The Thirteenth Depository - A Wheel of Time Blog

Towers of Midnight Read-Through #1 : Opening Passage

2012-01-31T04:13:00.002-05:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

We haven’t heard from the Ogier since Knife of Dreams. As with the Black Tower, we have been deliberately kept in the dark about their activities.

In the extract from his book Loial notes the darkened sky – the absence of the Light. The Shadow is so strong that Wrongness is rampant as the Pattern is being unravelled by the Dark One (Wrongness is a major theme in the series, see my essay on it here). So much so that Treesongs don’t work even in Stedding.

Yet the Stedding are less affected by the Dark One’s touch than other places, since the Ogier dead are outside the Stedding and not apparently within it. They just stand and watch. It’s almost as though they want to say something or want the living Ogier to do something. I’m sure the feeling of being watched by the dead is scaring the Ogier into fleeing. It’s a great way to spread despair, because Ogier are sensitive to the rightness and wrongness of a place.

So, Loial is a postscript to the Stump. He wasn’t allowed to speak even though as a married man he is entitled to. We’ve seen the young given actual power in other groups, if by default, but the Ogier aren’t giving their younger adults any notice, not even granting them their entitlements. Young people have gained the highest responsibility in the human nations because the elders are disregarding the signs of the Shadow’s touch and now we see this is about to happen among the Ogier. Not following their own laws would have been previously unthinkable in Ogier. The incorruptible are now being corrupted – the wrongness of the Shadow has developed to its full extent as the Light’s champion is dark and despairing and corrupted by his link to the Shadow’s champion.

It is interesting that Loial wonders why his mother insisted he be allowed to speak:

At first, I was forbidden, but my mother, Covril, demanded I have my chance. I do not know what sparked her change of heart, as she herself had argued quite decisively for the opposing side.

He expected her to be motivated by personal ambition foremost.

A few reasons why Covril had a change of heart might be:

motherly love and/or family ambition. For either reason she gave him his 15 minutes of fame (Ogier minutes) because she didn’t believe he’d make any difference to the decision since most were already on her side to open the Book of Translation.

She wanted to make sure all the forms were followed. Her “victory” would be all the more conclusive then; and, like Mat said, “victory settles a lot of arguments in most men’s heads” (The Fires of Heaven, Before the Arrow) for waverers.

A third possibility is that she thought his argument, or presentation of it, would only make her own look better in comparison. Perhaps she thought Loial would make such a poor showing that her arguments would be regarded even more favourably, but not so poor that he would shame the family though, or she would not have insisted he do it. Just not in her league. She heard Loial’s extempore speech before in Knife of Dreams and said it was ‘not bad’, which was somewhat patronising. The risk, of course, as the last paragraph hints is that he delivers a better version, and includes some factors that he did not know before, such as the presence on the mainland of Seanchan Ogier.

Lastly, was Covril ordered to obtain this concession for Loial? Or persuaded to do so by someone without her political clout? The Shadow could do this to sow further chaos and dissension with Ogier neither fighting nor fleeing, but arguing uselessly while the firing line moves closer to them.

Covril might be a Darkfriend or be influenced by a Darkfriend. In the Wotmania/Dragonmount interview in 2002 Jordan was asked if Ogier can be Darkfriends and answered: “Of course”. Considering that the Ogier are contemplating doing something that would greatly aid the Shadow, they are probably being pushed into it by Darkfriends. I have written a theory Covril is under the Shadow’s influence here). An influential and ambitious Speaker would be an obvious target for the Shadow. Covril’s actions here and on at least one earlier occasion when she spoke

from sunrise to sunset in favor of a very unpopular position without a single interruption, and the next day, no one had risen to Speak against her.

- Knife of Dreams, Vows

are divisive.

Loial narrates the passage from the future, so he apparently never does find out why she insisted he be allowed to speak.

As we have seen before, Loial is braver than he thinks. This may be a battle of words, but it’s still a battle, and, Verin’s claim to Rand that battles achieve little notwithstanding, could change history.

Loial feels a stillness when he gathers his resolve. The Stillness is to Ogier what the state of kodi is to Malkieri and the Oneness to Rand. By the Trees and Stillness is what Ogier vow and pray.

The Great Stump debates the opening of the Book of Translation (Knife of Dreams, Vows), but we know little about it beyond the name and that Ogier can use it to leave the world. It appears to be a teleportation device; some sort of artefact made in book shape since Ogier revere books, and this shape is convenient to carry. Translation is meant in the geometric sense of moving things without flipping or rotating. It sounds like a smooth transportation; however the debate on its usage will be anything but.

Now that Tarmon Gai’don is approaching, the mainland Ogier are tempted to bail out, open the Book of Translation and flee. Loial believes that the Ogier should not flee Tarmon Gai’don, but should stay and fight the Shadow alongside the humans. After all, if the Dark One wins Tarmon Gai’don, he will remake the world in his image and there would be no safe worlds to flee to (Knife of Dreams, Vows). Therefore opening the book before Tarmon Gai’don would be futile at best. At worst, by not contributing, the Ogier may ensure the Shadow wins.

If the Ogier leave this world and their stedding, will the Longing overtake them and kill them? Loial deduces the Elders at the Stump must have found suitable answers to this (Knife of Dreams, Vows).

What the mainland Ogier know is:

[they] must leave this world eventually so [they] can come to it when the Wheel turns…That is written.

- Knife of Dreams, Vows

It is not known where this piece of history or prophecy is written. The Seanchan Ogier have had a very different history to the mainland Ogier, being far more actively involved with humans in a military and police role. They may refuse to be transported by the Book of Translation whenever it is opened - if they are told of what the mainland Ogier are contemplating – and they may not have retained any knowledge of the Book’s existence or function.

Will the Book of Translation only move those who are nearby, or those who participate in a ritual, or all Ogier whether they wish to go, or even know about it, or not? Ogier know that they come and go to this world therefore Book of Translation may be linked to this world; and maybe only moves them between the Ogier home world and this one. It probably moves those who are in Stedding when the book is opened. Stedding don’t act like part of this world. They don’t show up in Tel’aran’rhiod, for instance, and are probably part of the Ogier’s home world.

The existence and previous use of the book could also ‘explain’ the few sightings of Ogier in some Ages – they would be a remnant population descended from those who were not present when the Book was opened and so did not leave the world. Our real world myths of reclusive giants represent the remnant Ogier who remain. It could also mean that the Ogier are not native to this world.

I believe that Covril has been influenced by the Shadow and that the Ogier are about to split: one group wanting to flee, the other to fight with the humans. Perhaps they fight each other for control of the Book.

This passage suggests so much but answers so little.

Audio clip of The Eye of The World plus Audiobook Giveaway!

2012-01-27T06:19:00.003-05:00

By Linda

The Year of the Dragon has begun and it will see the last volume of The Wheel of Time where, we hope, the Dragon Reborn will defeat the Dark One’s attempts to end the world.

Until the audio previews of a chapter of The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight , I had never heard the The Wheel of Time audiobooks, which means I really missed something. The audiobooks are published simultaneously with the printed books and amazingly, the same narrators, Kate Reading and Michael Kramer, have been with the series from the beginning.

In the run-up to the publication of A Memory of Light, I will be featuring the audiobooks by posting a clip from each audio volume of the series in turn provided to me by TOR every three weeks or so. TOR have also kindly provided me with a copy to give away to a lucky reader.

This week’s audioclip has Michael Kramer narrating an excerpt of Chapter 2 of The Eye of the World. The 7th reader to comment below will receive a digital download of The Eye of the World audiobook.

Click for The Eye Of The World Ch2webclip

The Theme of Wrongness

2011-12-20T06:25:00.004-05:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Bubbles of evil, living death, rot, foul stenches, large-scale sterility and the appropriation of a person’s will or body are all examples of wrongness – going against the Pattern, the proper order of things. The wrongness and horrors of the Last Days are a great tribulation and they come from a few sources, mainly originating with the Dark One.

The Dark One is inimical to the Pattern which is why his essence, the True Power, damages the Pattern. Yet good and ill are the warp and woof of the Pattern according to Moiraine, so while the Dark One is outside the Pattern, the Shadow’s effects on it are part of the Pattern. Each soul has to make their choice whether to keep with the Light or not.

Since Mordeth’s wrongness developed from a desire to destroy the Dark One, it too could be said to have been caused by the Shadow - although at second hand and entirely out of Mordeth’s choice.

People have a choice to do good or at least not commit evil, and channellers (non-Seanchan ones at least) are permitted to use most weaves with only Compulsion and balefire forbidden. Compulsion is the theft of will, a person’s capacity to choose their actions and desires. In extreme cases the victim is effectively living dead:

The only minions she’d [Graendal’d] let out of her sight were under Compulsion so heavy that it would kill them to remove it.

- Towers of Midnight, Prologue

The ultimate appropriation or compulsion of a person would be the turning of a channeller to the Shadow. This forced apostasy is the theft of a person’s integrity. The process brings character and moral defects to the fore at the expense of any positive characteristics, and the result of this effectively irreversible action (TOR Question of the Week) is someone deeply wrong:

Tarna smiled, a grimace that looked completely unnatural on her face. Like the smile on the lips of a corpse. She turned back to her writing.
Something is very, very wrong here, Pevara thought.

- Towers of Midnight, Gateways

And he saw what Norley had seen. Something was deeply wrong, something not quite alive inside those eyes. This didn't seem to be a man, but a parody of one.

- Towers of Midnight, Something Wrong

Balefire is another example of wrongness as its large-scale usage shows:

A wave of wrongness washed over her, a warping in the air, the Pattern itself rippling. A balescream, it was called—a moment when creation itself howled in pain.

- Towers of Midnight, Prologue

It is just a weave, as Perrin says in Towers of Midnight Darkness in the Tower, and can be performed by any channeller (those too weak to make it individually can link with others, use an angreal or the balefire rod ter’angreal), but it is evil, no matter who does it or for what purpose. So, Egwene was right to protest that it is not just a weave at all.

Balefire undoes time and causality, those foundations of the Pattern. In Lord of Chaos, the Dark One asked Demandred to unleash balefire – to use it to weaken the Pattern faster. Undoing time makes it possible for death to be undone by the weaver, if the being or thing balefired killed something in their last moments, although the Dark One can’t undo the death of the balefired. However, weakening the Pattern increases the Dark One’s touch on the world and he can reincarnate non-balefired souls and also warp reality.

Dark One

Shadowspawn are the first example of wrongness in the series, but they were created by a human, even if one touched by the Shadow. On the other hand the Blight is all the Dark One’s work and spreads his wrongness in the form of large-scale rot and sterility, unseasonal weather, monstrous mutation and foul stenches across continents:

"This is the best weather we've seen all year," Egwene said, shrugging out of her own cloak.
Nynaeve shook her head, frowning as if listening to the wind. "It feels wrong. "
Rand nodded. He could feel it, too, though he could not say what it was exactly he was feeling. The wrongness went beyond the first warmth he could remember out of doors this year; it was more than the simple fact that it should not be so warm this far north…
Mile by mile the corruption of the Blight became more apparent. Leaves covered the trees in ever greater profusion, but stained and spotted with yellow and black, with livid red streaks like blood poisoning. Every leaf and creeper seemed bloated, ready to burst at a touch. Flowers hung on trees and weeds in a parody of spring, sickly pale and pulpy, waxen things that appeared to be rotting while Rand watched. When he breathed through his nose, the sweet stench of decay, heavy and thick, sickened him; when he tried breathing through his mouth, he almost gagged. The air tasted like a mouthful of spoiled meat. The horses' hooves made a soft squishing as rotten-ripe things broke open under them.

- The Eye of the World, The Blight

Perrin will not sense such wrongness again until So Habor.

According to Perrin, Shadowspawn smell of the Blight, for instance this wrongness and rotten smell:

The wrongness was still there, in the air. He'd assumed that the dreamspike was causing it, but he had apparently been wrong. The air smelled like the Blight.

- Towers of Midnight, Wounds

is revealed to be a large Shadowspawn ambush. Sometimes Shadowspawn smell powerfully of burnt sulphur, the brimstone of hell:

Almost burnt sulphur; that was only a pale imitation of this smell. It had a reek of… wrongness, of something that did not belong in this world.

- Crossroads of Twilight, The Scent of a dream

The Dark One does not belong in this world since his intent is to destroy it. Is the Blight an example of the world the Dark One would create, or just a result of his efforts to destroy the real world?

The same applies to the area around Shayol Ghul, even in Tel’aran’rhiod, as Rand describes:

Rand did not want to look toward the left side of the room. The fireplace was there. The stones that formed floor, hearth and columns were warped, as if they had been melted by an extreme heat. At the edges of his vision, they seemed to shift and change. The angles and proportions of the room were wrong.

- The Gathering Storm, A Place To Begin

Is this the Dark One’s own “reality” or merely his efforts at corrupting the Creator’s reality?

The next example of the Dark One’s wrongness is the bubbles of evil that warp reality. There was a tiny one at the beginning of The Great Hunt: a wind which held Rand while Lan’s practice sword whacked hard him in the chest. At first, his touch being weak, the Dark One sensibly aimed the bubbles squarely at the three ta’veren – their very ta’veren-ness probably making this process easier.

The second bubble spectacularly burst in Tear in The Shadow Rising, affecting all three ta’veren simultaneously, and with witnesses present. Perrin was attacked by his axe. Its murderous fury dissipated when Perrin 'disarmed' it by burying the axe in the door. In an Alice in Wonderland scene, the rulers on Mat’s playing cards came to life and tried to kill him until he knifed them. Rand was attacked by images of himself that stepped out of reflective surfaces. The three reflections didn't cooperate; each wanted to take over Rand's body for itself, a sure sign the Shadow was involved, or they bore the essence of the Shadow, since the Shadow is always uncooperative. One tried to suck Rand’s life force, but he absorbed its life force instead and then drew up that of the remaining reflections.

Moiraine suggests the attack was caused by evil leaking from the Dark One's prison as the Seals weaken:

“As the seals holding the Dark One’s prison weaken,” she said after a time, “it may be inevitable that a ... miasma ... will escape even while he is still held. Like bubbles rising from the things rotting on the bottom of a pond. But these bubbles will drift through the Pattern until they attach to a thread and burst.”

- The Shadow Rising, Reflection

The effects of the bubble are similar to a trap in Tel'aran'rhiod: each of the men fights what they each hate or fear, yet depend on most.

Rand is afraid of his role as doomed saviour/Dragon and of his destiny to break the world. Perrin is afraid of his berserker tendencies and lust to kill and of being unable to protect those close to him from battle. Mat, whose fears seem almost trivial beside those of Rand and Perrin, is afraid of the One Power (represented by the Amyrlin, and how appropriate that Mat, who fears the One Power so, was attacked first by the Amyrlin card) and of his luck in gaming or battle not being in his favour and he disdains but uses nobles (rulers of the suits, which he gloated about holding in his hand).

Some chapters later, Mat and Rand were attacked by a bubble of evil in Rhuidean. By Knife of Dreams, the warping of reality is almost commonplace and physical reality seems quite plastic:

Impossible as it seemed at first, the interior of the Tower sometimes changed. People got lost trying to find rooms they had been to dozens of times.

- Knife of Dreams, Honey in the Tea

The palace in Caemlyn also had corridors and stairs move in Knife of Dreams. In both places, the populace is uncared for and the fight against the Shadow set aside while the leadership is mired in dispute. Just as the residents have lost track of the danger the world is in, so they can’t find their way about physically either.

In a perverted way the changes in the physical environment are reflecting or even commenting on the human situation around them. So while the Dark One’s aim is to incite fear and despair in people by spreading chaos and corruption, there is still meaning in where and how reality changes.

In The Gathering Storm, the novices’ rooms in the east wing and the majority of the Brown Ajah quarters on the Twenty First and Twenty Second levels changed places, and the Yellow Ajah on the sixth level traded places with the second kitchen in the basement (The Gathering Storm, In Darkness). It’s one way to show that Aes Sedai know far less than they think and need to leave the Tower more…The novices will play a crucial role in defending the Tower against the Seanchan, better than many Aes Sedai. Also with so many novices to join the Tower, the second kitchen will become more important, hence its rise out of the depths.

Leane’s cell morphed in a most alarming manner to free her (and nearly killed her while it did so; The Gathering Storm, When Iron Melts). And again, the signs were commenting that she was imprisoned unjustly, even if they had no regard for her personal safety.

As Egwene was being taken to serve Elaida:

The hallway ended abruptly in a stonework wall set with a bright tile mural. The image was that of an ancient Amyrlin, sitting on an ornate golden seat, holding forth her hand in warning to the kings and queens of the land. The plaque at the bottom declared it to be a depiction of Caraighan Maconar, ending the rebellion in Mosadorin. Egwene vaguely recognized the mural; the last she'd seen it, it had been on the wall of the Tower library. But when she'd seen it there, the Amyrlin's face hadn't been a mask of blood. The dead bodies depicted hanging from the eaves hadn't been there either.

- The Gathering Storm, The Nature of Pain

The direct way to Elaida’s rooms is blocked: they have to detour through the Red Ajah’s quarters, just as most initiates can’t approach Elaida, who relies on, or trusts, only her former Ajah. She no longer uses the traditional apartments for the Amyrlin much lower down in the Tower near the Hall. Elaida can’t be reached promptly, showing the poor communication in the Tower, fatal in The Gathering Storm, and the way she has set herself apart and above.

Caraighan Maconar was an Amyrlin raised from the Green Ajah who ended a rebellion; and here her face is covered with blood as she raises her hand in warning; Egwene would have chosen the Green Ajah and she bled profusely after Elaida’s beating. The bodies hanging in the picture is a warning to Egwene and the Reds of where division will lead the Tower if a peaceable end to the rebellion is not found: the deaths of Aes Sedai, Warders and servants as happened during the coup, and perhaps also executions, considering the vengeful nature of Elaida. Deaths do soon happen: people are killed when the Seanchan raid the Tower. There would have been fewer if Elaida and the Hall had heeded Egwene’s warning of the attack, and also if the Tower leadership and communication was functioning correctly. More deaths follow as the Black Ajah are purged from the rebel and Tower Aes Sedai and many are executed. Caraighan’s portrait has moved out of the library, out of history, into the light of the present. It is a timely reminder (or an arrogant taunt considering how much the Shadow stage-managed the coup) that the Aes Sedai need to end their own rebellion, cleanse themselves of Darkfriends and start working to unite the nations.

Even though the changes to reality are frightening and unpredictable and often nasty, they have meaning; reality appears to change in response to strong moral issues or important events such as rebellion, injustice, arrogance, or power struggles. It really is the Time of Change. The Dark One is the embodiment of chaos, but chaos theory is not senseless. It is however very difficult to fathom, as Verin attested.

If people hold onto beliefs and maintain community order, they are less affected by the Dark One’s touch because “belief and order give strength” against the Shadow, as Herid Fel said. The aim of spreading chaos is to tip the world into a downward spiral of negativity and wrongness which breaks the integrity of the Pattern and gives strength to the Dark One.

Another major horror of the Last Days is the appearance of ghosts and of the living dead in various forms. This is an increasingly major motif of the series and I’ve written about it here. Even the Ogier dead are unquiet.

Loial said the Ogier dead don’t enter the Stedding, yet the Stedding represent where the Ogier came from; Ogier are so native to the Stedding that they are tied to them. Things touched by the Shadow are reluctant to enter Stedding, the Stedding being more “right” than anywhere else, as shown by the greater fertility and complete lack of violence within Stedding, so perhaps this exclusion of Ogier dead is proof of the wrongness of death being undone.

Things touched by the Shadow are also reluctant to enter running water (The Eye of the World, Shadow’s Waiting and The Fires of Heaven, Gateways ) – running water symbolising the cleansing power of nature – so perhaps no bubbles of evil or warping of reality can occur on moving water or at sea.

As well as visiting horrors and terrifying monsters on people, the Dark One is undermining the Pattern by corrupting the Land and the Dragon. Rand is one with the Land, so injuring Rand damages the Land and vice versa. The result is disease (dis-ease) and sterility, with crops not growing, plants dying, birth deformities in animals, pestilence and famine rife.

The Dark One’s power or essence is inimical to Creation:

The Great Lord’s essence forced the Pattern, straining it and leaving it scarred. Even something the Creator had designed to be eternal could be unraveled using the Dark One’s energies. It bespoke an eternal truth—something as close to being sacred as Graendal was willing to accept. Whatever the Creator could build, the Dark One could destroy.

- Towers of Midnight, Prologue

For instance, Travelling by True Power damages the Pattern and requires moving outside it:

To his ears, the world screamed as he used the True Power to rip a small hole and step outside the Pattern.

- A Crown of Swords, Patterns Within Patterns

Even channellers entitled to use the True Power suffer damage from it. When Ishamael reveals himself to Rand and boasts of his ability to recover from injuries:

The mask came away. It was a man's face, horribly burned. Yet between the black-edged, red crevices crossing those features, the skin looked healthy and smooth. Dark eyes looked at Rand; cruel lips smiled with a flash of white teeth. "Look at me, Kinslayer, and see the hundredth part of your own fate." For a moment eyes and mouth became doorways into endless caverns of fire. "This is what the Power unchecked can do, even to me. But I heal, Lews Therin. I know the paths to greater power.

- The Great Hunt, Kinslayer

we see that his boast is somewhat empty. His severe burns are healing, true, but he has flaming eyes and mouth: burned without, and burning by hellfire within, he shows the effects of too much True Power as well as the One Power. The corruption of the True Power can’t be Healed. We don’t know what the final symptoms of overuse of the True Power are, but they are fatal and terrible according to Moghedien (A Crown of Swords, Mindtrap) and Demandred (Winter’s Heart, Wonderful News). It’s interesting that red and black are Ishamael’s colours and here they mark his face.

Slayer is a human monstrosity, a shape-shifter created by the Dark One from Luc and Isam that only Perrin and the wolves recognise:

[Slayer] smelled wrong, like staleness and wolf's blood.

- Towers of Midnight, Darkness in the Tower

With two souls in one body, abilities given him by the Dark One, and his frequent entry into Tel’aran’rhiod in the flesh eroding his humanity, it is no wonder Slayer smells wrong. He is unnatural; an abomination.

Mordeth/Fain

Mordeth’s power was born of the intention to fight the Dark One, but in evil way. This is another example of wrongness. The people of Aridhol chose to fight evil unscrupulously without regard for doing good. In the end the power of Shadar Logoth is almost as sterile and corrupt as the Dark One’s power. The inhabitants of Shadar Logoth killed each other and thereafter almost nothing could live or grow in the city. Mordeth, an unclean spirit, lurked in the ruins awaiting a body to appropriate. He was a spirit that lurked to catch an unwary person and is another example of the living dead.

