts to “Welp, we should probably get married then, huh” and “eh, sure, let’s”. Which is totally how Thom and Moiraine get engaged in TOM, and it was weirdly perfect.
In other news, in light of what Aviendha ends up doing in Rhuidean in TOM, I find Moiraine’s thought re: going through the rings here very prescient:
Death was possible in those, too; some women could not face the future any more than others could face the past.
Fortunately, it turns out Aviendha is having none of your paranoia re: finding out through freaky ter’angreal what happens in the future to her people, and it’s a good thing she did.
In other news, I wish to state for the record that, since 2009, I have totally and absolutely finished multiple games of Sodoku on the “hard” setting. SO THERE, past me.
And that’s what I got for now, kids! I’m cutting the post a little short today owing to an unexpected total lack of brain circumstances, but please do come back in two weeks for more – and also, more! I totes promise. Cheers!