(We saw the early stages of potentially another dark power in Masema and his Dragonsworn, but this was prevented by Perrin’s group.)

The Good Guys

Rand nearly went down the Shadar Logoth route and also the Dark One’s route (or Moridin’s at least). Far from perfect, he represents humanity at its most conflicted or mistaken, although with a huge potential and desire for good.

The Shadow attempted to corrupt the Light’s champion - corrupt the incorruptible- by forcing him to commit evil acts, notably use balefire, the ultimate sin. Rand found the lure of the most powerful sa’angreal also very corrupting, no matter how good his intentions when using them, and even attempted to resurrect a young girl in Tear.

Nynaeve is one character who represents humanity at least conflicted or mistaken. The brilliance of her Healing, representing the restoration of proper order, and intensity of her desire to Heal are signs of this. However she is not perfect either and nor is she intended to be by Jordan.

Perrin as Nature in all its wildness and nurturing expression of the Pattern is most sensitive to Wrongness (just as Mat, most eager to stay alive, is most sensitive to the living dead). Yet Perrin, like Rand, attempted to resurrect a loved one – Hopper in Tel’aran’rhiod:

And Hopper lives, Perrin thought. He does! I can smell his coat, hear him loping in the grass.
A wolf appeared before him, forming as if from mist. Silvery gray, grizzled from years
of life. Perrin thrilled in his power. It was real.
And then he saw the wolf's eyes. Lifeless.
The scent turned stale and wrong.

- Towers of Midnight, And After

Perrin attempts the wrongness of the living dead just as Rand did back in Tear.

Mat is not especially sensitive to wrongness:

"Something feels wrong about these folk, Mat." Talmanes spoke very softly, glancing over his shoulder.
"While you've been playing, I've been talking to them. They don't care about the world. The Dragon Reborn, the Seanchan, nothing. Not a care."
"So?" Mat said. "They're simple folk."

- The Gathering Storm, The Tipsy Gelding

It wasn’t until the Hinderstap townsfolk starting killing each other and trying to kill him that Mat realised how wrong the place was:

There was an odd wrongness about the entire experience. Was the curfew intended to keep this from happening, somehow? Had Mat, by staying, caused all of these deaths? Blood and bloody ashes.
Did no place in the world make sense anymore?

- The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

It took a personal threat to make him notice.

There is no obvious reason why Hinderstap is trapped between living and dead, a whole town immersed in wrongness as Thom explains:

“Something's wrong in the world. There's a snag in the Pattern here. The town unravels at night, and then the world tries to reset it each morning to make things right again."

- The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

In So Habor there is rottenness, filth and unquiet dead and silent living:

Berelain blinked in surprise, but no one laughed. It was fool talk, yet Perrin thought the hair on the back of his neck really was standing stiff. Something was very wrong, here. The Aes Sedai seemed not to sense it… So Habor did not even whisper. It barely seemed to breathe…And weevils thriving in winter, in freezing cold? There was worse wrong in So Habor than spirits walking, and every instinct told him to leave at a dead run, without looking back.

- Crossroads of Twilight, In So Habor

and with more reason than at Hinderstap:

Lord Cowlin fled the town for fear of his wife’s spirit. It seems there was doubt as to how she died.

- Crossroads of Twilight, In So Habor

The wrongdoing of the local lord, the guardian of the Land, and his subsequent abandonment of his role, made the town susceptible to the Dark One’s touch.

Nature is the physical representation of the Pattern. This is the underlying philosophy behind the Seanchan’s use of the movements of animals as omens to determine where the Pattern is headed, and how it is unfolding. By blighting nature and spreading other forms of wrongness, the Dark one aims to break the Pattern enough that prophecy will be prevented from being fulfilled.

This post took longer to write than I anticipated, not just because of Real Life, although I have had plenty of that these last few weeks.

The Theme of Living Dead

2011-11-28T05:21:00.005-05:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

The theme of the living dead began in the early books with Grey Men and Zomaran, then the restoration of dead Forsaken in Lord of Chaos and the appearance of ghosts in Crossroads of Twilight, and is more prominent than ever in The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight. The weakening of the distinction between living and dead is part of the wrongness the Shadow brings to combat the Light, balancing creation with destruction and natural with unnatural (the subject of my next essay).

Doomsday, a time of Judgement, literally approaches; heralded by the Last Trump, in this case the Horn of Valere summoning dead Heroes. We had a trial run in The Great Hunt to confirm Mat as the Hornblower and summoner of the Dead. The Dark One as Lord of the Grave has increased his touch on the world and so his henchman Death has also been granted, or obtained, more power. However the Light’s King of the Dead, Mat, and his Queen, Tuon (a name associated with the Underworld; see Mat and Tuon essays), have likewise gained in influence, and Fain, Mat’s dark opposite, has developed some impressive living death and death dealing powers.

The Unquiet Dead

Ghosts have been appearing since Crossroads of Twilight,, a sign that Tarmon Gai’don is near:

"Taim very likely will have to wait on the Last Battle, whatever he's about," Verin said suddenly. Her knitting, a shapeless lump that might have been anything, sat in her lap. "It will come soon. According to everything I've read on the subject, the signs are quite clear. Half the servants have recognized dead people in the halls, people they knew alive. It's happened often enough that they aren't frightened by it any longer. And a dozen men moving the cattle to spring pasture watched a considerable town melt into mist just a few miles to the north."

- Knife of Dreams, News for the Dragon

The dead walking are due to the Dark One loosening the Pattern and changing reality. As Lord of the Grave, he has influence over the dead and aims to break the Pattern, so everyone, perhaps even his Elect, will be dead.

In the Tower:

Women were seen walking out of walls, or into them, often in dresses of old-fashioned cut, sometimes in bizarre garb, dresses that seemed simply lengths of brightly colored cloth folded around the body, embroidered ankle-length tabards worn over wide trousers, stranger things still. Light, when could any woman have wanted to wear a dress that left her bosom completely exposed? Egwene was able to discuss it with Siuan in Tel'aran'rhiod, so she knew that these things were signs of the approach of Tarmon Gai'don. An unpleasant thought, yet there was nothing to be done about it. What was, was, and it was not as if Rand himself was not a herald of the Last Battle.

- Knife of Dreams, Honey in the Tea

Rand himself is associated with a rise of the dead - both quiet and unquiet. Nynaeve, Cadsuane, Merise and Corele observed a procession of about 200 people walking around the city wall of Bandar Eban carrying a coffin. The apparition occurred nightly after Rand arrived. As it foreshadowed, Rand did bring death to the city, in part due to his deficiencies as a ruler.

Even the Ogier, those champions of naturalness and rightness, have experienced the living dead. The first of these was Trayal, whose mind/soul was destroyed by the Black Wind.

Loial reports that Ogier dead are now standing outside the stedding looking in. Perhaps they can’t enter a stedding. Things of the Shadow are very reluctant to enter such places – they are almost unable to - and apparitions have the Dark One’s touch. The only apparitions that are not ‘wrong’ are those called by the Horn.

King and Queen of the Dead

Mat was aware of ghosts walking before the other members of the menagerie were: for example on the road into Jurador Mat saw ghosts but Tuon and Seleucia saw nothing (Crossroads of Twilight, Something Flickers).

As King of the Dead, Mat has witnessed and avoided two deathtraps. In Altara he and his companions encountered a sizeable village. Mat noticed that it had no surrounding farms and its inhabitants ignored the menagerie and a peddler and called a halt. The peddler’s animals started screaming in terror.

Hat in hand, the round peddler leaped down to see what was the matter with his horses.
Landing, [the peddlar] lurched awkwardly and looked down toward his feet. His hat fell from his hand, landing on the hardpacked road. That was when he began screaming. The paving stones were gone, and he was ankle-deep in the road, just like his shrieking horses. Ankle deep and sinking into rock-hard clay as if into a bog, just like his horses and his wagon. And the village, houses and people melting slowly into the ground. The people never stopped what they were doing. Women walked along carrying baskets, a line of men carried a large timber on their shoulders, children darted about, the fellow at the grindstone continued sharpening his hatchet, all of them nearly knee-deep in the ground by this time…
Would the man die, or was he being carried to wherever those dead Shiotans were going? That was what had caught him about those buildings. That was how country people had built in Shiota for near enough three hundred years…
When the last of the thatched rooftops and tall chimneys melted away. Mat let out a long breath. Where the village had been was another meadow decked out in cat daisies and jumpups where red and yellow butterflies fluttered from blossom to blossom. So peaceful. He wished he could believe the peddler was dead.

- Knife of Dreams, A Village in Shiota

This is a murderous apparition. The ghosts descended into the earth, the underworld, taking a live man and his horses with them. And it all occurred in front of the King of the Underworld, whose party was safe, thanks to his warning.

In The Gathering Storm, Mat went to a town of living dead, Hinderstap.

"We aren't sure if it was something we did, or just a cruel curse by the Dark One himself," the mayor said.
"It was a normal day, early this year, just before the Feast of Abram. Nothing really special about it that I can remember. The weather had broken by then, though the snows hadn't come yet. A lot of us went about our normal activities the next morning, thinking nothing of it.
"The oddities were small, you see. A broken door here, a rip in someone's clothing they didn't remember. And the nightmares. We all shared them, nightmares of death and killing. A few of the women started talking, and they realized that they couldn't remember turning in the previous evening. They could remember waking, safe and comfortable in their beds, but only a few remembered actually getting into bed. Those who could remember had gone to sleep early, before sunset. For the rest of us, the late evening was just a blur."

- The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

The town’s inhabitants kill each other and any visitors each night, but are returned to ‘life’ each morning with the visitors they killed trapped with them. Any inhabitants who leave are returned to the town in the night. Even suicide doesn’t work as an escape route. Objects, however, retain any physical damage and must be repaired. (It’s like the reverse of Tel’aran’rhiod, the World of Dreams, where objects aren’t affected long term by changes, but beings are totally affected by any change to them. What happens in Tel’aran’rhiod seems real, but what happens in Hinderstap in the night seems like a dream, albeit a very bad one, and fades).

As Thom explains:

"It's just . . . well, it's a sad tale. Something's wrong in the world.
There's a snag in the Pattern here. The town unravels at night, and then the world tries to reset it each morning to make things right again."

- The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

"It's as if the darkness itself intoxicates them," Thorn said while Mat helped Delarn into his saddle. "As if Light itself has forsaken them, leaving them only to the Shadow...."

- The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

The Light’s King of the Dead (see Mat essay), got his own people out of the town alive (apart from three soldiers) and therefore out of the loop. Mat called the dead Heroes to battle at Falme and will do so again, and has worked out how those unable to channel can kill large numbers of people, even channellers. No wonder some people in Andor say that Mat is the Dark One:

No, that was the Dark One. No, Mat was the Dark One!

Towers of Midnight, The End of a Legend

a blurring of the Light and Dark Kings of the Dead. On the other hand, the Seanchan believe Mat’s band itself may be spirits:

I know we've killed some [of Mat’s soldiers]—the reports claim it, at least—but they don't even leave their dead behind. Some fools have begun whispering that we're fighting spirits." Fools he might consider them, but the fingers of his left hand hooked in a sign to ward off evil.

- Knife of Dreams, A Cup of Kaf

Recently Mat received a letter from a woman thought to be dead, and another from a woman under a double death sentence: so she could betray the Dark One and for being a Darkfriend. Their ‘dead’ status is the first thing each letter affirms. Mat, like Anubis, the Ancient Egyptian god who weighs the dead, has to weigh these women and their requests to choose which to fulfil. This fits in with the Doomsday/Last Judgement theme.

Mat has similarities to real world Kings of the Underworld due to the frequency he has visited the infernal Otherworld of the ‘Finns, his escape from the living dead in Hinderstap, his witnessing of the peddler being dragged alive to the Underworld with the phantom Shiotan village, his survival of hanging and later being struck by lightning, his role as son of battles and the summoner of the dead Heroes of the Horn and the respect he quickly gained from Tuon’s Deathwatch Guard.

In The Gathering Storm,Mat’s consort Tuon as Queen of the Dead actually sent out what are effectively living dead, assassins she declared dead with her blessing to do her bidding as though they were shades from the Underworld. The bloodknives are like the Lord of the Grave’s Grey Men but are not soulless.

She expects death at every turn and embraces it; she

had been dodging assassinations since she could walk, and she had survived them all. She anticipated them. In a way, she thrived because of them.

- The Gathering Storm,

Only the Queen of the Underworld would thrive on death attempts.

Despite the vigilance of the Deathwatch Guard, Tuon has been declared dead twice before:

Only a few were aware that she had vanished twice before, and had been reported dead, to the very arrangement of her funeral rites, all by her own contriving. Whatever the reasons for her disappearance, though, he had to find and protect her. So far he had no clue how. Swallowed by the storm. Or perhaps by the Lady of the Shadows [Death]. There had been countless attempts to kidnap or assassinate her, beginning on the day of her birth.

- Crossroads of Twilight, The Tale of a Doll

Considering how often ‘three times makes true’ in the Wheel of Time series, there will probably be a third time Tuon is given up for dead. If her ability to channel is discovered before the Seanchan change their attitude to channellers, she, like all damane, will become an unperson, struck from the rolls as though she had never existed. For now, her people will continually wish her as Empress to live forever – the Queen of the Dead does not die? Though when she finally begins to channel, Tuon potentially could live for what seems like forever to the average person.

She declared ‘Tuon’ dead in The Gathering Storm, but Tuon is not exactly dead, her old name is still contained within her new name.

Tuon is not a goddess of death (that is Semirhage, see Semirhage essay, and it is appropriate that the Seanchan refer to death as the Lady of the Shadows, when such a female mass murderer lived among them at their rulers’ side) but she is Queen of the Underworld having been touched by death so many times and lived with death at her shoulder. In many mythologies they are two different roles, as they are here.

Rand

Rather than avoiding or eluding them, Rand has destroyed or incapacitated the living dead close by him: Grey Men in the early books, most recently he balefired Semirhage so she can’t be rebirthed by the Dark One, killed the rebirthed Aran’gar thanks to Graendal, and seriously sapped the spirit and energy of Moridin through second-hand pain and despair (an unintended side-effect of Death’s own strategy). Rand has destroyed one long dead city and exposed another. Only the dead at a distance to Rand appeared unhindered by him: for instance the ghostly funeral procession in Arad Doman that Nynaeve, Cadsuane and co saw.

Yet Rand, too, is a dead man walking, being destined to make the ultimate sacrifice for the world and thereby, even more pertinent to this theme, to live by dying. It has brought him to despair and contemplation of mass annihilation once already. If Rand fails in such a way that the Dark One wins, time itself will be killed and Rand’s soul will never be reborn again.

Another example of the blurring of the living and the dead is Rand’s awareness of memories from his past lives, something Nynaeve thinks is not good:

Memories from another life, memories he had no right to. There was a reason the Creator allowed them to forget their past lives.

The Gathering Storm, A Conversation With the Dragon

Other Asha’man also hear voices from their previous incarnations, which Cadsuane thought was due to the taint on saidin. Moridin, the Forsaken most affected by the Dark One’s touch by virtue of his extensive usage of the True Power, also claims to recall some of his past lives, though not to the extent that Rand has:

I know every name you have used through Age after Age, long before you were even the Kinslayer." Ba'alzamon s voice began to rise in intensity; sometimes the fires of his eyes flared so high that Rand could see them through the openings in the silk mask, see them like endless seas of flame. "I know you, know your blood and your line back to the first spark of life that ever was, back to the First Moment…The battle we two have fought-do you remember any part of that? Do you have any glimmering that we have fought before, battles without number back to the beginning of Time? I know much that you do not! That battle will soon end. The Last Battle is coming. The last, Lews Therin. Do you really think you can avoid it? You poor, shivering worm. You will serve me or die! And this time the cycle will not begin anew with your death. The grave belongs to the Great Lord of the Dark. This time if you die, you will be destroyed utterly.

The Great Hunt, Kinslayer

That troubled him sometimes, enraged him, what knowledge might be lost in the turnings of the Wheel, knowledge he needed, knowledge he had a right to. A right!

The Path of Daggers, Deceptive Appearances

At the climax of The Gathering Storm, when Rand had his epiphany:

He remembered lives, hundreds of them, thousands of them, stretching to infinity.

The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

Fain

In The Eye of the World, Fain merged with the parasitic and long dead soul of Mordeth which lingered as a ghost in Shadar Logoth. Like other Underworld figures in the series, his powers have increased greatly, and he now deals instant death to Myrddraal, but those Trollocs he kills rise from the dead to do his bidding:

The mist struck.
It rolled over the Trollocs, moving quickly, like the tentacles of a leviathan in the
Aryth Ocean. Lengths of it snapped forward through Trolloc chests. One long rope whipped above their heads, then shot forward in a blur, taking the Fade in the neck.
The Trollocs screamed, dropping, spasming. Their hair fell out in patches, and their skin began to boil. Blisters and cysts. When those popped, they left craterlike pocks in the Shadowspawn skin, like bubbles on the surface of metal that cooled too quickly…
The corrupted Trollocs climbed to their feet behind him, lurching into motion, spittle dropping from their lips. Their eyes had grown sluggish and dull, but when he desired it, they would respond with a frenzied battle lust that would surpass what they had known in life.
He left the Myrddraal. It would not rise, as rumors said they did. His touch now brought instant death to one of its kind.

Towers of Midnight, Prologue

It is as though Fain/Mordeth takes the place of the Myrddraal the Trollocs were linked to, but in a far more effective way. In his efforts to fight evil, Mordeth out-Shadowed the Shadow and is now openly using them as his own.

Creatures of the Shadow

The Shadow can and do turn channellers to their side with weaves created by thirteen Dreadlords filtered through thirteen Myrddraal, and like Fain’s turned Trollocs, such turned channellers are both corrupted and dead-seeming:

And he saw what Norley had seen. Something was deeply wrong, something not quite alive inside those eyes. This didn't seem to be a man, but a parody of one. A shadow stuffed inside human skin.

Towers of Midnight, Something Wrong

Tarna smiled, a grimace that looked completely unnatural on her face. Like the smile on the lips of a corpse…The coldness-almost lifelessness-she'd seen in Tarna's eyes still chilled her.

Towers of Midnight, Gateways

The eyes are “windows to the soul” and in these people they look dead. This is more than the dazed or fogged look seen on those under heavy Compulsion (see below).

Grey Men are Darkfriends who, in the ultimate act of dedication, give their souls away to the Dark One so they can be more effective as assassins. Alive but with their humanity extinguished, they blend in with background. As Egwene dreamed in The Dragon Reborn, Fires in Cairhien, they are not really there. They are alive, but lifeless and we have never heard one speak.

Lanfear tells us that Grey Men and Myrddraal are denied dreams (The Dragon Reborn, Daughter of the Night). Grey Men are not truly alive; Myrddraal are “slightly out of phase with time and reality”. Fain may be a more effective compeller of Trollocs than a Myrddraal is because he is most definitely in phase with time, even if he isn’t with reality.

Another example of the living dead are the zomaran, a type of Shadowspawn created by Aginor. They have the appearance of identical, beautiful young men and women but with dead and soulless eyes:

He smiled, but it did not touch his black eyes, eyes more lifeless than simply dead. Most men would have felt uncomfortable having that gaze on them. Moridin merely took the goblet and motioned the servant away.

The Path of Daggers, Deceptive Appearances

Naturally the dead – quiet or unquiet – hold no fears for Death. He uses Zomaran, who have limited ability to read minds and only short term memory, as servants – and reliable spies.

The gholam is a construct of the Shadow which is almost unkillable, being impervious to magic and most physical attacks. It looks like an ordinary human but is hugely stronger and has no bones. Mat hopes that it is falling endlessly through the void in a living death.

Slayer is a being with two souls in one body after the other body died. Not that we know which lived and which died.

During the merger of Luc and Isam, Slayer was extensively revamped by the Dark One, being given special powers, including the ability to enter Tel'aran'rhiod at will. However, immunity to weapons and poison was not one of these abilities. So both Isam and Luc exist, even though one of them died, but they are not unkillable.

Forsaken

The Forsaken like to overpower the mind and will of people with Compulsion to a greater or lesser degree. A complex weave that is placed on the brain in layers, Compulsion makes the victim feel love, devotion or worship for the channeller. It can be varied in extent from mindless devotion, which erases mind and personality, to subtle influence.

Graendal is a prolific user of all grades of Compulsion and is very skilled at it. After all, she studied mental illness, including that which cannot be treated with the One Power, prior to turning to the Shadow. For short term aims she usually uses the mild version of Compulsion, although she struck heavily at Moghedien and Cyndane with it in The Path of Daggers. Her servants however usually have their minds obliterated:

The only minions she’d let out of her sight were under Compulsion so heavy that it would kill them to remove it.

Towers of Midnight, Prologue

There was no real person in this head, only layered weaves of Compulsion.
Instructions cleverly designed to wipe whatever personality this poor wretch had and replace it with a creature who would act exactly as Graendal wished…
His eyes weren't blank from being dazed as she'd thought; they were more empty than that. When Nynaeve had been younger, new to her role as Wisdom, a woman had been brought to her who had fallen off of her wagon. The woman had slept for days, and when she'd finally awoken, she'd had a stare like this one. No hint that she recognized anyone, no clue that there was any soul left in the husk that was her body.
She'd died about a week later…
"You needn't bother," Rand said. "He is dead."
Nynaeve confirmed the death for herself. Then she snapped her head up, looking at Rand. What right did he have to look as exhausted as she felt? He had done barely anything! "What did you—"
"I did nothing, Nynaeve. I suspect that once you removed that Compulsion, the only thing keeping him alive was his anger at Graendal, buried deeply. Whatever bit of himself remained, it knew the only help it could give were those two words. After that, he just let go. There was nothing more we could do for him."

The Gathering Storm, A Conversation with the Dragon

Consequently Rand considered Graendal’s pets already dead before he killed them:

"There looked to have been dozens, maybe hundreds, of people living in that palace!"
"Each one made into an idiot by Graendal's Compulsion," Rand replied. "She never lets anyone close to her without destroying their mind first. The boy she sent to work the jail barely knew a fraction of the torture most of her pets receive. She leaves them without ability to think or act—all they can do is kneel and adore her, perhaps run errands at her command. I did them a favor."

The Gathering Storm, A Force of Light

Living dead, and considering what happened to Kerb when Nynaeve removed Graendal’s Compulsion he had a point.

The Forsaken are part of the theme of the living dead. Four of them were reincarnated. Rand and Ishamael are linked by the way they have witnessed each other die - and been a crucial participant in that death:

"You [Ishamael] are dead," Rand repeated stubbornly.
"So are you. I watched you die, you know. Lashing out in a tempest, creating an entire mountain to mark your cairn…[after he brought Lews Therin the knowledge of what he had done]
Another name for the Dark One was Lord of the Grave. Yes, it was true, even if Rand wished he could deny it. Why should he be surprised to see his enemies return, when the Dark One could restore the dead to life?

The Gathering Storm, A Place to Begin

As Cyndane and mind-trapped, Lanfear wishes she were dead, or perhaps had stayed dead. Death tortures her each day and Heals her when she is about to die - or so she claims. After losing a battle of wills with Egwene in Tel’aran’rhiod, Mesaana is now living dead. She is as mindless as Trayal.

The death goddess Semirhage was killed in The Gathering Storm. She tortured an entire city during the War of Power, made thousands of people assist in breaking each other slowly, just for the Hell of it.

Even prior to his reincarnation as Moridin (Death), Ishamael told Rand “The dead belong to me!" in The Eye of the World,, The Stag and Lion, and he did manipulate Howal Gode’s shade after Rand killed the Darkfriend.

The Death god Moridin not only now wishes he were dead, he wishes for everything to be annihilated. As Ishamael, Moridin once thought the end of time would liberate him and grant him power:

The death of time will bring me power such as you could not dream of, worm."

The Eye of the World, The Stag and Lion

But now that he is Death, he hopes that the end of time will mean the end of everything, including him:

"The only path is to follow the Great Lord and rule for a time before all things end. The others are fools. They look for grand rewards in the eternities, but there will be no eternities. Only the now, the last days."
He laughed again, and this time there was joy in it. True pleasure.

The Gathering Storm, A Place to Begin

After all, if there is nothing – when all is dead – there is nothing that can die. Death is no more:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me…
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppies or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swellst thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!

John Donne

As an example of how both sides have been affected by the Dark One’s efforts to undermine the Pattern and manipulate all to his side, Death, the Lord of the Grave’s champion and his opposite, the Creator’s champion, companionably sit and listen to rats dying in the heat of a corrupt fire:

Moridin snorted softly, but said nothing. Rand turned back to the flames, watching them twist and flicker.
They formed shapes, like the clouds, but these were headless bodies, skeletal, backs arching in pain, writhing for a moment in fire, spasming, before flashing into nothing.
Rand watched that fire for a time, thinking. One might have thought that they were two old friends, enjoying the warmth of a winter hearth. Except that the flames gave no heat, and Rand would someday kill this man again. Or die at his hands.

The Gathering Storm, A Place to Begin

And now we are at the Last Moment, “as close as an assassin, breathing his foul breath upon your neck as he slides his knife across your skin“ as Rand described it (The Gathering Storm, A Halo of Blackness), poised between living and dead.

These posts take quite a time to prepare, longer than a simple read-through post. I don't know when the next one will be finished, hopefully within the week, but it is on the theme of Wrongness.

As Yet Unfulfilled Prophecies for A Memory of Light

2011-11-13T05:52:00.004-05:00

By Linda

There are still quite a few unfulfilled prophecies, some of them quite mysterious and portentous and obviously relating to the Last Battle; others, more minor, may remain unfulfilled. They are divided according to soothsayer.

Prophecies of Dragon (mainland and Seanchan) (see here for full article with discussion and details)

The blood of the Dragon Reborn on the rocks of Shayol Ghul will free mankind from the Shadow.

His blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul, washing away the Shadow, sacrifice for man's salvation.

What does it mean that he shall bind the nine moons to serve him?

“The Prophecies say I have to bind the nine moons to me.”

Light is held before the maw of the infinite void, and all that he is can be seized.

and the Blade will bind him by twain.

For one thing, he [the Dragon Reborn] must kneel to the Crystal Throne before Tarmon Gai'don.

He must bow before the Crystal Throne before the Last Battle can begin.

The prophecies clearly showed that the Empress would defeat those who served the Shadow, and then she would send the Dragon Reborn in to duel with Lighteater.

Aiel Prophecy (see here for full article)

“It says we will be changed, and find again what was ours, and was lost.”

“Melaine and Bair dreamed of you [Rand] on a boat with three women whose faces they could not see and a scale tilting first one way and then the other.”

“Melaine and Amys dreamed of a man standing by your side with a dagger to your throat, but you did not see him.”

Dark Prophecy (see here for full article)

Graendal and Moridin believe that one of its Prophecies foretells that the Shadow will succeed in killing Perrin. Moridin qualifies this by pointing out that the imagery in prophecies can have more than one interpretation (he wrote a book on Analysis of Perceived Meaning in the Age of Legends). Moreover he chose the prophecy that Graendal read. Earlier in the chapter he told Graendal that she would not succeed in killing Perrin, and he was right. This may have been his opinion or it could be that the details of the prophecy he thinks predicts Perrin’s death are obviously nothing to do with Graendal’s plot.

Lo, it shall come upon the world that the prison of the Greatest One shall grow weak, like the limbs of those who crafted it. Once again, His glorious cloak shall smother the Pattern of all things, and the Great Lord shall stretch forth His hand to claim what is His. The rebellious nations shall be laid barren, their children caused to weep. There shall be none but Him, and those who have turned their eyes to His majesty. In that day, when the One-Eyed Fool travels the halls of mourning, and the First Among Vermin lifts his hand to bring freedom to Him who will Destroy, the last days of the Fallen Blacksmith's pride shall come. Yea, and the Broken Wolf, the one whom Death has known, shall fall and be consumed by the Midnight Towers. And his destruction shall bring fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall shake their very will itself.
And then, shall the Lord of the Evening come. And He shall take our eyes, for our souls shall bow before Him, and He shall take our skin, for our flesh shall serve Him, and He shall take our lips, for only Him will we praise. And the Lord of the Evening shall face the Broken Champion, and shall spill his blood and bring us the Darkness so beautiful. Let the screams begin, O followers of the Shadow. Beg for your destruction!

Egwene’s Dreams (see here for full article)

There had been a dream of him [Rand] walking down into a great hole in a black mountain, a hole filled with a reddish glare as from vast fires below

Him [Rand] walking toward a burning mountain, something crunching beneath his boots. She stirred and whimpered; the crunching things were the seals on the Dark One's prison, shattering with his every step.

Rand holding a sword that blazed like the sun, till she could hardly see that it was a sword, could hardly make out that it was him at all.

Rand confronting her, and the women with her, and one of them was a Seanchan.

Rand in chains, and it was he who was screaming.

Several concerned Rand, not all bad, but all odd. Elayne, forcing him to his knees with one hand.

Logain, laughing, stepped across something on the ground and mounted a black stone; when she looked down, she thought it was Rand’s body he had stepped over, laid out on a funeral bier with his hands crossed at his breast, but when she touched his face, it broke apart like a puppet.

Rand, wearing different masks, until suddenly one of those false faces was no longer a mask, but him.

The vision changed. She saw an enormous sphere made of the finest crystal. It sparkled in the light of twenty-three enormous stars, shining down on it where it sat on a dark hilltop. There were cracks in it, and it was being held together by ropes. There was Rand, walking up the hillside, holding a woodsman's axe. He reached the top and hefted the axe, then swung at the ropes one at a time, chopping them free. The last one parted, and the sphere began to break apart, the beautiful globe falling in pieces. Rand shook his head.

There had been a dream of Mat and Seanchan, too, but she was willing to dismiss that as a nightmare.

Gawyn. Then she was standing in the road in front of him, and he reined in. Not because he saw her, this time, but the road that had been straight now forked right where she stood, running over tall hills so no one could see what lay beyond. She knew, though. Down one fork was his violent death, down the other, a long life and a death in bed. On one path, he would marry her, on the other, not. She knew what lay ahead, but not which way led to which. Suddenly he did see her, or seemed to, and smiled, and turned his horse along one of the forks…

A dream of a storm, great dark clouds rolling without wind or rain, while lighting forks, every one identical, rent the earth.

A golden hawk stretched out its wing and touched her, and she and the hawk were tied together somehow; all she knew was that the hawk was female.

She [Egwene] was struggling up a narrow, rocky path along the face of a towering cliff. Clouds surrounded her, hiding the ground below and the crest above, yet she knew that both were very far away. She had to place her feet very carefully. The path was a cracked ledge barely wide enough for her to stand on with one shoulder pressed against the cliff, a ledge littered with stones as large as her fist that could turn under a misplaced step and send her hurtling over the edge. It almost seemed this was like the dreams of pushing millstones and pulling carts, yet she knew it was a true dream.
Abruptly, the ledge dropped away from under her with the crack of crumbling stone, and she caught frantically at the cliff, fingers scrabbling to find a hold. Her fingertips slid into a tiny crevice, and her fall stopped with a jolt that wrenched her arms. Feet dangling into the clouds, she listened to the falling stone crash against the cliff until the sound faded to nothing without the stone ever hitting the ground. Dimly, she could see the broken ledge to her left. Ten feet away, it might as well have been a mile off for all the chance she had of reaching it. In the other direction, the mists hid whatever remained of the path, but she thought it had to be farther away still. There was no strength in her arms. She could not pull herself up, only hang there by her fingertips until she fell. The edge of the crevice seemed as sharp as a knife under her fingers.
Suddenly a woman appeared, clambering down the sheer side of the cliff out of the clouds, making her way as deftly as if she were walking down stairs. There was a sword strapped to her back. Her face wavered, never settling clearly, but the sword seemed as solid as the stone. The woman reached Egwene’s level and held out one hand. “We can reach the top together,” she said in a familiar drawling accent…
She had dreamed of a Seanchan before, a Seanchan woman somehow tied to her, but this was a Seanchan who would save her.

A man lay dying in a narrow bed, and it was important he not die, yet outside a funeral pyre was being built, and voices raised songs of joy and sadness.

Everything shook. The room of past and present seemed to shatter, shredding into swirling smoke. Egwene stepped back, gasping, as Gawyn ripped apart as if made of sand. All was dust around her, and thirteen black towers rose in the distance beneath a tarlike sky.
One fell, and then another, crashing to the ground. As they did, the ones that remained grew taller and taller. The ground shook as several more towers fell.
Another tower shook and cracked, collapsing most of the way to the ground—but then it recovered and grew tallest of all.
At the end of the quake, six towers remained, looming above her. Egwene had fallen to the ground, which had become soft earth covered in withered leaves.

Foretellings (see here for full article)

“The Black Tower will be rent in blood and fire, and sisters will walk its grounds.”

"The lion sword, the dedicated spear, she who sees beyond. Three on the boat, and he who is dead yet lives. The great battle done, but the world not done with battle. The land divided by the return, and the guardians balance the servants. The future teeters on the edge of a blade.”

“battles with the Seanchan or the Asha’man, the Dragon Reborn doing nine impossible things”

Min’s Viewings (see here for full article)

“a bloody hand and a white-hot iron, three women standing over a funeral bier with you on it, black rock wet with blood. . .”

“Twice he’s [Perrin] going to have to be there, or you…If he’s not, something bad will happen to you. Very bad.”

“I saw you [Rand] and another man. I couldn’t make out either face, but I knew one was you. You touched, and seemed to merge into one another, and…” Her mouth tightened worriedly, and she went on in a very small voice.” I don’t know what it means, Rand, except one of you dies, and one doesn’t.”

An open cavern, gaping like a mouth. Bloodstained rocks. Two dead men on the ground, surrounded by ranks and ranks of Trollocs, a pipe with smoke curling from it.

“I see you [Rand], a brilliant white sword held in your hand, wielded against one of black, held by a faceless darkness.”

A glowing sword, Callandor, being gripped in a black hand. She gasped.
"What did you see?" Rand asked softly.
"Callandor, held in a fist. The hand looks to be made of onyx."…

“a broken crown, and trees flowering all around him [Perrin].”

and above Elayne's [head], a red-hot iron and an axe. They meant trouble, she was sure, but it seemed distant, somewhere in the future.

what was that vision that was suddenly hovering above Nynaeve's head? She was kneeling over someone's corpse in a posture of grief.

Another Accepted came to replace one already there, and to Min’s eyes bars floated in front of her apple-cheeked face, like a cage.

Suddenly, for a moment, that flaring halo of gold and blue shone about his [Logain’s] .

“You’d think, if there was any justice, she [Faolain] would have an unpleasant future ahead of her.”

An image flickered above Enaila’s head and was gone. A wreath of some sort.

Maraconn and Gueyam were going to die too, bloody deaths in battle, Min thought.

“one day you [Harine] will be the Mistress of the Ships.”

“It’s Cadsuane. She is going to teach you something, you and the Asha’man. All the Asha’man, I mean. It’s something you have to learn, but I don’t know what it is, except that none of you will like learning it from her. You aren’t going to like it at all.”

the black knife that spun around Beldeine's head recently could mean anything.

a tempestuous love affair, of all things! The woman [Sarene] was ice, however beautiful. And there was nothing useful in knowing some man would melt her!

One red-and-green aura spoke of honours, and fame. A huge building appeared above her [Nesune’s] head and vanished. A library she would found.

Among all those images spilling around Rand and the women, suddenly an aura flashed, blue and yellow tinged with green, encompassing them all [Sorilea, Erian, Elza, Beldeine, Sarene and Nesune]. And Min knew its meaning. She gasped, half in surprise, half in relief…
“They will serve you, each in her fashion, Rand’” she said hurriedly. “I saw it.” Sorilea would serve him? Suddenly Min wondered exactly what “in her fashion” meant.

Aviendha would have Rand’s babies, too. Four of them at once! Something was odd about that, though. The babies would be healthy, but still something odd.

“But she [Alivia] is going to kill you.” She [Min] bit off every word.
“You said she was going to help me die,” he [Rand] said quietly. “Those were your words”… “Helping me die isn’t the same as killing me,”

there’s something…dark…in the images I saw around Lord Davram. If he turns against you, or dies…

“Tenobia has a spear hovering over her head," Min said. "Bloody, but shining in the light, Ethenielle will soon be wed-I see that by white doves. She plans to do something dangerous today, so be careful. The other two have various swords, shields and arrows hovering about them. Both will fight soon.”

“I see dark clouds, pushed away by the sunlight's warmth... I see trees, growing green again, bearing fruit. I see a field, the crops healthy and full.” She hesitated. "I see the Two Rivers, Rand. I see an inn there with the mark of the Dragon's Fang inlaid on its door. No longer be a symbol of darkness or hate. A sign of victory and hope.”
He looked to her.
Min caught something from the corner of her eye. She turned toward the people sitting on the street, and gaped. Every single one had an image above them. It was remarkable to see so many viewings, all at once, flaring to light above the heads of the sickly, the weak, and the abandoned, "I see a silver axe above that man’s head," she said, pointing to a bearded beggar, who lay against a wall, his chin down against his chest. "He will be a leader in the Last Battle. That woman there—the one sulking in the shadows-—she will be trained by the White Tower and become Aes Sedai. I can see the Flame of Tar Valon beside her, and I know what it means. That man over there who looks like a simple street tough? He will save her life. I know he doesn't look like it, but he will fight. All of them will. I can see it!"

The "Little" Questions for A Memory of Light

2011-11-10T17:13:00.004-05:00

By Linda

As well as the major questions regarding the activities of the villains, how the good guys will win, etc, there are plenty of lesser questions floating around. Here are a few that I would like answered in A Memory of Light:

What did the Tinker message “Tell the Dragon Reborn…” refer to?

Which King and Queen did the Black Ajah kill? Why? Galina was involved, therefore it was within the last 85 years.

Were there two gholams wandering around, or one?

Who has Rand’s angreal?

How did Marith Jaen, Siuan’s predecessor, die?

Why does Harine’s swordmaster know how to ride?

Did the Murandian mechanic ever get to Caemlyn and what did he do there?

What did Lanfear ask for in the *Finns' world in the Age of Legends? And this time? (Moiraine's questions and wishes and Rand's third question will surely all be revealed).

Who was the apple-cheeked Accepted that Min viewed as in a cage?

Why did Theodrin behave oddly when she was with the rebels?

Full Circle to A Memory of Light

2011-11-08T05:40:00.003-05:00

By Linda

Minor characters we haven’t seen for a while that may reappear. I am assuming that important characters like Logain, Toveine and Gabrelle and Teslyn and Joline’s group will do so, and the various monarchs, nobles, high ranking Aes Sedai, and military generals and captains and high up Darkfriends.

Here is the start of a list of quite minor characters that may make cameos in A Memory of Light:

Nieda and Bili of Easing the Badger inn

Three Two Rivers boys who ran off (Dav Ayellin, Ewin Finngar, and Elam Dowtry)

Cauthon and al'Vere families

Kari al'Thor (her soul)

Cenn Buie

Elyas

Raen and Ila (Tinkers)

Ailhuin Guenna (Tairen)

Lini

Murandian mechanical engineer who was going to Caemlyn - though Mat’s crossbows are already loading at modern speed

Einor Saren if he wasn’t killed in the Questioners purge

Dain Bornhald

Almurat Mor the Seanchan seeker

Tylee Kirghan

Karede, Ajimbura and Musenge

Tuon's favoured damane: Lidya, Dali and Dani, Charral, Sera, Mylen

Yuril, Tuon's Hand that commands her Seekers

Hartha, Seanchan Gardener

Ronde Macura, discoverer of forkroot's effects on channellers

Agni Neres, riverboat captain

Kin Tovere, inventor

Mervyn Poel, inventor

Idrien Tarsin, head of Rand's school in Cairhien

Laras, Queen of the White Tower Kitchens

Uno Nomesta

Black Ajah

Rhianna Andomeran, Berylla Naron and Jeaine Caide sent on missions by Moghedien

Falion Bhoda, Marillin Gemalphin,

Liandrin

Talene

Duhara

Fera

Darkfriends

Suroth

Shiaine and Daven Hanlon

Amellia and Jorin Arene

Weiramon and Anaiyella

Old Cully

Elegar

Nan Belman

Aes Sedai

Talaan and Merilille

Coladara, Paitar Nachiman’s Aes Sedai

Memara the Red who was sent to Saldaea

I don't expect all of these characters to appear, but a fair selection may.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #54: Epilogue - Bathed in Light

2011-11-02T06:47:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Egwene POV

Egwene’s thoughts about her desk lamps are perhaps a dig at reviewers like myself:

They were shaped like women holding their hands into the air, a burst of flame appearing in each set of palms. The calm yellow light reflected on the curves of their hands, arms and faces. Were they symbols of the White Tower and the Flame of Tar Valon? Or were they instead depictions of an Aes Sedai, weaving Fire? Perhaps they were simply relics of a previous Amyrlin's taste.

The Gathering Storm, Bathed in Light

suggesting that sometimes an object is itself and nothing more. Mind you, Egwene (and the author) omitted the suggestion that I would have made: the lamps might represent the Amyrlin and the Keeper working side by side; something there was very little of under Elaida’s reign. The lamps are decorative but functional. Egwene’s room is as austere as Elaida’s was opulent.

The Aes Sedai are fearful of offending Egwene, perhaps overly so? I guess Elaida had everyone prepared for the worst sort of tyranny, and Egwene’s execution of a heap of (undoubtedly criminal) Aes Sedai have not thrown her in a kindly light either, and added to the fear, if anything.

We never found out what was found among Elaida’s effects. Or even if they did get around to examining them. Or whether Egwene has questioned each Tower Aes Sedai yet. She plans to train damane as Aes Sedai, just as Nynaeve and Elayne encouraged the Kin to rehabilitate and re-humanise former damane.

Egwene’s choice of a Red Keeper –from the antithesis of the Ajah she would have chosen – shows her relative political weakness. Or perhaps it forestalls developing political weakness.

Nearly forty initiates, more than twenty four of them Aes Sedai, were captured by the Seanchan. Sixty Tower Black Ajah escaped, plus twenty more from rebels. Probably the escaped Black Ajah from the rebel camp warned those Blacks in the Tower. Over one hundred women have been lost to the Tower in a couple of days.

Egwene deduces that Mesaana worked out a way to defeat the Oath Rod. The Forsaken was bold and rather courageous to take the calculated risk and stay to be tested. It may indicate how desperate Mesaana is for a personal victory for the Shadow.

Silvana and Egwene found the sun shining on Dragonmount reassuring and comforting, so much so that Egwene wants the day marked. Interesting that innocents – novices, referred to as children – saw it first. It has been many weeks since the sun shone, since Rand was not dark. He is Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun here (see Rand essay), and is at his best in this role.

The chapter begins with candlelight in the guise of channelled light and ends with the restoration of natural light – saidin and saidar turn the wheel, but they are a candle beside the Light of the World.

Epigram

The closing prophecy is from the Essanik Cycle. This is the first we learn that the Seanchan version of the Prophecies has a different name, and that they are different enough to have been separated not just from the mainland Prophecies, but from the original “native” Seanchan Prophecies of the Dragon.

The many that become one at the end of time probably refers to the nations uniting together. As regards

the last storm shall gather its angry winds to destroy a land already dying.
And at its center, the blind man shall stand upon his own grave.
There he shall see again, and weep for what has been wrought.

The Gathering Storm, Bathed in Light

The world is dying from being blighted by the Dark One. Rand is the last storm who in his rage at the world worked himself up into a tempest to destroy this failing world. He nearly failed the world himself.

He is at the centre of the storm, standing on Dragonmount, which was created by Lews Therin as he died.

Rand froze. The winds blew against him, but he could not be moved by them…All was still. Even with the tempest, the winds, the crashes of thunder. All was still.

The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

Rand was blind to the mistakes he was making and the corruption and madness he was carrying within him.

We don’t see Rand weep on Dragonmount, though he was upset enough at what the world and he had come to. He was too angry. He laughed after his epiphany though. Laughter and tears – the things Cadsuane said Rand needed to re-learn or the world was doomed.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #53: Chapter 50 - Veins of Gold

2011-10-29T06:22:00.003-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

This is a wonderful chapter, even without considering that it was finished by another author.

Rand sits at the top of the world, but isn’t feeling on top of the world; he’s about as low as he can go. Dragonmount’s vent is on his left, as is his own side wound. For so much of what Rand does and remembers in this scene, it is indeterminable whether these are his own insights or memories from Lews Therin, although for the philosophy of reincarnation, it is largely the same thing. Rand is blending with Lews Therin before his epiphany. Had he not, he would never have undergone this transformation because he wouldn’t have listened to, or perhaps even been talked to, by Lews Therin.

His nausea when reaching for the Power seems to be due to his creeping corruption, and not from the conflict between his Lews Therin and Rand personalities. After all, he is blending with Lews Therin here and yet feeling sicker than ever. The worst attack was when he tried to commit genocide with the Power.

Rand is also linked even closer to Moridin, to the extent that he is considering the validity of Moridin’s philosophy:

"What if he is right?" Rand bellowed. "What if it's better for this all to end? What if the Light was a lie all along, and this is all just a punishment? We live again and again, growing feeble, dying, trapped forever. We are to be tortured for all time!"

- The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

A terrible thing for the Light’s champion to say or feel, but then being the Light’s champion is no picnic. Rand muses on what his role is: the sheltering hand or the slaying hand (the one holding the sword)?

What was he? What was the Dragon Reborn? A symbol? A sacrifice? A sword, meant to destroy? A sheltering hand, meant to protect?
A puppet, playing a part over and over again?

- The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

His inner turmoil is now an existential crisis. From what Graendal says in Towers of Midnight, many of the Forsaken had a severe crisis (moral?) before they turned to the Shadow:

How will Lews Therin react to what he has done? Destroying an entire fortress, a miniature city of its own, with hundreds of occupants? Killing innocents to reach his goal? Will that sit easily within him?"
Moridin hesitated. No, he had not considered that. She smiled inwardly. To him, al'Thor's actions would have made perfect sense. They were the most logical, and therefore most sensible, means of accomplishing a goal.
But al'Thor himself . . . his mind was full of daydreams about honor and virtue. This event would not sit easily within him, and speaking of him as Lews Therin to Moridin would reinforce that. These actions would tear at al'Thor, rip at his soul, lash his heart raw and bleeding. He would have nightmares, wear his guilt on his shoulders like the yoke of a heavily laden cart.
She could vaguely remember what it had been like, taking those first few steps toward the Shadow. Had she ever felt that foolish pain? Yes, unfortunately. Not all of the Chosen had. Semirhage had been corrupt to the bone from the start. But others of them had taken different paths to the Shadow, including Ishamael.
She could see the memories, so distant, in Moridin's eyes. Once, she'd not been sure who this man was, but now she was. The face was different, but the soul was the same. Yes, he knew exactly what al'Thor was feeling.
"You told me to hurt him," Graendal said. "You told me to bring him anguish. This was the best way."

- The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

His actions, had he carried them out, would have qualified Rand for Forsaken at the least, as Graendal implies with her thoughts that feeling manipulated into doing dark deeds and agonising about them afterwards are the first steps toward joining the Dark One. The pressure and peril of Rand’s role, his anguish at being manipulated to unwilling evil and his trauma at the abuse, as well as the demands heaped on him, have led to this.

Rand’s thoughts show that he was always aiming for hardness rather than strength:

He had thought that if he made himself hard enough, it would take away the pain.

- The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

He is in pain because the Shadow is wounding the Land and the people and Rand is one with the Land and champion of the people. The Shadow has wounded him personally, too, in order to strike at the Land as well as him.

Rand believes everything began to go wrong after Moiraine’s death, which he caused. But we know Moiraine isn’t dead. Therefore perhaps things are not wrong at all. Rand had hope before Moiraine “died”, and it died when she did. But she isn’t dead, just gone, and his hope likewise isn’t irrecoverable; both return after great suffering.

In Rand’s mind, Moiraine’s death is associated not only with losing hope, but being put in a box. The chapter encapsulates the underlying premise, the basic theme Jordan wanted to explore in this story: what would be like to be a messiah?

"What if you were tapped on the shoulder and told you had to save the world?"

- Robert Jordan in an interview

And one under sentence not just of death, but corruption and madness as well. The pressures have caused changes in Rand:

He understood what would be required of him, and he'd changed in the ways he thought he needed. Those changes were to keep him from being overwhelmed. Die to protect people he didn't know? Chosen to save mankind? Chosen to force the kingdoms of the world to unite behind him, destroying those who refused to listen? Chosen to cause the deaths of thousands who fought in his name, to hold those souls upon his shoulders, a weight that must be borne? What man could do these things and remain sane? The only way he had seen had been to cut off his emotions, to make himself cuendillar.

- The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

but finally he will be backed into adopting the philosophy that “the more things change, the more they stay the same" (after all, that’s how Jordan’s Pattern of Ages works).

Rand has been chosen by the Pattern or Creator, but in the quote above he makes it seem as though he is little different from those who chose to turn to the Shadow – the Chosen. It’s a matter of how Rand imposes his mission and, in his darker moments, his will, on the people.

To his and the world’s great cost, Rand thinks having feelings is a failure, and that the pain he experiences will bleed him dry. His conscience vanished when he tried to kill Tam. Now Rand is worried that having reached his goal to feel nothing, he is too unfeeling and possibly amoral:

Without that voice, did Rand dare continue? If it was the last remnant of the old Rand—the Rand who had believed that he knew what was right and what was wrong—then what did its silence mean?

- The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

Bad news is what it means.

Rand immediately puts these valid concerns aside and expresses despair about the cycling of time and being reborn to remake mistakes. He also rages against lapses of time causing loss of knowledge and history. Moridin, too, was angry at the knowledge that had been lost to him through history:

The reasons, like the source of the name, were lost in the mist of time. That troubled him sometimes, enraged him, what knowledge might be lost in the turnings of the Wheel, knowledge he needed, knowledge he had a right to. A right!

- The Path of Daggers, Prologue

but Moridin wants the knowledge for himself; he’s not worried about the effect of ignorance on others’ lives.

Jordan’s opening philosophical paragraph:

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose around the alabaster spire known as the White Tower. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

- The Gathering Storm, Tears From Steel

is rephrased by Rand in a dark way at the book's end:

"We live the same lives!" he yelled at them. "Over and over and over. We make the same mistakes. Kingdoms do the same stupid things. Rulers fail their people time and time again. Men continue to hurt and hate and die and kill!"
Winds buffeted him, whipping at his brown cloak and his fine Tairen trousers. But his words carried, echoing across the broken rocks of Dragonmount…
"What if I think it's all meaningless?" he demanded with the loud voice of a king. "What if I don't want it to keep turning? We live our lives by the blood of others! And those others become forgotten. What good is it if everything we know will fade? Great deeds or great tragedies, neither means anything! They will become legends, then those legends will be forgotten, then it will all start over again!"

The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

The wind, prana or chi, the breath of Life that initiates each book has been whipped into a tempest by Rand’s rage.

The chapter title Veins of Gold refers to love, Tears from Steel, anguish. There is an acceptance in the ‘standard’ version of the philosophy that is not in Rand’s rages. He regards this world as illusion and a vale of tears and rails against the right and proper order that is the Pattern. Like the Amayar, he nearly ended the Time of Illusion, so disillusioned was he with the Pattern and his crushing role to save it. The Cycle of Ages is meaningless to Rand in his current state. History forgotten over time means there is a risk that the same errors are repeatedly made. Is Rand not doing exactly that right now? He doesn’t know all his past lives yet; not the ones with joy and love, only Lews Therin’s traumatic later life. These kinder, more balanced memories transform Rand and he sees the point, the purpose, of the Wheel. He has found insupportable the impartiality of the Pattern, which seemingly is not taking sides (although it has given Rand a big help by making him so strongly ta’veren.)

Rand knows pain of heart as Moridin ordered, although it has backfired on the latter. So while Rand is thinking that Moridin’s philosophy of nihilism might be worthwhile and that Moridin might be right, Moridin is feeling exhausted by Rand’s duty, pain and turmoil and looks forward to the end. Moridin can’t separate his own feelings too easily from Rand’s:

"I feel so tired," Moridin continued, closing his eyes. "Is that you, or is it me?

- The Gathering Storm, A Place To Begin

Not only does Rand think Moridin might be right, he no longer feels the wrongness of the Shadow, so strongly is he influenced by his link to Moridin.

The Creator’s champion declaiming:

What if the Light was a lie all along, and this is all just a punishment? We live again and again, growing feeble, dying, trapped forever. We are to be tortured for all time!"

The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

shows very dark religious feelings indeed. There must be hope and love or life is untenable.

Yet when Rand drinks in saidin, the male elixir of life made by the Creator, he feels glory.

Dragonmount might have had a tremor due to Rand holding so much saidin (and rage). Men are strong in Fire and Earth, after all.

It is true that the Dragon left the world wounded (by both world war and the Dark One’s taint), limping forward as civilisation collapsed, but Rand thinks it was rotting. Not so; only now is it rotting because the Shadow (and the madness from the taint, which makes men rot) has a strong hold on him who is one with the Land.

Graendal complains how hard it is to get good wine with everything rotten, but Moridin provided some. Is this a reverse influence from Rand through their link, or an example of changing places in a way?

Rand is holding more Power than when he cleansed saidin because then he was in a circle with Nynaeve and the overall strength of the circle is not as great as the separate strengths of each channeller in it added together, no matter how large the circle, so a channeller can’t draw as much Power as they normally could (The Path of Daggers, The Breaking Storm).

While Rand is so dark, he is repeatedly described with solar imagery (so we don’t lose hope ourselves in the outcome of his long dark night of the soul, a sign he will come about on the winds of despair):

He felt himself alight with the Power, like a sun to the world below…He was the sun. He was fire. He was life and death.

- The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

His warmth gives light, his burning rage death.

The role of the Light's champion is rough with so little support from the Creator: only the one contact with the Creator in The Eye of the World, when the Creator told Rand he wouldn’t take a direct part. The Forsaken have far more contact with the Dark One, who is a paranoid out-of-control freak. This is reassuring to them, but also very threatening.

The Last Hour as Rand described it to Tuon in another chapter whose title is the antithesis of this one:

"You believe the Last Battle is close, then?" she asked.
"Close?" al'Thor asked. "It is as close as an assassin, breathing his foul breath upon your neck as he slides his knife across your skin. It is close like the last chime of midnight, after the other eleven have struck. Close? Yes, it is close. Horribly close."

- The Gathering Storm, A Halo of Blackness

almost occurred in this chapter:

The Power hesitated inside him, like the headsman's axe, held quivering above the criminal's neck.

- The Gathering Storm, Veins of Gold

The battle within Rand was almost the last battle. It was Lews Therin and Tam who provided the input that made Rand change his view. The Creator believes in individual choice, the Dark One in his personal will. When Rand understands the purpose of the Pattern, and indirectly, choice, he remembers all his lives and also communes with the Land/Creation in the light of the globe in the hand of the access key. The sa’angreal represents Rand holding the world in his hand. And not breaking it after some consideration.

His epiphany occurs when Rand realises that rebirth gives souls the chance to love each other and be with each other again. Rand expresses the desire to fix his mistakes and get it right this time. History repeating is a chance to change outcomes for the better, not just the certainty that people will make the same mistakes repeatedly.

Rand is no longer going to crush the world that is in the palm of his hand, but shelter it (or help the Creator shelter it) and so destroys the sa’angreal and access key that symbolised the potential to destroy Creation.

Having removed the temptation of absolute power, there are signs that he is an even stronger channeller alone in Towers of Midnight than he was with the sa’angreal.

Rand is at one with the world and with Lews Therin and at peace within himself. Clouds open as his gloom lifts and he sees the sun. It shines on him. He has finally relearned laughter, at least, as Cadsuane wishes, although she didn’t have much to do with it. Therefore I don’t think this is the thing that Cadsuane is to teach all the Asha’man that Min saw in her viewing (A Crown of Swords, A Crown of Swords).

For a chapter almost exclusively about Rand, there is a lot of the Forsaken in it.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #52: Chapter 49 - Just Another Man

2011-10-25T06:49:00.004-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

For a short, quiet chapter, there is a great deal in it. It’s not just another chapter.

His first time in Ebou Dar, Rand walks around feeling nothing special – any man and everyman. Shortly, at the beginning of Towers of Midnight, upon coming down from Dragonmount, the first person he will meet will be Almen (all men) Bunt.

The Seanchan treat all citizens well unless they break the law, including that against channelling independently. They go out of their way to establish peace, law and stability in any lands they conquer so the populace accept them and don’t rebel. Otherwise they would have to tie up resources quelling insurrection. Their rule is tyrannical, and yet not:

They were conquerors. He felt their lands shouldn't be peaceful. They should be terrible, full of suffering because of the tyrannical rule. But it wasn't like that at all.
Not unless you could channel. What the Seanchan did with this group of people was horrifying. Not all was well beneath this happy surface. And yet, it was shocking to realize how well they treated others.

The Gathering Storm, Just Another Man

Currently Rand’s rule is also a tyranny of sorts, and because he is manipulated by the Shadow and exposed to the Shadow, the land is rotten around him.

Even pariahs like the Tinkers are not only accepted among the Seanchan, but encouraged to fulfil a useful civic function (and stay in one place): taking in late travellers, mending pots (the traditional occupation of real world tinkers), sewing uniforms, etc. Traditionalists among the Tinkers are concerned because they expect to find the Song while wandering like pilgrims as they search. Yet in 3000 years they haven’t done so. The Song truly is “as much a part of them as the Way of Leaf.” The two are intertwined together – they can’t have the Song, or the technique of Singing, unless they follow Way of the Leaf.

Rand, a, or the, pariah, joined the Tinkers’ camp for a night. Once, they served him as Da’shain Aiel. Ran always had mixed feelings about them: the Aiel prejudice against the Lost Ones and the mainland view of of Tinkers as idle thieves versus the knowledge that they kept one of the covenants, the First, to the Way of the Leaf, but broke the Second, to serve the Aes Sedai, unlike the Aiel who kept neither. Dressed in humble, everyman clothes, Rand carries a staff, a symbol of pilgrimage and search for wisdom. Like the Hermit of the Tarot (see Rand essay), he is solitary and separate from society, because he dare not speak his identity, and soon he will use the light of the access key and sa’angreal as guidance to ‘light his way’. Only, it will be the wrong way, which is why he casts aside his staff before he seizes the Power to destroy. Wisdom will slowly and painfully come from accepting this.

Perrin’s dream of Rand wearing rags and a rough cloak, and with a bandage covering his eyes (The Shadow Rising, To the Tower of Ghenjei) is fulfilled here. Min too had a viewing of Rand with a beggar’s staff in The Eye of the World. Rand is beggaring himself financially to feed the starving and is himself emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. He is blind to his psychological problems and where he has gone astray. Both images also allude to Rand in his role of Fisher figure in Moridin's Sha'rah game (The Path of Daggers, Deceptive Appearances).

Rand feels the full culpability of being Kinslayer and is full of self-loathing:

He had nearly killed his father. He hadn't been forced to by Semirhage, or by Lews Therin's influence.
No excuses. No argument. He, Rand al'Thor, had tried to kill his own father. He'd drawn in the Power, made the weaves and nearly released them…
Lews Therin had been able to claim madness for his atrocities. Rand had nothing, no place to hide, no refuge from himself.

The Gathering Storm, Just Another Man

Rand is wrong; he too is insane.

The Seanchan have made a safer society than Rand has been able to. He is a danger to society himself, having nearly killed his own father and now planning genocide. Still, unbeknownst to Rand, Tuon has had two of her siblings killed:

His wife-to-be had had a brother and a sister assassinated? After they tried to have her killed, true, but still! What kind of family went around killing one another? The Seanchan Blood and the Imperial family, for starters. Half of her siblings were dead, assassinated, most of them, and maybe the others, too.

- Knife of Dreams, A Short Path

The Seanchan have conquered those nations which were not politically strong. As we saw in The Shadow Rising, they sent spies to determine which nations were weakest. To their credit, once they have conquered them, they do improve the stability and order of these nations markedly.

Rand is still bent on destroying his enemies because they have defied him. He is more concerned about whether if he uses a lot of power to destroy the Seanchan, he will attract Forsaken, than he is about the effect of using such large amounts of balefire. Once he decides to do it he leaves his staff behind; it’s not a pilgrimage now, but an attack. His isolation has led to alienation:

It felt so odd to be just another foreigner.
The Dragon Reborn walked among this people, and they did not know him.

The Gathering Storm, Just Another Man

The Dragon Reborn will die for these people and yet they don’t recognise him, nor does he know them. He has cut himself off from humanity and realises this as he walks anonymously among them but doesn’t notice that he is thinking inhumanely. No wonder his own father barely recognised his character.

He sees them as his people but he is prepared to kill them:

It will be a mercy, Lews Therin whispered. Death is always a mercy. The madman didn't sound as crazy as he once had. In fact, his voice had started to sound an awful lot like Rand's own voice.

The Gathering Storm, Just Another Man

They are as mad as each other. Once, Rand wept for women who died in his name, now death is a mercy. And his musings on balefire are ominous:

He could give those walls a purity they had never known, a perfection. That would make the building complete, in a way, in the moment before it faded into nothingness.

The Gathering Storm, Just Another Man

Nihilism as purifying sounds like Ishamael/Moridin’s philosophy (for comparison see here. The reason why Ishamael swore to the Dark One is because the Dark One plans to destroy the world (and rebuild it in his own image).

Rand sickens himself with his decision to commit genocide. The sickness is due to the war within himself over how corrupt he is now. The Land, being one with him, is blighted by his corruption, and he, one with the Land, is blighted in return. It is a positive feedback loop. Because of this close link between the Creator’s champion and the Land, following the philosophy of “as above, so below,” it is very bad for the world if Rand commits evil acts. The Shadow can win just by manipulating him into such sin, however well meaning Rand is, effectively corrupting him to their side, just as in the sha’rah game if the Fisher is forced onto the opponent’s colour on the goal row it is a conclusive win for the player.

Even in the extremity of his nausea Rand still holds onto power, so fond of it or reliant on it he has become:

But he held on to saidin. He needed the power. The succulent, beautiful power.

The Gathering Storm, Just Another Man

Humbling himself was the first step to ‘meeting his toh’ and restoring his honour as an Aiel would, and the shame he felt in Ebou Dar when people innocently showed concern for him while he secretly considered committing genocide underlines this. The strong sense of community and caring in Seanchan society prevents Rand from demonising them enough to justify obliterating them. He Skims away on an Aes Sedai symbol disc, which also represents a Seal on the Dark One’s prison. Rand is astride “good” and “bad”, creation and destruction, healing and corruption, trying to Seal away the Shadow. He is not balanced though, quite the opposite; he is so unbalanced that he is literally insane. He is increasingly merging with Les Therin in this chapter:

He didn't know if the thought was his or if it was Lews Therin's. The two were the same.

The Gathering Storm, Just Another Man

and this will be complete before the end of the book. Rand thinks the Pattern pushed him to destroy because destruction was necessary. His statement that “he was destruction” is a link with the Hindu god Shiva (see Rand essay). The Pattern wants him to realise before the Last Battle that destruction should be carefully limited. Perhaps it is necessary for Rand to know what evil is like so he can beat it? He needs to be dark before he finds light; he needs to be corrupt through his link with Moridin so he can cut himself off from Moridin. (This link also ties Moridin up for a while.)

First Rand Skims to where he fought the Seanchan with Callandor and both sides lost. He also lost control of himself in that battle thanks to Callandor. Then the Dragon Travels to Dragonmount where he died and was born again and will be reborn (transfigured). It is the end of one cycle right now. Three thousand years ago Dragonmount marked the end of one Age.

Dragonmount is the counterpoint to Shayol Ghul, centre of good to its centre of evil. Such solitary volcanic mountains represent the axis mundi, the sacred centre or heart of the world. In this case the mountain was formed by the death of the Creator’s champion and was the place of the soul’s rebirth. Dragonmount is one with Rand and both have wounds which bleed. We don’t know when Dragonmount had a volcanic explosion which tore away a section of mountainside and left a wound like the maw of a beast. Was it when Rand was wounded at Falme? When Rand fought Rahvin in Caemlyn, Rand roared like a beast. He seethes inside like a volcano and his temper is volcanic.

Under an overcast sky – unenlightened – Rand looks down at the access key – a small statue of a man holding a globe in one hand. Rand is now holding the world in his sole hand. He has the power to destroy the world. But, like his parallel Heracles (see Rand essay; Hercules' pal Atlas being a parallel of Perrin) he also has the world resting on his shoulders for a while.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #51: Chapter 48 - Reading The Commentary

2011-10-22T02:31:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

This chapter confirms that Cadsuane has a scholarly streak. She has probably studied the Karaethon Cycle as much as Verin has, and carefully records as much information as she can on Min’s viewings of Rand. However no character has correlated Min’s viewings of people close to Rand (eg Mat, Perrin and Nynaeve) with what she sees around Rand to see if they chime with any of the prophecies. This interrogation started when Nynaeve came to Cadsuane and agreed to help. Just as Cadsuane uses Nynaeve’s desire for esteem, so she uses Min’s desire for knowledge to keep her at her side and helping her.

So far, the Empress is the only living woman (as Fortune and as the raven) mentioned in the Karaethon Cycle. (The Prophecies of the Dragon also refer to Tigraine, the Maiden; and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a couple of lionesses (Nynaeve and Elayne) and a falcon and a hawk in there too.) The prophecy

He shall hold a blade of light in his hands, and the three shall be one

The Gathering Storm, Reading the Commentary

has been almost ignored by commentators, therefore by Jordan’s Law of Inverse Significance, it is crucial to the war against the Shadow. Cadsuane long ago realised that Callandor was the blade of light referred to – therefore she is one of the few who knew what Callandor was, since only a dozen Aes Sedai even knew it was a sa’angreal according to Siuan (The Dragon Reborn A Trap To Spring). She researched it, probably to find out why it is called the blade of ruin (Towers of Midnight A Storm of Light) and learned of its flaws: that it magnifies the taint and has no buffer against over-drawing the Power. Min and Cadsuane agree that there is more about Callandor than they know. I discuss my ideas on how this prophecy might be fulfilled here in the Prophecies of the Dragon article.

Rand still “sees” – talks to – Nynaeve regularly but cuts himself off from Min more than ever. Min senses that Rand fears becoming the Kinslayer again:

He put up walls when she was near—not to keep her out, but to keep the real him in. As if he was afraid of what the real him would do, or could do, to those he loved...

The Gathering Storm, Reading the Commentary

and we see the outcome of this at the end of the chapter.

Cadsuane likes doing embroidery, and knows only too well how it helps thought (as do I), but Min dislikes embroidering intensely, so she is negative about Cadsuane’s way of keeping her group occupied while they wait anxiously for the outcome of Tam’s meeting with Rand, but leaving her, and their, minds free to think. Adding to the tension is their inability to listen in on the conversation, presumably because Rand wards his rooms against eavesdropping.

Beldeine has the usual Aes Sedai disregard for non-channellers’ or “commoners’” abilities and judgement. Cadsuane shows Beldeine this attitude is wrong and objectionable and she runs off – and has not been seen since…

Mins has a viewing of Nynaeve grieving over a body:

And . . . what was that vision that was suddenly hovering above Nynaeve's head? She was kneeling over someone's corpse in a posture of grief.

- The Gathering Storm, Reading the Commentary

Someone Nynaeve is close to dies. This could be Lan, or someone else close to her. It could be Rand; she could be one of the three mourners around his bier/pyre, or she mourns him on her own.

There is a black knife in Beldeine’s future:

For instance, the black knife that spun around Beldeine's head recently could mean anything.

- The Gathering Storm, Reading the Commentary

This sounds like an assassin’s knife. The knife might be that of a Bloodknife trying to kill her as a marath’damane. Beldeine left Cadsuane’s presence precipitately in this chapter after being rebuked.

Tam sensed the room grow darker when Rand entered it and blames Cadsuane. She manages to remind Tam to control himself. Cadsuane uses the Power against Tam just as Rand did. Nynaeve, who used to use sticks on people, protests. Tam calls Nynaeve by her old title of Wisdom, and Nynaeve returns the compliment by calling Tam a wool-head a short while later. Cadsuane Tam calls a bully: he has never liked Aes Sedai, which accounts for his automatic blaming of Cadsuane for Rand’s hatred of her, and for not bringing him to Rand sooner, when Tam chose to stay away from Rand. There are definitely faults on both sides here.

Nynaeve says they warned Tam that Rand was unstable; Tam says Rand is nearly insane. Rand actually is insane as the women know, but had they told Tam that, he would have likely refused to cooperate. When Tam wants to know why Rand is in this state, Cadsuane says it is irrelevant – which it isn’t, but she’s in a hurry trying to solve a pressing problem: Rand’s threat to wipe out the Seanchan. Moreover she doesn’t know the full extent of Rand’s psychological problems, notably the corrupting link with Moridin. If Tam had known how hostile Rand was to Cadsuane, he wouldn’t have told Rand that Cadsuane had advised him. Min makes the excellent point that they have made things worse by assuming they can make Rand do what they want. Corele is finally neither flippant nor complacent as she contemplates Rand committing genocide.

Min feels Rand Travel long after he did so, as though there is a time lag with the Bond, which I found to be a plot devide to delay the information until the end of the chapter.

Cadsuane is portrayed more negatively in this chapter than any scene previously, and also inconsistently: she disciplines Beldeine to be civil and then behaves at least as badly to Tam herself. Previously, she treated non-channellers better than this. The only character who behaves well in this scene is Min.

Cadsuane is right: they can’t save Rand, only he can save himself. That’s often the way with mental illness.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #50: Chapter 47 - The One He Lost

2011-10-19T05:35:00.001-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Rand is actually feeling insane but it takes him a while to work out why. It’s not rage from the Borderlanders trying to manipulate him into Far Madding where he can’t channel which has driven him over the edge, but shame from the way he treated Hurin, who revered him. Long ago, Hurin told Nynaeve that if ever she needed him, he would come, and Nynaeve has worried about Rand repressing his feelings, so in a way, this has happened. A trigger was needed to break a hole in the wall Rand has built around himself and the Pattern has sent Hurin (as an answer to Nynaeve’s concerns) to be the first of these. Tam, whose arrival Nynaeve had a hand in, will be the second.

Rand likens himself to the Stone of Tear: too hard to be natural or human, and just as legendary. Also just as impregnable: very difficult to break into, but doable when you know how. They both are major landmarks of the Age and have copious twists and turns within. The Aiel were impressed with the labyrinthine defences of the Stone, and Rand doesn’t have internal landmarks and so can’t read himself. The Heart of the Stone held Callandor, and is now empty; Rand’s heart is also currently empty as the prophecy “pray that the heart of stone remembers tears” foretold.

He wanders through the Stone while wandering through his own mind. This physical activity is an effort to distract himself from his internal furore. His mind is insane, but his heart isn’t; they are at war with each other over what he is doing to himself and others to cope with his overwhelming role.

Rand has hardened himself in the mistaken belief that it will make him stronger and it hasn’t worked. The inescapability of his fate is crushing him and he refers to this verse of the Shadow’s taunting dark prophecy:

“Two roads before him, one to death beyond dying, one to life eternal.
Which will he choose? Which will he choose?
What hand shelters? What hand slays?

- The Great Hunt, Blood Calls Blood

while looking at his hands, which illustrate the suffering he is undergoing:

Two hands. One to destroy, the other to save. Which had he lost?

- The Gathering Storm, The One He Lost

The chapter is even named after this self-questioning as emphasis.

So which of his hands did Rand lose? The sheltering one or the killing one? Hands are symbols of one’s humanity as well as one’s power. The appetite that Rand has in The Gathering Storm for using vast sources of power – the Choedan Kal, the True Power – is accelerating his loss of humanity. In a way losing his hand marked both his loss of humanity and also the necessary sacrifice of power he will make at the end of this book.

As an aside, this hand symbolism is used in more than one way in prophecy. Rand also has Perrin and Mat:

The right hand falters and the left hand strays

- Crossroads of Twilight, Opening Prophecy

Will he lose one of them permanently or temporarily?

Osan’gar and Aran’gar are/were not hands, but daggers. They were even told they were to be tools used by the Dark One, and not permitted to be, or capable of, directing in their own right.

Hurin reminds Rand of his earlier self, although that brings a reminder that his friends already feared him back then. It is almost like meeting himself in an If world, and in its own way almost as dangerous as that paradox would be.

Lews Therin says they are not facing up to the past. In fact they need memories of their past lives because if they don’t learn from the past they will keep making the same mistakes. This is disastrous in a world with cyclic time.

Rand has been seeing Ishamael (or Moridin) in his dreams:

The changes that had come upon him then [after Falme]—realizing that he had to kill, that he could never return to the life he had loved— were things he could not dwell on. He'd headed out toward Tear, almost delirious, separated from his friends, seeing Ishamael in his dreams.
That last one was happening again.

The Gathering Storm, The One He Lost

Perhaps Moridin is trying to manipulate or trap him in his dreams as he did in the early books, or maybe, due to their link, they each experience some of the other’s dreams. Rand has been separated from his friends and is insane so more than the last thing is happening again.

To use Callandor (“safely”) the man has to link with a woman and let her control the flows. Rand says he has to subject himself to her will. He certainly has to trust her. But he has to do that before they link because she can’t force him to link with her. (A man can’t even be forced into a full circle (Lord of Chaos and A Crown of Swords Glossary). He must open himself to the Source and she reaches out to him. If he doesn’t cooperate, the link can’t happen.

Rand’s own distrust is exacerbated by his link with Moridin. Trust is no part of any of the Forsaken – so much so that they barely think of trust at all.

Callandor is associated with the Dragon Reborn, just as Excalibur is associated with King Arthur, a major parallel of Rand’s (see Rand essay). He felt he could do anything when he first used it in Tear and seems invincible while holding it – after all, it stopped Ishamael’s balefire in Tel’aran’rhiod, which seemed a big deal at the time until Perrin stopped balefire in Tel’aran’rhiod in Towers of Midnight). In Arthurian myth Excalibur’s scabbard protected Arthur from mortal injury and when Morgan le Fay stole the scabbard it left Arthur vulnerable. Callandor doesn’t have a scabbard and is as dangerous to its wielder as it is empowering. Rand feels Cadsuane appropriated Callandor, but hasn’t demanded its return since he prefers the Choedan Kal which is stronger and not flawed in the manufacture. The Choedan Kal’s flaw is that it offers so much power that it very soon corrupts. It magnifies its wielder’s character flaws, while Callandor magnified the taint on saidin.

Rand is worried that Callandor features in the prophecies, whereas the Choedan Kal doesn’t. It might be in disguised form, since he using used it to cleanse saidin, a landmark event, and it has corrupted him. So it has played a large role, even if ultimately it won’t be as large as Callandor’s role. It is ironic that Rand didn’t dare use Callandor and left it in Tear lest it corrupt him. Even as far as Callandor is concerned, it is not entirely the sa’angreal themselves, but the power they offer that is the most corrupting thing about them.

The Choedan Kal represents the freedom to do anything – complete god-like powers in other words. Callandor forces some constraints on its wielder, especially that of cooperating with someone else.

Lews Therin says brute power won’t control the Dark One - after all; the Dark One is a god himself. Rand can only equal him, not outdo him. To win he needs to do or have something the Dark One doesn’t, or can’t.

Rand tells the Defenders to stop guarding the Heart of the Stone:

"Guard this place no more," he said to the Defenders. "There is nothing here of worth. I'm not sure if there ever was."

The Gathering Storm, The One He Lost

His own heart is unguarded and still is in Towers of Midnight - look at the effect Lanfear had. He seems to think Callandor is little value to him, yet is angry Cadsuane has it.

Rand rages against any constraints he perceives and any defiance or disobedience, and considers genocide against the Borderlanders and/or Seanchan. If the latter were destroyed, they couldn’t invade the nations while he fights to save everyone at Shayol Ghul. The Creator’s champion committing such an atrocity would be disastrous for the Land and the Pattern. While Rand considers mass killing, Lews Therin reminds him of his efforts to restore the girl killed in battle in the Stone, the battle commemorated in the tapestries around them. Rand tried to use the god-like powers of a sa’angreal until he saw what a travesty it was.

After deciding to kill the Seanchan and sending Maidens off to gather their spear sisters, he returns to his rooms and almost doesn’t recognise his father from behind; Tam being out of context. Rand’s mind is out of all context. Tam doesn’t have great physical strength, but has great moral and spiritual strength.

Just as the inability to update his list of fallen women due to using balefire caused conflict, so the presence of Tam causes even greater conflict over the change in his identity from past to present. Relations are awkward between father and son like they just met.

Rand feels an urge to hug his father, yet doesn’t because he feels guilty over not thinking of Tam much recently. He had given up on being among Two Rivers people. Rand thinks Mat and Nynaeve have changed, as well as Perrin and Egwene. He is angry that Perrin used Two Rivers folk when he has refused to. Tam praises Perrin’s leadership to Rand, which isn’t likely to make him feel any kinder right then. Even more unwisely, Tam says “they've gone and made a king out of” Rand. Rand is already annoyed at perceived manipulation attempts. He won’t or can’t reassure Tam that he thinks of him as his father:

The Dragon Reborn couldn't have a father. A father would be a weakness to be exploited, even more than a woman like Min. Lovers were expected. But the Dragon Reborn had to be a figure of myth, a creature nearly as large as the Pattern itself. He had difficulty getting people to obey as it was. What would it do if it were known that he kept his father nearby? If it were known that the Dragon Reborn relied upon the strength of a shepherd?

The Gathering Storm, The One He Lost

What a sad scene this is, with Rand so emotionally crippled. He has hamstrung himself worse than Perrin ever did. No wonder his inner voice, long suppressed, is screaming quietly. He is very formal and stilted in his thanks to his father:

"You did well, Tam," Rand found himself saying. "By keeping the truth from me, you likely saved my life. If people had known that I was a foundling, and discovered near Dragonmount no less—well, word would have spread. I might very well have been assassinated as a child."

"You have done a great service, Tam al'Thor," Rand said. "By protecting and raising me, you have ushered in a new Age. The world owes you a debt. I will see that you are cared for the rest of your life."

The Gathering Storm, The One He Lost

and even refers to his father by his full name. Pompous isn’t in it. He sounds like the worst sort of Seanchan Emperor, a family renowned for its dysfunctionality.

Tam killed a blademaster in front of witnesses. While he regrets it greatly, he judges it was necessary. Rand says:

"The ones that need to be done often seem the ones that we least like to have to do."

The Gathering Storm, The One He Lost

Does he feel this much regret for killing Forsaken?

Rand tells Tam that he feels the Pattern and prophecies are using him as a puppet until he is killed for sacrifice. Tam disagrees – everyone has a choice. Rand may feel like he doesn’t have a choice but that is because he is a person of integrity. While he is limited in what he can do, he has leeway in choosing why he does stuff. He can only choose why he fulfils his duties. Tam says it is not certain Rand will die, but Rand won’t run from it, so he shouldn’t whine about it. Tam thinks the Pattern won’t demand everything of Rand and give him nothing.

Tam is annoyed that Cadsuane did not bring him to Rand sooner, but it is not Cadsuane’s fault. Tam even admits that he deliberately kept away from Rand so, he didn’t interfere with Rand’s decisions. Rand feels manipulated again and this time his suppressed feelings explode. He makes Tam tell him what Cadsuane told him to say and then flies into a psychotic rage. He can’t suppress it:

Rand wrestled with his rage on one side and saidin on the other. They threatened to crush him between them.
This was why he needed to be strong. Couldn't they see? How could a man laugh when confronted by forces like these?

The Gathering Storm, The One He Lost

At the height of his rant he accuses Tam of pretending affection and manipulating him for Cadsuane.

He had lost control. But he didn't care. They wanted him to feel. He would feel, then! They wanted him to laugh? He would laugh as they burned!
Screaming at them all, he wove threads of Air and Fire. Lews Therin howled in his head, saidin tried to destroy both of them, and the quiet voice inside Rand's heart vanished.

The Gathering Storm, The One He Lost

A hair from re-becoming the Kinslayer, hr realises how corrupt he now is and flees to Ebou Dar.

The symbolism of the red and yellow rug in Rand’s rooms is interesting. Yellow for the Healing he needs (and Nynaeve’s aid) and Red for the blood he sheds and the trauma he experiences at the hands of the Red Amyrlin’s embassy.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #49: Chapter 46 - To Be Forged Again

2011-10-14T07:34:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Siuan seems politically clueless in this chapter. I know she is a mere foil to Egwene by this stage – a means to show Egwene in the best possible light, as are so many other Aes Sedai that have reached high office – but this is overdone. Siuan is supposed to be one of the brightest as well as politically deft women in the Tower. Here she is as blinded by emotion as Elaida would be, maybe more.

she heard Siuan arguing outside the doors with one of the sisters, claiming that Egwene had already been raised, and that this ceremony wasn't needed. Egwene quieted Lairain with a raised hand and called out to Siuan.
Siuan peeked in the door.
"I was raised by the rebels, Siuan," Egwene said sternly. "These women deserve the chance to stand for me as well. Otherwise, I will never have a claim to their loyalty. The ceremony must be performed again."

The Gathering Storm, To Be Forged Again

Once I am finished with the ceremony, I will greet them and formally accept their apology for their rebellion and welcome them back into the Tower."
"Accept their apology?" Siuan asked incredulously.
"They rebelled against the Tower, Siuan," Egwene said, looking at her. "Whatever the need of what they did, there is reason for apology."
"But you were with them!"
"I no longer represent just them, Siuan," Egwene said firmly. "I represent the Tower. The entire Tower. And the Tower needs to know that the rebels regret the division. They needn't lie and say that they wished they had stayed, but I think it is appropriate for them to express sorrow over the hardships the division caused. I will acquit them, and we can get on with healing."

The Gathering Storm, To Be Forged Again

We never see the rebels express an apology; they just stood like penitents while Egwene reproached and absolved them.

It is Siuan who brings Egwene a change of shoes even though servants met with Egwene when she arrived and two Tower Aes Sedai prepared her for the ceremony. In a way this is the former Amyrlin’s ceremonial foot-washing scene for Egwene – where in the traditional version the prospective Amyrlin asks the seated Sitter to allow her to serve and washes her feet.

Tesan asks Egwene if Gawyn is her Warder. Therefore she fully accepts Egwene as Aes Sedai, although two days earlier Egwene was classified as a novice in the Tower, and has never taken the test for Aes Sedai.

Thanks to the Seanchan blasting holes in the Tower, the Hall and Dragonmount are in the line of sight of each other now. This links them together and shows they need to work together. The holes symbolised the Aes Sedai’s need to unite and to remember that the Last Battle and Rand’s sacrifice are imminent. Rand, as Dragonmmount, can “see” into Hall now. The Tower is open to world, even their inner most deliberations. There is a hole in the Aes Sedai Hall until Egwene starts to reunite the Sitters. She commissions a commemorative rose window for the physical hole in the Hall.

The Amyrlin Seat was nearly destroyed by the Seanchan, just as the Tower had one Amyrlin stolen by them and were nearly unable to find a replacement. The Amyrlin sits with her back to Dragonmount and watches over the Sitters rather than him and defends them against him. Certainly the last three Amyrlin’s were at loggerheads with Rand. Egwene is still disagreeing with Rand’s actions.

The Hall scene reminds Egwene of her test for Accepted (see ter’angreal article). Saerin is the oldest Sitter in the Hall and runs the ceremony. When Romanda regains her Seat, she will replace Saerin as the oldest. Seaine is described negatively as having “calculating” eyes, and unjustly so. Suana is back to being round-faced again. Egwene wonders if Javindhra and Pevara are Black like Duhara. Javindhra probably is (see the Black Ajah article), although we know Pevara isn’t.

The Hall actually told the Reds not to raise Sitters and send them, and the Reds were easily cowed due to feeling as though they are responsible for Elaida’s failure, or fearing that without Elaida the Tower will turn on them:

"The Red Ajah is in disgrace?" she asked quietly of Tesan.
The White nodded, braided hair brushing the sides of her face. "The Reds, you needn't worry about them," she said in her light Taraboner accent. "Following Elaida's disappearance, they retreated back to their quarters. The Sitters here, they worried that the Red would choose new Sitters quickly and send them to this proceeding. I believe some . . . curt missives from the Hall of the Tower were enough to cow them."

The Gathering Storm, To Be Forged Again

The vote to raise an Amyrlin has to be the greater consensus: at least one Sitter from each Ajah is required, with a minimum of eleven Sitters present and every Sitter who is present must stand (A Crown of Swords, Glossary). This still hasn’t happened in Egwene’s case; while it could be argued that the Blues stood for her in Salidar where they were all gathered, the Red Ajah was effectively disbarred representation by the other Ajahs (The Gathering Storm, To Be Forged Again).

Egwene utters the humble ceremonial responses in a firm voice, and with anything but humble thoughts going on in her head. (Not that the latter would be unusual in a prospective Amyrlin.) She was raised for the same reason Siuan was:

Because she was the only one they could all agree upon. There were smiling faces in this group. But they were the smiles of women who had succeeded in keeping rivals off of the Seat. Either that, or they were the smiles of women who were relieved that someone was stepping up to take leadership. And, perhaps, there were some who smiled because they weren't the ones who had to take the Seat. Its recent history had been fraught with danger, dissension, and two dramatic tragedies

The Gathering Storm, To Be Forged Again

We don’t know how Siuan’s predecessor died, but upon her death the Sitters had grave misgivings over losing so many Amyrlins – three – in ten years: Tamra, Sierin and Marith. They are not idiots as Egwene realises, but they are self-interested:

Choosing someone they wouldn't mind seeing fall. Taking a risk, but not putting themselves in direct danger.

The Gathering Storm, To Be Forged Again

No dissenting Sitters remain seated. The Sitters appear to regret this, but each let someone else take the risk, lest they earn the Amyrlin’s hostility.

Saerin asks Egwene if she really wants the role when it is a heavy responsibility. This is not part of the ceremony, but was said out of compassion for Egwene’s youth. Egwene says she is already bearing this responsibility and will continue to while she is alive.

The first thing Egwene does is free Silviana and berate the Sitters for not doing their duty as a check on the Amyrlin. They protest at first and finally feel shame. Only Silviana did her duty and therefore is worthy to be raised Keeper. Egwene also wants the Reds to be included again and to feel she wants to work with them. She followed the Ajah Heads’ tactics of appeasing the injured party by electing one of them.

Silviana’s surname shows her strong advocacy of the law, since a brehon was a judge in ancient Ireland, although more of an arbitrator, umpire, and expounder of the law, than a judge in the modern sense (Encyclopaedia Britannica). The Brehon Laws were a civil rather than a criminal code, and governed everyday life and politics in Ireland until the Normans invaded in 1171. The laws were concerned with the payment of compensation for harm done and the regulation of property, inheritance and contracts; there was no state-administered punishment for crime in early medieval Ireland. It was a strongly hierarchical and tribal society, with rules of kinship within the clan determining status and therefore rights and obligations. Solidarity within the clan was also an important characteristic.

Silviana as novice mistress metes out punishment for civil infringements: minor misdemeanours of novices and Accepted, penances of Aes Sedai and violations of Aes Sedai hierarchies. Criminal law is dispensed by the Hall of the Tower. The Aes Sedai are strongly hierarchical (according to strength in saidar) and tribal (Ajahs) just like early Ireland. Silviana did her duty and took the consequences according to the law.

Egwene has plans of renewal and expansion for the Red Ajah. My theory is that they will be given the task of policing channellers just as Red shields are police among Aiel (see here) she wants them to stop stereotyping men and get out of bad habits; they have promoted some terrible leaders.

Finally Egwene admits her own culpabilities and absolves everyone:

"Bear your shame, Sitters, but bear it with determination. Do not let it break you. The time for healing has begun, and there is no longer any use in pointing fingers. You failed. But you are all that we have. We are all that the world has."

The Gathering Storm, To Be Forged Again

The Sitters are still divided along Ajah lines, but then Egwene asked the rebels to stand according to their Ajah.

Even weak sisters can link to Travel and so access storerooms with items of the Power.

Silviana is sobered by how much things will change – the novices of all ages, the Oath Rod undoing Oaths, the storerooms needing to be warded with any sister otherwise able to gain access by Travelling – even of some have to link to do so. But Egwene has no ties with long customs of the Tower and her closest friends even less. Times are forcing change and it is long overdue. The White Tower is/was ossified.

Egwene gives a rousing speech to the troops pointing out the disgrace of disunity and then inspiring them with promising a glorious future once they are unified.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #48: Chapter 45 - The Tower Stands

2011-10-11T06:13:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Egwene wears the colour of blood, anger and violence as she moves through the camp toward Tar Valon. It is also the opposite of the colour she would have chosen both on the colour wheel and the political wheel: green. The symbolism here is more overt – Egwene says of her red dress “this is symbolic” - than Jordan would typically write. Six Ajahs are represented among the rebels, and Egwene is the only one dressed in the Reds’ colour. She is of all Ajahs and none, working hard at unifying them.

Egwene thinks Bryne’s army would decide the war, but they didn’t; Egwene and the Tower Sitters did. There is no big force of Tower Guards on display at the bridge because the Aes Sedai are going to raise Egwene Amyrlin and also because they want to appease the rebels rather than appear a threat to them. And there is useful work for the soldiers to do in the city. In the recorded histories, open and secret, there has never been an open attack by Aes Sedai on Aes Sedai, so Egwene is reluctant to attack. She is mindful of her legacy, just as she lectured the Reds on how their legacy is that of Elaida’s. However, she will make the gateway to Tar Valon and take responsibility personally for the attack.

In the last hour of her life, as she faced execution, Sheriam confessed to crimes after saying she would never do what Verin did: poison herself to tell all as she died. Verin joined up so she wouldn’t die and then killed herself to betray the Shadow; Sheriam joined up happily and betrayed the Shadow at the last in the hope she wouldn’t die. Sheriam was perhaps horrified at the repercussions of her betrayal of the Dark One at the last moment. This scene:

They'd placed her head on the block and taken it off, just like the others. That scene would always be vivid in Egwene's mind—her former Keeper, lying with her head pressed against the stump, blue dress and fiery red hair suddenly bathed in warm golden light as a thinner section of clouds moved in front of the sun. Then the silvery axe, falling to claim her head.

- The Gathering Storm, The Tower stands

fulfills Min’s viewing of Sheriam:

Sheriam’s tilted green eyes fixed immediately on Min’s face. Rays of silver and blue flashed about her fiery hair, and a soft golden light; Min could not say what it meant.

- The Fires of Heaven, Sallie Daera

All three colours are there: Sheriam in blue and the silver axe, bathed in golden light. They are positive colours because her death was a positive event, removing a leader of the Black Ajah.

Fifty executions make Egwene realise that there are worse things than corporal punishment. Egwene refuses to keep Black sisters alive for interrogation due to the risk they could be rescued. She is the first to realise the danger of greed for information. This theme is discussed in Dom’s excellent Price and Prize of Knowledge essay (though it has not been updated for The Gathering Storm or Towers of Midnight).

The executions followed due legal process and Verin’s sacrifice is probably only acknowledged privately at this stage. She identified more than 95% of the Blacks among the rebel Aes Sedai. There were no false positives apparently. It is good that Verin was so careful as well as thorough.

A lot (almost twenty) of the Blacks got away. We don’t know how they were alerted; perhaps by Darkfriend soldiers among Bryne’s guard or Darkfriend servants. These people are consistently disregarded by Aes Sedai.

Lelaine’s and Romanda’s competition for Egwene’s favour is both phoney and pathetic – and futile.

It has been many days since the rebels sent their delegation to the Black Tower and no one has apparently enquired about the lack of contact from them until Egwene did, despite Aes Sedai thinking Asha’man are dangerous. I found this an unrealistic blind spot.

Four of those sworn to Egwene are in the delegation. Only one of the four would be a “proper” candidate for bonding a Warder, although Myrelle already has five Warders. Nisao has a Warder and Faolain and Theodrin are not fully regarded as Aes Sedai. Someone is trying to reduce Egwene’s faction: one was captured, one murdered, and also one beheaded, so now only three remain with her: Morvrin, Siuan and Carlinya, and Carlinya was killed in Towers of Midnight – but by then the entire Tower owes fealty to Egwene as Amyrlin.

The original dream ter’angreal which Sheriam stole is actually supposed to be with Elayne, not the rebels as stated in this chapter. This is a long running error. Nynaeve and Elayne took the ter’angreal with them to Ebou Dar and used it to meet with Egwene in Tel'aran'rhiod (Lord or Chaos, Weaves of the Power). However, it has not worked for Elayne since she became pregnant (an error, it doesn’t require channelling), and so Elayne lent it to Aviendha to take with her to Arad Doman (Knife of Dreams, A Different Skill).

Another error is that Siuan is described as diminutive, whereas in earlier books she was of average height. Her emotional reaction to the appearance of Tower Aes Sedai almost triggers the attack. Yet in an earlier chapter she lectured Egwene on controlling her body language and looking out for others testing her strength as Amyrlin.

Egwene’s assumption that Mesaana would flee the Tower was wrong. Yet Egwene didn’t assume the Tower wouldn’t attack her:

But expectations like that one—assuming that she was safe—were what had gotten Egwene captured in the first place. She was Amyrlin. She couldn't risk herself. It was frustrating, but she knew that an end had come to her days of solitary action, striking out as she saw fit.
She could have been killed, rather than captured, all those weeks ago. The Salidar rebellion would have floundered, and Elaida would have continued as Amyrlin.

The Gathering Storm, The Tower Stands

Egwene distrusts Elaida more than Mesaana in this scene. She is more mindful of the potential threat Elaida poses, anyway, at this stage. Plus she realises some possible repercussions of her actions.

The White Tower’s “blackened holes, like spots of corruption on an otherwise healthy apple” remind us of the lingering corruption there: the Black Ajah, Mesaana, and also the Bloodknives. As Egwene acknowledges:

It stood defiant of those who would break it, within and without.

The Gathering Storm, The Tower Stands

As the chapter title indicates, the Tower is still standing despite its holes and next it will stand for Egwene.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #47: Chapter 44 - Scents Unknown

2011-10-07T22:27:00.004-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

The chapter title refers to what Hurin smells – Rand, and the massive violence and death within and around him (from using the True Power and his link to Moridin). As far as character degradation goes, we are in uncharted territory.

Rand says he will use Lan’s stand at Tarwin’s Gap as a diversion rather than send troops to him. He won’t do what his enemies expect and will go to Shayol Ghul instead. Behind him the Trollocs will invade nations but once their fists divide Bashere’s army will take them from behind.

Nynaeve is using everything she can think of to persuade Rand otherwise, but is being ignored. He is not responding to her goads, either. She worries that Rand is suppressing all emotion and will implode from the pressure:

He seemed so emotionless, but she had seen the beast get free and roar at her. It was coiled inside him, and if he didn't let his emotions out soon, they would devour him from the inside.

The Gathering Storm, Scents Unknown

She is torn between going to Lan or staying to help Rand. Nynaeve thinks she can be calm – but she can’t. She always lets her emotions out, which is why she is a bad liar. An emotionally healthy one though.

Rand thinks Lan is making this stand because he wants to die:

"Rand," Nynaeve said, her anger fading to horror. "Lan will die!"
"Then who am I to deny him that?" Rand said. "We all deserve the chance to find peace."
Nynaeve found her mouth hanging open. He actually believed that! Or he was convincing himself to believe it, at least.
"My duty is to kill The Dark One," Rand said, as if to himself. "I kill him, then I die. That is all."

The Gathering Storm, Scents Unknown

Lan expressed a similar attitude when he was focussed on the duty given him as a baby: to avenge Malkier’s death. This is how Rand has come to terms with his fate – and thinks he will atone for his dark deeds.

Who is Rand, to deny people? Well, he is denying Nynaeve any hope of lasting marriage and children.

Nyaneve can see the consequences of this strategy:

The Seanchan would wage their war to the south and the west. The Trollocs would attack from the north and the east. The two would meet, eventually. Andor and the other kingdoms would be turned into a massive battleground, the people there—good people, like those in the Two Rivers—would have no chance against such warfare. They'd be crushed.

The Gathering Storm, Scents Unknown

It is a different fulfillment of the prophecy that:

"The north shall he tie to the east, and the west shall be bound to the south."

-A Crown Of Swords, Ta'veren

Instead of Rand tying the north to the east he will “allow” or “cause” the Trollocs to do so, while the Seanchan bind the west to the south. Either fulfillment could happen.

Nynaeve was told by Cadsuane to find out where Perrin is and then she will be given more responsibility. They don’t want her interfering or doing her own thing, and hence are keeping her ignorant. However, if she refuses to help, how would they find Perrin? Wise One Dreamwalkers, who could have contacted Perrin’s Aiel in their dreams, have said nothing to Cadsuane. Is it that they don’t want these Aes Sedai to know what they can do, even at great cost? Or is it some plot of the Shadow? Or a plot hole?

Cadsuane knows Rand is aware of where Perrin is. Rand says he, Mat and Perrin are connected.

Nynaeve thinks Narishma’s works worthwhile:

"I want to trust them. I know them for good people. But good people can do the wrong thing. Particularly when men who can channel are involved."

The Gathering Storm, Scents Unknown

And the Borderlander rulers could have done the wrong thing, as we see in Towers of Midnight. This testing nearly ended badly, both here and later in Far Madding. If Rand had gone to them before his epiphany, or didn’t gain enlightenment.

Rand vows he will never again put himself in to the power of another. He probably changed this view after his epiphany, or it became temporarily irrelevant as he has a god-like effect on the Pattern, but it will be interesting to see if the Shadow can manipulate him again on this issue.

He seriously considers raining fire or lightning upon the Borderlander army to give them “encouragement to do their duty and obey him and seems to think these are one and the same. Nynaeve had to talk him out of it. Instead he challenges them to return to their positions in the Blight.

As a reward for caring about Rand, he tells her where Perrin is camped. Rand is like a Warder whose Aes Sedai has died; he is consumed by the knowledge of his impending death and can’t care about others.

Nynaeve wonders if the approaching storm to the north she can sense is gathering in Blight. It seems closer than that. I think she senses the event where Rand will consider destroying the world – Dragonmount.

Nynaeve’s room moved higher up in the Stone of Tear in the night, her doorway opening onto a wall of stone so that she was sealed in. It symbolises that she’s risen high in the world, and perhaps in Rand’s esteem, but is cut off from doing things and is stonewalled.

Cadsuane patronises Nyaneve to goad her into “proving herself” to be of use. She wants to know more than whether Nynaeve is of use, but if she can be trusted and self-disciplined. Cadsuane is so commanding that Nynaeve wants to obey her and earn her approval. Once aware of this, Nynaeve rebels and demands to know Cadsuane’s plans before she tells her anything. Cadsuane doesn’t answer but pointedly asks how Rand’s meeting went. It is an excellent reality check for them all (and directly refers to the reason why Cadsuane wants to find Perrin). Cadsuane is determined to break through Rand’s darkness.

In contrast, Corele seems ludicrously light-hearted and complacent. She thinks there will certainly be a happy ending to the Last Battle because Min has viewings of the time after. Wrong. If the Dark One wins, he breaks the Pattern, invalidating the prophecies (except presumably some of the Shadow's prophecy.) This forces Nynaeve to divulge information of Perrin’s location, and then Cadsuane tells Nynaeve her plans as a reward.

Cadsuane's knowledge level is that of a scholar. This shows she used her long life wisely and didn’t rely only on her strength in Power. Min and Cadsuane understand the philosophy and theology of the Pattern.

Nynaeve had the choice of whether to help Cadsuane help Rand, and indirectly Lan. Rand fears to go to Far Madding but after his epiphany he doesn’t. He thankfully didn’t think of using the True Power at this time, but does in Towers of Midnight but is not longer inclined to do so.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #46: Chapter 43 -Sealed to the Flame

2011-10-04T15:36:00.000-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Egwene POV

Egwene is convinced being removed from the Tower means a failure. Actually the distance between the Tower and her allowed the Tower Aes Sedai to feel they assessed the political situation and her suitability objectively. Also kept her from possible politicking and emphasised how she has nothing to do with the animosity between Ajahs and the Tower’s failure of leadership.

Siuan is used to being in command and more recently of acting secretly on her own as Egwene recognises. She condoned Siuan’s behaviour by not objecting.

Egwene says secrecy is a danger and that it pulled down Siuan:

It was a danger—secrecy. It was what had pulled down Siuan. The woman's time as head of the Blue Ajah's eyes-and-ears had taught her to be parsimonious with information, doling it out like a stingy employer on payday. If the others had known the importance of Siuan's work, perhaps they wouldn't have decided to work against her.

The Gathering Storm, Sealed to the Flame

While Amylin, Siuan never told the Aes Sedai or even the Hall what she was trying to do. Had she though, Rand would have been killed; with so many Black Sitters in the Hall. She was right to keep her plans secret even though it meant she could be undermined by the Black Ajah or ambitious women. It was the price Siuan paid.

Now that the Black Ajah has come out into the open the Amyrlin will have an easier time of it.

Egwene is conscious that she could fall into the same habits that her teacher has. It is good that she examines her own behaviour. She consciously curbs her body language so she can’t be read; something Siuan encouraged her to do.

For this important occasion Egwene is dressed in green and yellow - the Battle Ajah and Healing - just as in The Gathering Storm The Tower Stands she consciously wears red.

Egwene’s comments on the Amyrlin’s ability to handle events: leads us to compare her, Siuan and Morgase – and even Elaida:

She'd once thought, mistakenly, that the Amyrlin wouldn't be so easily tossed about by random twists in the Pattern. She was supposed to be in control. Everyone else spent their days reacting, but the Amyrlin was a woman of action!
She was realizing more and more that being the Amyrlin wasn't different. Life was a tempest, whether you were a milkmaid or a queen. The queens were simply better at projecting control in the middle of that storm. If Egwene looked like a statue unaffected by the winds, it was actually because she saw how to bend with those winds. That gave the illusion of control.
No. It was not just an illusion. The Amyrlin did have more control, if only because she controlled herself and kept the tempest outside her.

The Gathering Storm, Sealed to the Flame

Morgase was certainly swept aside by a tempest of events. So was Siuan. The Shadow derailed them both even though they had self-control. These were not random twists in the Pattern! Bending with the winds is what Cadsuane advises Rand to do and he rejected (Knife of Dreams, News For the Dragon).

She swayed before the needs of the moment, but her actions were well-considered. She had to be as logical as a White, as thoughtful as a Brown, as passionate as a Blue, as decisive as a Green, as merciful as a Yellow, as diplomatic as a Gray. And yes, as vengeful as a Red, when necessary.

The Gathering Storm, Sealed to the Flame

Perhaps Egwene’s list of qualities for an Amyrlin is overly idealistic. Although in The Dragon Reborn Alanna said that Aes Sedai each do something of all the Ajah’s aims.

She regrets the necessity to force herself on the White Tower but there is little time left before the endgame and before the White Tower recovers from the Seanchan. They need to unify, and need to purge themselves. She did it all on one day.

All her idealistic deliberations are derailed when she sets eyes on Gawyn.

Egwene thinks Galad never worries about anything. Galad’s POV in Towers of Midnight shows how erroneous this is. The difference between Galad and Gawyn is the latter’s unbridled passion and recklessness.

He slept on the ground in front of her tent like a devoted dog or slave. He doesn’t act like a First Prince of Sword – not because of the devotion, but because he abandoned his duties – so I guess it is not surprising that he doesn’t accept Egwene as Amyrlin and therefore didn’t trust her judgement. Yet there are plenty of Queens and High Seats in Andoran history who unexpectedly gained their position very young and led in their own right.

Some rebels judge correctly that Egwene will order the military assault on Tar Valon.

I felt a foreboding Foreshadowing when Egwene says:

"I will do what must be done, Gawyn," she said, meeting his eyes. "For the good of the Aes Sedai and the WhiteTower. Even if it is painful. Even if it tears me apart inside. I will do it if it needs to be done. Always."

The Gathering Storm, Sealed to the Flame

For once he believes her and takes notice.

Jesse POV

The five “most powerful women in world” meet in what is effectively a closet. (Also, the Seanchan Empress might argue their title and right to power.) They are able to hold this meeting now, because Ferane and Suana as Sitters are in recess for a short while.

Suana was described as round-faced and plump earlier in The Gathering Storm not lanky and bony:

If only she could spend some time with plump, round-faced Suana.

The Gathering Storm, Unexpected Encounters

Even privately, the Ajah Heads don’t refer to the Thirteenth Depository by name. (We are not so coy here).

Jesse accepts the Ajah Heads’ culpability and errors though this shows mainly in her refusal to take sole blame. Somehow the Ajah Heads know Tsutama is Red Ajah Head, although they haven’t invited her to join them. They blame Elaida on the Reds even though they (or their Sitters) elected her and let her ignore law and custom. The Aes Sedai leadership should not depend on the Reds curbing Elaida. This is the weakness of the power-based ranking when women are raised young on their strength in the Power. (And Siuan marketed Egwene to the rebels on the same basis.)

By choosing atypical or young women, they made the Hall dysfunctional, especially when the Black Sitters are added on top (although the Ajah Heads never knew about those.) The mystery of the too young Sitters is finally explained: the Ajah Heads sent some Sitters out after the rebels to steer them towards reconciliation, and replaced them with temporary placeminders. Not only did they undermine the Hall with their choices, but their rank and file lost faith in them.

They decided it was a good idea for the Ajah Heads to run things at the time of the Last Battle. After all, Elaida is (was) a too young Amyrlin.

They assumed the rebellion would be easily resolved, but the Black Ajah took up Siuan’s and Leane’s suggestions to increase the effectiveness of rebellion and thereby prolong and promote the division. The Black thought Egwene would be easily controlled. After all, Siuan (who had all these great ideas they used) thought the same.

Bryne the Black never got around: in part he was too clever and brave/honourable. Underestimated him.

Letting Elaida disband Blues was indeed the Ajah Heads’ gravest error. There was then every reason for the rebels to fight on. Not only was it against three thousand years of custom, it made the Hall look pathetic.

The Ajah Heads have great difficulty admitting mistakes or accepting blame. There is too much competition between them, which is why they won’t raise one of themselves as Amyrlin. The same goes for suggestions for other sisters as Amyrlin. They are working together but the division between Ajahs is very apparent.

With such a lack of trust amongst themselves and the Ajahs, Egwene who is of no Ajah is the only solution. She has even acted in the job and she merits it better than any of them: she defended them all effectively, while Elaida, being away from the heart of the Tower, got captured. The Ajah Heads and Sitters didn’t stand up to Elaida, but she did.

Adelorna the Green Ajah Head is the first to propose Egwene, who would have chosen the Green Ajah.

The Ajah Heads hope to unify the Tower too, by adopting the rebels’ Amyrlin, just as Egwene hopes to appease the Reds by choosing her Keeper from among them.

Choosing Egwene will end their hope of rule, but itdidn’t work anyway as Serancha points out.

Siuan POV

By Ajah law, Blues don’t marry (New Spring, Just Before Dawn); but Siuan will – like a Green. It foreshadows change.

Siuan regrets losing Egwene’s trust; but thinks it worth it because the rebels were falling apart, plus Siuan thought Egwene was in danger.

Bryne is worried that Siuan regrets bonding him as Warder (or feels he pressured her to Bond him.) He understands her now, is assured she is honourable, and is content to wait for marriage until she feels her duty is done. She is content and allows herself to be supported by him – a little…

Siuan is a perfectionist and is very hard on herself. She is very competitive with him and is bothered that he might think her self-centred and won’t let him see her wrong-footed.

Egwene POV

It is the second youngest Sitter who is supposed to weave the ward against eavesdropping if it is required. Closed sessions of the Hall are Sealed to the Hall (The Path of Daggers, The Law and Knife of Dreams, Call to a Sitting) not to the Flame. (The youngest Sitter always starts the Hall’s sessions by threatening with the law those who would interrupt proceedings.)

As she had threatened, Mesaana punished Sheriam in the night with the loss of a finger for failing to get one dream ter’angreal.

Egwene said she doesn’t think the Aes Sedai should publicly admit that there are Black sisters, but do so only in the Hall. Yet they can’t hide it, and Egwene is about to organise a purge and execution of Black sisters. This statement of hers doesn’t make sense and seemed foolish to me.

I love the question “Do you consort with the Forsaken?” So very like real world witch hunts.
Egwene read Verin’s book some more and learned about the hearts.

Note that Sheriam never doubted Verin’s commitment to the Shadow. Egwene had to trap the Blacks into revealing themselves because her accusations would never be believed.

The Sitters re-swore the oaths in order of age and therefore follow the usual Sitters’ seniority.

Romanda baulked at Egwene’s authority early in session, but after Egwene takes command and exposes two Darkfriends and suggests how to cleanse all the others, Romanda refers to her willingly and properly as Amyrlin.

Lelaine, a senior Blue, is the one to publicly voice horror for the invasion of Tar Valon. Yet the Blues played a major part in the rebellion.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #45: Chapter 42 - Before the Stone of Tear

2011-09-30T06:46:00.004-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Rand is confronted with an unresolvable conflict and breaks down:

We don't know the names of the women who were in Graendal's palace, Lews Therin said. We can't add them to the list.
Rand tried to ignore the madman. That proved impossible. Lews Therin continued.
How can we continue the list if we don't know the names! In war, we sought out the Maidens who had fallen, We found every one! The list is flawed! I can't continue!
It's not your list! Rand growled. It's mine, Lews Therin. MINE!
No! the madman sputtered. Who are you? It's mine! I made it. I can't continue now that they're dead. Oh, Light! Balefire? Why did we use balefire! I promised that I would never do that again.

The Gathering Storm, Before the Stone of Tear

He used balefire to destroy Graendal because it’s the only sure way to get rid of a Forsaken but as a result he can’t add the names of the women he killed as collateral damage to his list. Rand can’t atone for their deaths in the way he usually does.

He realises that he is begin forced to commit evil – become a Kinslayer – by the Dark One. While “the devil makes him do it”, this is not a valid excuse. Both of his personalities know this. The Rand personality accepts and is prepared to pay the apparent price:

"It doesn't matter, as long as the world survives. They cursed me before, swore at Dragonmount and by my name, but they lived. We're here, ready to fight. Again and again."

The Gathering Storm, Before the Stone of Tear

The Lews Therin side of him is horrified and distressed:

So many names we don't know, Lews Therin whispered. So many dead by our hand.
And it was just the beginning.

The Gathering Storm, Before the Stone of Tear

This self-flagellation is dangerous to his well-being as well as futile. He/they can’t know the names of everyone, female and/or male, who dies for him or is killed because of him, as he just proved to himself. He needs to express care and encourage cooperation, rather than try to do everything and shut himself off from people and beat himself up internally.

Who is the more mad? Rand denies any conflict when Min feels disquiet:

"I am well, Min," he said. "I was thinking."

The Gathering Storm, Before the Stone of Tear

This is both untrue and a scary indication of the extent of his dissociation and the unfeeling state of his Rand personality.

While previously Rand did at least as much good as bad, if not more, the growing influence of his link to Moridin and the corruption from using balefire has led to his doing more harm than good, to the extent that he can’t deny it:

Each time he'd conquered a kingdom before, he'd left it better than when he'd arrived. Rand had removed Forsaken tyrants, brought an end to warfare and sieges. He'd cast out Shaido invaders, he'd delivered food, he'd created stability. Each land he'd destroyed had, essentially, been saved at the same time.
Arad Doman was different. He'd brought in food—but that food had drawn even more refugees, straining his supplies. Not only had he failed to give them peace with the Seanchan, he had appropriated their only troops and sent them up to watch the Borderlands. The seas were still unsafe. The tiny Seanchan empress hadn't trusted him. She would continue her attacks, perhaps double them.
The Domani would be trampled beneath the hooves of war, crushed between the invading Trollocs to the north and the Seanchan to the south. And Rand was leaving them.

The Gathering Storm, Before the Stone of Tear

Nor can he justify the extent he has made things worse.

He used Arad Doman to deal with the Seanchan, and to track down Graendal, and he took its troops and general to defend the Borderlands. No wonder Arad Doman is now such an Arid Domain.

Rand decides he will be more overt about his location and activities because Lan is riding to Tarwin’s Gap. There is little time left. Bashere doesn’t know what would draw the Borderlander monarchs away from the Blight at such a crucial time. Rand announces that the army in Tear is going to Shayol Ghul and not Arad Doman. He assumes the Seanchan will take Tear and Illian while they go to Shayol Ghul. Rand doesn’t mind if Ituralde stays in Saldaea and holds back the Shadow, or returns to Arad Doman and holds back the Seanchan. Bashere admits the situation is such a mess that there is no right answer.

Nynaeve and Cadsuane are not with Rand. He doubts they are working together, because he thinks they can hardly bear to be in the same room, but he is mistaken. They are meeting about finding Perrin and tracking down Tam to bring him to Rand - although Cadsuane hasn't told Nynaeve much yet about the plan yet.

Rand is now so corrupt that the entire food delivery turned rotten. The best thing he can do for Arad Doman at the moment is leave. And he does so because he has no answers, not knowing how or why it is happening. He may think it is his ta’veren effect. And Tear cheers as he arrives. This makes him feel more guilty than not worrying about Arad Doman’s approaching starvation does.

Rand and the Land are stuck in a dreadful positive feedback loop, where the blighting of one exacerbates that of the other. No wonder they are both in a parlous state. Moreover Rand’s:

ta'veren effect seemed to be growing more powerful, causing increasingly greater distortions. And more dangerous ones.

The Gathering Storm, Before the Stone of Tear

This reflects his darkening character and his violent mood swings which have grown more powerful and more dangerous.

Rand thinks Weiramon a fool. Lews Therin says he likes him, which shocks Rand because in Rand’s opinion Lews Therin doesn’t like anyone. Lews Therin says Weiramon is honest:

More than I am, for certain! A man doesn't choose to be an idiot, but he does choose to be loyal. We could do much worse than have this man as a follower.

The Gathering Storm, Before the Stone of Tear

Yes, Rand could have Taim as a follower! Actually a man can choose to be an idiot – or at least appear one. Just as he can choose to appear loyal.

Anaiyella is wearing Weiramon’s colours although we don’t know what these colours are. I had deduced a long time previously that Weiramon is a Darkfriend (see Darkfriend article) and this hinted to me that Anaiyella is one also. “Wearing his colours” may further indicate that she is one of the underlings in his circle, or that these colours are those of the Forsaken who commands them both.

Rand kept his tongue. Arguing with the madman was pointless. Lews Therin made decisions without reason. At least he wasn't humming about a pretty woman again. That could be distracting.

The Gathering Storm, Before the Stone of Tear

As I said above, which one is mad? Rand is so dissociated that he doesn’t accept the Lews Therin personality as a part of himself, or that it is having an influence on him despite him asking Lews Therin for advice and information and using his knowledge.

And a pretty woman doesn’t distract Rand too? It’s all Lews Therin’s fault! If the devil doesn’t make Rand do it, Lews Therin (Lucifer) does!

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #44: Chapter 41 - A Fount of Power

2011-09-27T06:35:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

This chapter follows on from the previous chapter and has more POV changes to increase the sense of action and tension. In keeping with the chapter title, each POV is of someone in high position at risk of losing power, or of someone who was formerly in a high position.

Gawyn POV

Bryne’s comment that:

"You can never control everything in a city this size, Siuan. Those bridges, in a way, they give you a false sense of control. Sure, for an invading army, this city is impenetrable—but a place like this, tighter than a tick, can still have a dozen holes big enough for fleas to slip through."

The Gathering Storm, A Fount of Power

shows why Siuan (and other Amyrlins) could be undermined. They are too prone to believe long-lasting structures and organisation as impregnable. The Blues’ former information-gatherer does not know as much as she thought she did – a lesson difficult for her to learn – and humble, disregarded Aes Sedai such as Shemerin can have crucial bits of information.

Bryne’s judgement foreshadows how successful the Bloodknives will be in hiding and striking from the shadows.

Gawyn is impatient throughout this exchange; he is concerned that he won’t be in time.

Siuan objects to the use of Tower Guard uniforms as disguises because they are symbols of a sacred duty. Bryne points out that they are her enemy because she is no longer Amyrlin.

Saerin POV

Saerin is organising the fighting because no senior Aes Sedai better qualified – such as a Green Sitter or the Amyrlin - is around. Her tactics are sensible and reasonable. She orders Captain Chubain to be Healed, and to organise his men to use bows and also to scout, and to get poor fighters such as the Yellows or Browns to form a body of Healers in the command centre and to roam the fighting groups. All the while, Saerin feels embarrassed at how poor the Aes Sedai are at defending themselves, and how disunited they are.

The Black sister Katerine tries to take control and go on offensive but Saerin’s summary of the danger and their poor showing makes her back down. Was she going to make the Seanchan raid more successful as part of her instructions from the Black Ajah? Or was she just making an individual power grab for herself and was ignorant that she could be captured?

Egwene POV

Egwene is angry that the damage could have been minimised if Elaida had listened and prepared. She is determined to make this raid cost the Seanchan and has killed about 12 to’raken at this stage. The novices are forcing the Seanchan soldiers back from the stairs. They are not children anymore, and have been more successful at fighting than many full Aes Sedai. It is good training for the Last Battle.

Bryne POV

The rescue party is fighting 30 Seanchan soldiers who ran out of Tower. Gawyn is fighting brilliantly. Bryne realises the Seanchan are withdrawing and therefore they are running out of time to rescue Egwene. (He doesn’t know how disorganised the Tower is – although Saerin is doing a reasonable job of restoring order.)

Captives are being winched from the Tower roof onto to’raken. The east wing, which formerly housed the novices and now is part of the Brown Ajah quarters - is badly damaged. Bryne wonders if Ogier will rebuild the damaged sections or if the Tower will ever be the same.

Bryne doesn’t really connect Siuan with the “stern woman” he met years earlier. He becomes angry that she might be in danger when she wonders off. She says she has been before. As with Lan and Nynaeve, in fact more so, there is a power struggle between them. Unlike Lan and Nynaeve, whose marriage vows provided a way of managing this fairly, they will have to work this out for themselves.

Siuan senses Bryne’s dismay that some injured men will die and wants to Heal them. Bryne doesn’t argue. If she hadn’t been so caring, perhaps they would have died. Bryne prevented the Bloodknife from using his poisonous knife on Siuan but is poisoned himself. Siuan remembers Min’s viewing of:

“If you [Siuan] want to stay alive, you had better stay close to him.” Despite the heat, Min shivered. She had only ever had one other viewing with an ‘if’ in it, and both had been potentially deadly. It was bad enough sometimes knowing what would happen; if she started knowing what might… “All I know is this. If he stays close to you, you live. If he gets too far away, for too long, you are going to die. Both of you. I don’t know why I should have seen anything about you in his aura, but you seemed like part of it.”

- The Fires of Heaven, Trapped

and Heals him. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy as Bryne points out:

“You'll have to thank Min next time you see her, Bryne. She just saved both of our lives."
"But I wouldn't have been poisoned if I hadn't come!"
"Don't try to apply logic to a viewing or Foretelling like this," Siuan said, grimacing. "You're alive. I'm alive. I suggest we leave it at that.

-The Gathering Storm, A Fount of Power

Siuan accepts prophecy without reservation and is pragmatic about its paradoxes.

Bryne knows Siuan is fairly exhausted from the Healings she performed but doesn’t argue when she suggests they get on with looking for Egwene.

Egwene POV

Egwene used herself up defending the Tower. She thinks:

I was a burning warrior, a hero called by the Horn. They won't dare face me again.

-The Gathering Storm, A Fount of Power

But she is wrong: the Seanchan will come again. Egwene reckons that more to’raken escaped than were killed. (The Seanchan sent hundreds.) Her losses were thankfully light: three novices died out of more than sixty, and one Aes Sedai out of forty. Ten damane were captured. It was probably Saerin who organised sisters to put the fires out.

The success of the raid is physical proof of the parlous state of the Aes Sedai; while Egwene protected them from their own inadequacies as best she could, they still came out badly.

Gawyn and Siuan completely misunderstand what has happened and why Egwene is alone and unable to channel. (Egwene sent the novices to bed and the Aes Sedai went to give aid elsewhere.)

Siuan uses the sa’angreal to open a gateway back to boats and to camp. Egwene is too tired to protest being removed from the Tower:

No! Egwene thought, clawing through her drowsiness, forcing her eyes open. I'm winning, don't you see? If I offer leadership now, when the rubble is being cleared, they'll see me as Amyrlin for certain! I have to stay! I have to—

-The Gathering Storm, A Fount of Power

Saerin POV

More than twenty Aes Sedai died and not all reports are in. They are only Healing those who would not survive without it; otherwise they use healall. Healall is the name of a real world plant, Prunella vulgaris (illustrated right), which is used to treat a variety of ailments including wounds.

Stone root (Collinsonia canadensis) is also called heal all and is used on bruises and wounds; however Prunella vulgaris is more popular.

Saerin realises that Egwene is far from a novice and in fact outdid them all. The Tower novices who fought are also now far from novices.

Mair was not captured with Elaida because the Seanchan assumed she was dead. Had she been taken the Tower would not know Elaida’s fate for certain.

Elaida POV

Somehow Elaida was removed from her room, tied with ropes and winched onto a to’raken while barely conscious. Forkroot was not used since she could reach for the Source OK and would have remembered being forced to swallow a liquid. Perhaps they used some other drug that could be inhaled or injected under the skin.

Karma bites Elaida:

She who beat Egwene, and wants to have her maid beaten because she didn’t do things right despite being warned, is herself “beaten” for ignoring the warnings of a sul’dam and of Egwene. Note that she was given a warning after the first infraction, and beaten the second.

She who discounted the existence of the a’dam is now wearing one.

She who insisted she was an absolute monarch is now a slave.

The Empress usually treats damane well, far better than do other sul’dam, but will she Elaida? Or should I say Suffa? Elaida’s new name hints not. Her name indicates she will suffer, but so perhaps will her captors, since she is often insufferable. The Seanchan may have to take Elaida’s Foretellings on sufferance.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #43: Chapter 40 - The Tower Shakes -

2011-09-23T07:43:00.005-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

The changing POVs in this chapter rapidly increase action and tension.

Chapter Title

The Tower physically shakes under the Seanchan attack, but also spiritually, since the Aes Sedai are ill-prepared and quite helpless and the organisation is crumbling due to being undermined by the Black Ajah and Elaida’s mismanagement.

The attack illustrates the motif of the lightning struck tower popular in Renaissance thought. In one fifteenth century Tarot card deck, the Tower is a large crumbling stone structure with flames emerging from its side (Robert M Place, The Tower: History, Symbolism and Divination) as shown in the Charles VI Tower tarot card right.

The Tower card

represents the fire that purifies – the process of destruction that is necessary before we can rebuild… In the mystical quest, the Tower represents the burning away of the egotistical urges that stop one from joining with the One.

Robert M Place, The Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination

and suggests

the destruction of an out-dated philosophy which is unable to adapt to new conditions…The lesson here is that any structure is only defensible as long as it remains flexible and capable of evolution; life itself is in a state of constant flux and no merely human construction can hope to survive if it cannot adapt.

Alfred Douglas, The Tarot

The card has connotations of sudden catastrophe, destruction and the downfall of pride. This is the effect the attack had on the Tower. It was the final trigger for the Aes Sedai to finally accept their inadequacies.

Over the centuries the card has had various titles: Fire, the Thunderbolt, the Tower (see see Il Meneghello Soprafino Tarocco card left), the House of God (Charles VI Tarot card above right) and the House of the Devil. All seem appropriate here.

Jordan was never content to show just one example of a symbolic element, and so the White Tower is not the only Tower to be suddenly rent: its opposite the Black Tower is also prophesised to be attacked (“rent in fire and blood”, to be precise) although with perhaps quite different results.

Siuan POV

Gareth and Siuan use each others’ names when discussing whether to rescue Egwene while the Tower is being attacked by the Seanchan. Bryne doesn’t want to rescue Egwene because he gave his word to obey her and she has forbidden it. Siuan feels she must rescue her because Egwene was so traumatised by her Seanchan enslavement as we see confirmed almost immediately in Egwene’s POV.

Egwene POV

Egwene’s first reaction is to flee from the Seanchan:

Egwene shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. The cool, seamless metal. The nausea, the degradation, the panic, despair, and—shamefully—guilt at not serving her mistress to the best of her abilities. She remembered the haunted look of an Aes Sedai as she was broken. Most of all, she remembered her own terror.
The terror of realizing that she would be like the others, eventually. Just another slave, happy to serve.

The Gathering Storm, The Tower Shakes

but she pulls herself together. She promises to protect Nicola even though she can barely channel. Nicola is comforted despite knowing Egwene’s ability is so restricted. Other novices, too, are inspired and reassured by her leadership.

Egwene shows that there are ways around not being able to channel much – linking and using angreal. She teaches the novices to link so they won’t be defenceless. It is against custom, but custom is so useless as to be dangerous at this time.

Egwene selects ring leaders on the basis of skill and levelheadedness - ie merit, and not on their strength in the Power.

The sa’angreal was in the same storeroom as the smaller ter’angreal, just lying on shelf. This may be an error. Sa’angreal are not mentioned as being kept with ter’angreal in earlier books.

Siuan POV

Bryne follows Siuan around rather than stay with his officers.

Siuan is ready to pay the price of Egwene’s angerat for disobeying her, although in part this is because she thinks Egwene will ultimately be thankful. She is mistaken: Egwene is more than annoyed, she loses trust in Siuan, something Siuan did not consider.

Gawyn only thinks of Egwene and agrees that he will be square with Siuan if she helps him get Egwene out of Tar Valon. Actually, he is so one-track minded that even someone as obsessive as Siuan remarks on it.

Bryne refuses to help them because he won’t help Siuan break her word (and also because they are unlikely to succeed alone). Siuan tries to justify the rescue by saying that Egwene said they could rescue her if she were going to be executed, and for all they know that is the sort of danger she is in.

"Ignorance is not an excuse," Bryne said sternly, stepping closer to her. "You have made oathbreaking far too convenient, Siuan, and I don't want it to become a habit for you. Aes Sedai or not, former Amyrlin or not, people must have rules and boundaries.

The Gathering Storm, The Tower Shakes

Siuan is trying the usual Aes Sedai tricks with oaths, but Bryne is making her keep to the spirit of her oaths, not just the letter. Yet Bryne can’t bear to let Siuan go into danger without him and so breaks his word to Egwene. He sets two conditions: one is that Siuan will Bond him as her Warder. (Weak as she is she is strong enough to do that. This makes sense since no Aes Sedai is said to be too weak to bond a Warder, not even Daigian.) We find out later that the other condition is that they marry.

Bryne is possibly atypical of men in not revealing a similar physical desire for Siuan and possibly speculating on how he could put his newly acquired stamina to good use…

Adelorna POV

Adelorna’s experiences show how Aes Sedai, who can’t use the One Power as a weapon, don’t fight and haven’t had to defend against invasion, were easily defeated by the Seanchan.

The head of the Battle Ajah actually gets collared and then saved by Egwene. Adelorna feels a fool for being captured, then tries to take charge, despite failing a short while before and knowing little about the Seanchan of damane. Egwene is definitely in charge and is prepared to pay for this later:

"I am in command until this threat passes. You will call me Mother. Give me penance later if you must, but for now my authority must be unquestioned. Is that clear?"

The Gathering Storm, The Tower Shakes

And Adelorna obeys and is proud that Egwene respects her toughness.

No Aes Sedai went to get angreal, even by mundane methods. The fate of Adelorna’s group of Greens shows that many Aes Sedai were not linked to others, but defending piecemeal.

Elaida compromised knowledge of Travelling as Egwene knows:

"I'd have never shown you this, save that I just had a report that Elaida has been spreading knowledge of this weave. Knowledge of Traveling has been compromised. That means the Seanchan are likely to have it by now, assuming they've taken any women Elaida taught."

The Gathering Storm, The Tower Shakes

Egwene is prepared to kill captive Aes Sedai to prevent the Seanchan gaining Travelling. The Seanchan will get it; and actually it is Elaida herself who betrays it.

Adelorna realises Egwene could have left the Tower at any time. Egwene says if she did she would be abandoning Tower, since she knew the Seanchan would attack.

Egwene aims to make the Seanchan lose more damane in their raid than they gain captive Aes Sedai.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #42: Chapter 39 - A Visit From Verin Sedai

2011-09-20T07:27:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Egwene thinks Verin only recently returned to the Tower from somewhere. Verin says she dropped Tomas off to his family and implies it was a short while before. It has been about 27 days since Verin left Mat. Sanderson said that Verin’s letters had some redundancies in case any of her instructions were ignored or went astray.

This interview with Verin makes Egwene fully realise the risk she has run in taking forkroot. Any Black sister could have killed her had she been alone (but they want her alive and fuelling the division.) To justify her complacency and over confidence she says who could anticipate running into a Black sister. Yet back in The Dragon Reborn she was a lot more careful.

Verin twice suggests to Egwene in this final and desperate conversation that Egwene thank Laras for her. This is something like a last request, and Verin makes it before she even explains her activities and hands Egwene the coded book; the latter should be more important, yet the former takes precedence in Verin’s mind. She tells Egwene that Laras is not a Darkfriend, and is trustworthy and extraordinary. I hypothesise Verin is nudging Egwene to see Laras because Laras will tell Egwene something or give her something vital (eg the Horn of Valere). My theory is detailed here.

Verin, like Egwene, thinks the Tower division and factions foolishness. She was surprised at what Egwene has achieved in breaking Elaida’s regime - and perhaps the Black Ajah’s influence on the Tower division, considering how annoyed they are.

The chapter delivers a lot of information on the Shadow in a revelatory fashion. Verin is convinced the Dark One’s motives and strategy are unpredictable and that Rand’s assumptions are wrong.

The Forsaken’s selfishness makes them predictable to Dark One:

”A tool you can depend upon to act as expected is far more valuable than one you cannot understand.”

The Gathering Storm, A Visit From Verin Sedai

Plus the contention means that only the strongest and craftiest survive. (Note that the Seanchan select their monarch in a similar way).

Verin was believed to be a Darkfriend by the Black Ajah and had to either join up or die. This was probably the serious error she made 70 years ago. She did not want to die, so she chose to join, and to redeem herself by gathering intelligence with the aim of betraying the Shadow:

"I joined them to keep my skin intact," Verin said, smiling. "I'm rather fond of it, though Tomas did go on about these white hairs. Anyway, after joining them, the chance to study them was my making the best of the situation."

The Gathering Storm, A Visit From Verin Sedai

She quotes the wording of one of the Black Ajah Oaths. Speculation on the other Oaths is here.

Verin wonders if there is a purpose to the loophole that allows betrayal of the Shadow in what you believe to be the final hour of your life. Egwene thinks it must be just accident. The wording is dramatically threatening and typical of the trope of the flawed Dark Lord.

Verin took asping rot to execute herself. ‘Asping’ alludes to asp, the venomous snake said to be used in Ancient Egypt for executing criminals who were thought to deserve a kinder death than that from regular executions. Cleopatra was said by Plutarch to have tested various poisons (on others, naturally – rank has its privileges!) and thought that the asp’s venom, which made the victim sleepy and weak, yet without pain, was the least terrible way to die. This is the death she chose herself when she suicided. From Egwene’s description, asping rot has a very similar physical effect although it is a plant, not snake venom.

‘Rot’ refers to fungi, many of which are very poisonous, although they kill in unpleasant ways.

The Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum) or Ordeal bean also has interesting parallels with asping rot. It is very poisonous and the ground beans infused in water were used in West Africa as an ordeal to prove innocence or guilt:

If the prisoner vomits within half an hour he is accounted innocent, but if he succumbs he is found guilty.

- Maude Grieve, A Modern Herbal

It generally kills within an hour.

The explanation for the survival of the innocent is that they trustingly drank the poison straight down and their body reacted to the rapid dose with intense vomiting and diarrhoea, thus purging the poison from their system before it was absorbed. The guilt sipped their poison and this slower dose was absorbed through the gastro-intestinal tract without being violently ejected as a large dose would be and they died of cardiac arrest (Malcolm Stuart, Colour Dictionary of Herbs and Herbalism).

Verin’s actions in sipping her poison not only allowed her to hand on her report and explanations, but reflect that she accepted her guilt in swearing to the Dark One and for her actions (however reluctant) as part of the Black Ajah and was prepared to pay the price.

And Verin did evil acts as a Darkfriend:

“Light knows I've done enough to require a very special kind of redemption. But it was worth the cost. Worth it indeed. Or perhaps that is simply what I must tell myself."

The Gathering Storm, A Visit From Verin Sedai

Certainly Sheriam was convinced that Verin was a committed Darkfriend.

Verin gives Egwene one book plus the cipher key, yet in The Path of Daggers she thinks of the many books of enciphered notes she has:

One day she would have to write out the cipher she used in her notebooks - a lifetime's worth of them filled cupboards and chests in her rooms above the White Tower library - one day, but she hoped not soon.

The Path of Daggers, Deceptive Appearances

There is no mention of these books in either The Gathering Storm or Towers of Midnight.

Browns gather knowledge so it can be used in the future. Verin exceeded herself there, with details on Darkfriend leaders, and the Black Ajah, including their prophecies, factions and their goals and motivations. Only the list of Black sisters has been tapped into so far.

My analysis of Black Ajah numbers is given in the Black Ajah article here. Note that unaligned sisters including, we have to assume, Cadsuane’s faction, must have about one third of the Black sisters.

For an analysis of the Black Sitters and their effects on voting in the Hall see
here. For a listing of the known Black sisters and their deeds see here. Perhaps not sending any Black Ajah among the ferrets returning to the Tower was an oversight on Sheriam’s part.

Through Egwene, we are reminded that evil can appear likeable and that unlikeable doesn’t mean someone is evil.

When I read this chapter, I kicked myself because I had written in the Black Ajah article years before that if there was any agent of the Light infiltrating the Shadow it would be Verin. I never wrote it up as formal theory though. Ah well.

Like Cadsuane, Verin had quite a collection of objects of the Power: her book invisibility ter’angreal, the dream ter’angreal she gave to Egwene (this works under even extreme secrecy since it doesn’t require channelling), and an angreal.

Saerin judges that the Reds warned Elaida not to protest her censure, or else she would lose what support they are prepared to give her. Elaida was not deposed because Egwene said she did not want the Red Ajah to fall. Egwene suspects Elaida did a deal with Tsutama to submit to the will of the Hall in exchange for Silviana being punished but to a lesser degree. Therefore Elaida still had influence in her Ajah. Via the Black, perhaps, since the Black probably didn’t want Elaida deposed.

Egwene is determined every suspected Darkfriend will be given the chance to prove herself. She realises the gathering of rebel sisters in Salidar and then their procrastination was probably a part of the Shadow’s plan. She believes the same of her own raising, but actually the latter was used by the Shadow.

Egwene’s orders to Siuan to watch Sheriam and Moria were given quite baldly, with no explanation about how she knows who is in the Black Ajah. Therefore Siuan thought rescuing Egwene more important.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #41: Chapter 38 - News in Tel'aran'rhiod

2011-09-16T08:43:00.003-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Unlike with nearly all other Aes Sedai, Egwene and Siuan have an honest and open relationship. Egwene says she is her real self with Siuan, and Siuan is the same, really. She doesn’t have to grovel to Egwene, nor pretend she doesn’t feel anything for Gareth Bryne.

Siuan is “holding herself to the Oaths” and “choosing not to lie” –in other words, finally learning to live by the spirit of the Oaths and thus becoming honourable (and worthy of Bryne, who has always lived that way.)

Egwene is determined to stay the course in the Tower no matter what, or else there is no hope of removing Elaida. It is a true trial by ordeal: a test of endurance and courage. The two women to and fro over tactics against Elaida. Siuan thinks Elaida will barely be punished for assaulting Egwene with the Power. Egwene thinks any punishment will undermine Elaida further. Siuan says Elaida could have Egwene executed for being a Darkfriend. Egwene says Elaida has no evidence, but if it comes to execution, then Siuan can rescue her. Really Siuan’s motives are to get Egwene to return to the rebels.

Siuan used news of Gawyn joining the rebels to test Egwene and get Ewene to accept her advice on how to react when being tested. She mentions Gawyn’s frequent visits to Lelaine and Romanda to remind Egwene that in her absence they are the power in the camp; two contending power sources, which emphasises the division in the camp. (Unknown to Siuan, he’s trying to get one of them to agree to rescue Egwene.)

Egwene is rightly disgusted with the factions and infighting. The rebels are little better than the Tower. The Tower has been fractured by the Black Ajah and Elaida’s prejudices and correspondingly, the Black Ajah is obviously at work among the rebels. The rebels’ other problem is not a prejudiced leader, but an absent one.

Siuan warns Egwene against stretching herself too thin, trying to lead the rebels by remote in Tel’aran’rhiod at night while resisting Elaida’s regimen by day and all the while in solitary confinement in inhumane conditions. Egwene compares herself to Rand, and appreciates what he went through; he endured worse for longer, confined in a much smaller area and unable to use Tel’aran’rhiod for respite. She feels they both have suffered Elaida’s punishments and weren’t broken. Rand was certainly bent out of shape though.

Siuan accepts that Egwene has truly fulfilled her potential to be Amyrlin.

After their talk Egwene feels a need to visit the rebel camp in Tel’aran’rhiod. Reading the dream, she sees for herself the fractures there and realises Siuan is right that she can’t be absent much longer.

Another realisation is that the Aes Sedai can’t have two Towers because people will lose their awe of them and monarchs may organise training of channellers themselves. These channellers would then owe their loyalty to the monarch. The Aes Sedai have been right to hold themselves apart from state as was done in the Age of Legends, but their mistake is that increasingly in the Third Age they have not served the state. What Egwene doesn’t realise, because she has not been among ordinary folk since Tear, is that the awe has already been lost, especially now that people know that are other groups of channellers, and always have been. Aes Sedai are not so special. Nor does Egwene understand that channelling women and men should not be separate.

Egwene needs to see a Tinker camp in Tel’aran’rhiod. She wonders if the Tinkers will dance at the end of the Age. Is there a place for them at the advent of Last Battle? Are they going to hide from the Last Battle? This vision shows that they and their dancing are important and will contribute. Egwene needs to understand this.

She sees their dancing as representing freedom to live in peace and love:

They would dance right up until the day when the Pattern burned away, whether or not they found their song, whether or not Trollocs ravaged the world or the Dragon Reborn destroyed it.
Had she let herself lose sight of those things which were most precious? Why did she fight so hard to secure the White Tower? For power? For pride? Or because she felt it really was best for the world?

The Gathering Storm, News in Tel’aran’rhiod

but it is even more than that.

Tinkers look back to the previous Age and uphold the values of that time. Half of the values. They accept the Pattern and do nothing to distort its fulfillment. They have retained the values of non-violence, but not those of service.

Tinker camps are described as always having singing and dancing. They are the group that execute the Cosmic Dance and it is important for the Pattern that they continue to do so. (Rand is Shiva, the cosmic dancer ( see Rand essay). Their dance is the harmony of the spheres. This is what the Song symbolises.

From this vision Egwene does come to understand that life is about more than one cause; it’s also about love and marriage as well as fighting the Last Battle. Note that she doesn’t mention children (the future). The Dark One will kill any future.

And then it is on to the divided Tower in Tel'aran'rhiod, divided against other Aes Sedai and against itself. Egwene stands before the White Tower under a boiling sky (the influence of the Dark One) and a shadow from the Tower falls directly on her, indicating the direct threat of the Black Ajah and also the Seanchan. She feels she is holding the Tower upright, staving off imminent collapse. Egwene’s actions are what do hold the Tower up against the Shadow and the Seanchan.

Silviana is apparently being used as a scapegoat, punished for not controlling Egwene since Elaida can’t prove Egwene is a Darkfriend:

"Indeed," Katerine said. "If the novices are out of control, then should not the blame fall on the one who was to train them?"
So Elaida had realized that she could not prove Egwene was a Dark-friend. Deflecting attention to Silviana was a clever move; if Elaida was punished for using the Power to beat Egwene, but Silviana was punished far more for letting Egwene get out of control, it would save face for the Amyrlin.

The Gathering Storm, News in Tel’aran’rhiod

Katerine has promoted further division – this time in her own Ajah – for the Shadow’s cause.

A Red Amyrlin turns on a highly regarded Red Mistress of Novice, the ultimate madness in Aes Sedai terms. Aes Sedai and Sitters are more likely to rebel. The Reds too have lost face and they know it:

“Most of the members of the Red are not taking your release well. They see it as a major failing on Elaida's part."

The Gathering Storm, News in Tel’aran’rhiod

Saerin reveals that Elaida did not turn on Silviana until Silviana denounced Elaida as unlawfully treating Egwene. Elaida tried to demote Silviana, who refused to accept it as she advised Shemerin to do in the same position. Elaida then demanded that Silviana be stilled and executed. Such a punishment is the maximum penalty for rebelling against the Amyrlin, a form of treason (see Aes Sedai Serious Crimes article). The fact that the Hall is undecided on such a critical issue shows how far it has been corrupted by the Black Ajah.

Egwene sees the danger of this division in the Tower, Saerin only the division in the Red Ajah:

"Child, the Red Ajah is crumbling! Its members are turning against one another, wolves attacking their own pack. If Elaida is allowed to go through with killing one of her own Ajah, whatever support she had from within the ranks will evaporate. Why, I wouldn't be surprised, when the dust settles, to see that the Ajah has undermined itself to the point that you could simply disband it and be done with them."
"I don't want to disband them," Egwene said. "Saerin, that's one of the problems with Elaida's way of thinking in the first place! The White Tower needs all of the Ajahs, even the Red, to face what is coming. We certainly can't afford to lose a woman like Silviana just to make a point.”

The Gathering Storm, News in Tel’aran’rhiod

At first Saerin questions the child Egwene taking command, until she admits that she, the most senior Tower Sitter, doesn’t want to be in command herself.

Note that Elaida has no Keeper. There is no one to record her reign or to manage her office, double proof that she is not achieving anything.

While Elaida must be removed, it should not be at the cost of the Tower collapsing. Egwene won’t have victory at any price. She offers to drink forkroot so that the Reds can go and save their Ajah and Silviana. It is probably one of her noblest gestures.

Verin takes a sip of her poison tea when Egwene enters her room; the start of her final clock, since a small dose is fatal (see Herbs and Other Medicines article). In one of the best chapter cliffhangers in the series, she shows Egwene that she is not bound by the Oaths.

DragonCon 2011 Report

2011-09-13T07:39:00.005-04:00

By Linda

Due to a rush of catching up on my paid job, my family and also jetlag after returning home, I haven’t posted anything here for some days.

This is the last of my “What I did on my vacation” reports and covers the wonderful carnival that is DragonCon. DragonCon is held on the first weekend of September in Atlanta and attracts a huge crowd. This year was no exception. The Dealers’ and Exhibitors’ Halls were particularly chockers, but I persevered and got a wolf-brother ring from Badali jewelry for my older son and two anime series for my younger son.

My first panel was on Wheel of Time technology and discussion mostly centred on combining channelling and gunpowder weapons in various ways in the Last Battle. We also looked forward to the next age, when the experiments on gas, aeronautics, steam power, etc underway may lead to a more advanced technology.

The Saturday morning parade is amazing. It was quite hot, but I had applied sunscreen and wore a hat, so I was fine. However the massive size of the crowd was completely unexpected to me, and nor did I expect the number of vehicles in costume as well as people. Such a high standard! But our Wheel of Time group had a great representation (see photos).

Back at the WOT track room, once we cooled off, we discussed Perrin’s character development and his forging and dreaming talents and where this may lead next. Then in the Wheel of Time graphic novel panel Team Jordan member Maria Simmons explained her role as continuity editor. New Spring is now complete and quite a few issues of the Eye of the World have been published. Volume 1 of The Eye of the World graphic novel was released today. I asked Maria what her favourite scene was in The Eye of the World graphic novel, but there are many scenes she likes.

The WOT track had two Wheel of Time costuming panels, held on consecutive days: one for the Westland nations, and one for the “others” - Seanchan, Shara, Aiel and Sea Folk. WOT costume is something I have written about extensively here. I talked about the Empress’ cloth of gold dress – a reference to the Machiavellian Byzantine empire, which was renowned for cloth of gold, a fabric made of a silk warp and either thin gold weft threads or silk wrapped with gold weft threads. There are also influences of China (the hair styles of the Low Blood and dress of the public servants) and Ancient Egypt (pleated garments and wigs and also the attire of the dacovale) in Seanchan costume.

Sharan costume also shows influence of China, as well as Africa, and the Sea Folk are dressed like corsairs and also have a strong Indian influence. The Sharan who was trying to sell the technology of sericulture is a parallel of those who smuggled silkworms to the West. Someone in the audience asked if the Seanchan grow silk themselves. In Knife of Dreams, we see that a Seanchan Seeker knows that silk comes from silkworms, not common knowledge on the mainland. Moreover the Blood wear the fabric so it is possible that they acquired sericulture, or that they may have always had it since the Breaking. There is a tale that Christian monks smuggled the caterpillars and the knowledge out of China and sold it to the Byzantine Empire in the middle of the 6th century AD, which may be a parallel to the Seanchan having “stolen” the knowledge from the Sharans, especially since we know they are big on espionage.

Saturday night was the WOT track’s karaoke night and was tremendous fun. There were games and competitions too in the WOT track: Are You A Darkfriend?, team and individual trivia games and the Costume Contest.

The Ogier and Black Tower panels were a couple of my favourites. Much information has been held back for the last book on these two groups.

Discussion on the Ogier centred on the Book of Translation, stedding, Ways and parallel worlds. I raised the possibility that there are Darkfriends at work among the Ogier (and RJ said Ogier could be Darkfriends) encouraging them to open the Book of Translation (however this is done) to depart the main world for some other world and not participate in the Last Battle. It’s so convenient to the Shadow that surely they are encouraging it. However, since we know that the Dark One is present in all worlds and if he is freed in one he is freed in all, the Ogier can’t escape the peril of the Shadow simply by fleeing as Loial’s mother implies. She is my prime candidate for Darkfriend (see theory). So amazed was Jennifer Liang at this theory that she tweeted that I was a Darkfriend. Presumably she meant that this is why I recognise or suspect so many!

The audience participation was fantastic, and led to some great insights. During the discussion I remembered Loial saying that “It’s not the Ogier makes the stedding but the stedding the Ogier.” Since the Seanchan Ogier do not have the Longing to the degree that the mainland Ogier do (they were never cut off from their stedding during the Breaking because there were more stedding in Seanchan) and are violent, it may be that dependence on the stedding make Ogier pacifist. Loial has survived some years outside, enough that Elder Haman feared for his health, and he has fought and killed in battle, something that mainland Ogier rarely do.

In the Black Tower panel we looked at Logain being MIA and what he may do that gives him glory and fulfils the dream of his stepping over Rand’s shell of a body while laughing; also at the likelihood that Perrin will destroy the dreamspike since he knows how this can be done, and at Androl and the Reds.

Jennifer Liang (Dragonmount and TorDOTwot) and I talked about our blogging: what we blog about and how we use Twitter and Facebook.

Sunday night I went to the Time Travellers’ ball with WOT friendsand heard some great music and saw some really great costumes. Actually, really great costumes were everywhere at DragonCon.

On the last day we discussed the Hero’s Journey which has up to 17 stages (as listed on Wikipedia):

DEPARTURE
1. The Call to Adventure
2. Refusal of the Call
3. Supernatural Aid
4. Crossing the First Threshold
5. Belly of the Whale

INITIATION
6. The Road of Trials
7. Meeting with the Goddess
8. Woman as Temptress
9. Atonement with the Father
10. Apotheosis
11. Ultimate Boon

RETURN
12. Refusal of the Return
13. Magic Flight
14. Rescue From Without
15. Crossing the Return Threshold
16. Master of Two Worlds
17. Freedom to Live

It is important to remember that Jordan plotted everything in triplicate and the heroes are no exception. All three ta’veren are undertaking their own hero’s journey. Despite it not being necessary for the story to have all 17 stages, it looks like Jordan’s series does and for all three heroes. Although Jordan has met all of the stages, he does so in often unpredictable ways.

After this last panel we discussed possible panels for next year (if only I can be there!) and then it was time to say our goodbyes. I had a wonderful time at DragonCon, and would thoroughly recommend it, not just for the WOT track, but for the art show, the Dealers and Exhibitors, the socials and workshops, the stars and the great variety of discussion tracks. Best of all, though, is catching up with all my WOT friends, and making new ones.

Thanks to the hard work of the WOT track and DragonCon organisers for a great convention, and also to my fellow panelists and audience.

Post #5 of WorldCon 2011 at Reno: Continuity and Wheel of Time panels

2011-08-31T23:15:00.003-04:00

By Linda

The Importance of Continuity

The panelists were: Lois McMaster Bujold, Eric Flint, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, and Dean Wesley Smith.

First up were some comments about plotting: Lois said it is a good thing readers can’t tell the difference between carefully planned plot and seized opportunities. She doesn’t disabuse them. Dean doesn’t outline beforehand because it bores him. He does summarize each chapter as he goes along to keep track. Leaving questions or the fates of characters unanswered (voids) can be useful, but the writer can also trip over them when readers ask insistently for more information.

Eric says he tends to be obsessive about plotting. Writing the novelization of a movie is very hard. Movies can rely on visuals to carry over deficiencies. He thinks the plot of Gladiator is drivel. Dean thinks the worst continuity is writing novelization of movie. Films can skip a scene but the book must have some reference to the skipped action, even if it is invented for the novelisation.

It is hard to get to know a character in a shared universe when the writer is just handed a few traits. All agreed it must be tough to complete someone else’s series. The new author inevitably gets flamed on Amazon. Dean has finished many books when authors got sick and deadlines had to be met. He insists on being a ghost writer (his name not mentioned), and therefore didn’t get hassled by readers and neither did the author.

I like this quote from Lois: “If Ideas come fast enough, (the writer) won’t notice how stupid they are.”

Wheel of Time

Brandon Sanderson, Matt Hatch (moderating) and myself discussed the influence the Wheel of Time has had on the fantasy genre over the twenty years it has been running. Our panel was quite well attended, considering it was so late in the Con program. Thanks to all who came along.

Brandon began by recounting how he came to be Chosen to finish the series. Then we discussed the various ways that The Wheel of Time series was groundbreaking: not only size, but complexity and also subtlety.

Sanderson had to write a spanking scene in The Gathering Storm – the one where Cadsuane spanks Semirhage. RJ’s instructions on this scene were specific. I think Brandon would have rather it were Semirhage punishing Cadsuane.

A Memory of Light will most likely out between June and Nov 2012.

Brandon Sanderson reiterated that the Prequel books do not have detailed outlines and are thus not likely to be written.

Someone asked Matt Hatch and myself what we’d do after the series is finished. Matt said that not all answers would be given in the books and so discussion can, and no doubt would, continue. There are also always newcomers to the series. So Theoryland will be around. I have articles I want to write on various characters and aspects of the series. I haven’t finished the read-through, either. Which reminds me: there are a few theories I want to write before A Memory of Light is out…

Post #4 of WorldCon 2011 at Reno: Revolution

2011-08-29T23:33:00.002-04:00

By Linda

Revolutions in SF, Fantasy and the Real World

The panelists were Bradford Lyau, Nick Mamatas and Walter Jon Williams.

This panel looked at revolution in the broad sense; it could be technological, political or social. Walter has written about all of these. His book Deep State features alternate reality gaming. Coding techniques are used to create revolution in a Middle Eastern country. It was quite prescient: the author sensed one country in that area would undergo revolution but didn’t know which one. If enough of the population is mobilised, then there could be virtual government. However, he didn’t think it would happen for another ten years and was surprised to see scenes from his own book actually happen. The revolution that he envisaged in his book is more like what is happening in Syria. He said that the Mexican drug cartels are on the verge of making the Mexican government irrelevant in some areas.

Some revolutions in sci-fi are conservative. In Erestoi Walter depicted an autocratic revolution and tried to set up society in which makes sense.
Nick’s book Under My Roof is about revolution and counterrevolution. It is based on his own experiences in 1990’s Greece where revolutionary groups come together and then fall apart after being manipulated from outside.

Bradford Lyau (author of The Anticipation: Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction) said sci fi deals with scientific and technological revolutions which other sources don’t. He described the 1950’s revolution in France where they modernised their technology to defend themselves and (in their science fiction of this time) save the world from an alien invasion.

In Nick’s novella Northern Gothic the Irish Americans were not against draft and then rebelled against the Black Americans. The revolution changed to very reactionary within 24 hours. IT was a positive revolution one moment, then a negative one.

The recent communications technology revolution is creating a world with no secrets. The promise of fusion technology is another world-shifter. Scientific paradigm shifts are hard to dramatise.

The people of the US are used to positive endings in revolution but this is not necessarily the case elsewhere.

And after the revolution?

There are some post revolution novels; Walter wrote one – City on Fire. A good example of coping with ruling after the revolution is George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Other recommended speculative fiction works featuring revolutions: Iron Council and Kraken by Mieville, Man in a High Castle by Philip K Dick and It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis.

Revolution is a singularity; we don’t know what happens after.

Post #3 of WorldCon 2011 at Reno: God and Manga

2011-08-25T23:44:00.004-04:00

By Linda

Creating Gods

The Creating gods (and other super powered individuals) panel was an interesting one. The panelists were Brandon Sanderson, Carrie Vaughn, Brenda W. Clough.

Do other characters become insignificant if there are god-like characters? Carrie Vaughan said no and gave Greek mythology,with its human and god interaction, as an example.

Brandon said that disparity in power causes conflict. The panelists agreed that power need not define a person (I was reminded of those endless debates over power levels of Wheel of Time characters at Wotmania; they are probably still happening!) A protagonist needs to overcome adversity to impress the reader. Too easy is not as interesting. Foreshadowing makes using magic to solve problems satisfying for the reader.

Super powered beings can have a weakness. (Brandon wrote a novella on this topic from which he read an excerpt earlier in the Con.) The classic way is to cripple the god, but the panelists found this often feels contrived. (Erikson has a god literally named the Crippled God).

Brandon tries to surprise the reader with how powers are used in interesting ways to solve or overcome problems. He said he “inherited” Rand when Rand had ultimate power and struggled with how to handle it. While Rand has god-like power, Brandon emphasized Rand’s difficulty with interpersonal relationships, and also the Shadow’s strategy to subvert Rand so they can win. He concentrated on Rand’s despair. These things have nothing to do with super powers.

I noticed that all panelists except Brandon talked about writing the death of a god. Hmmm…

Manga panel

I attended the Manga: which series got you hooked panel to get ideas for surprise gifts for my teenage son who likes manga and came away with plenty. Better still, Peter Ahlstrom kindly provided me with more suggestions after the panel.

Some, such as Full Metal Alchemist, I had written down on a piece of paper and then lost it. I have heaps of paper with notes on at home.

These ones sounded worth checking out to me:

here

These are all shonen (aimed at male readers) manga.

Some examples of shojo (aimed at female readers) manga recommended by the panelists are:

Other shojo manga were mentioned, but I didn’t get them all.

Recommended anime are Twelve Kingdoms and Rurouni Kenshin.

Post #2 of WorldCon 2011 at Reno: George R. R. Martin's Reading

2011-08-23T23:25:00.003-04:00

By Linda

GRRM read one of the opening chapters from Winds of Winter; it was an Arianne Martell POV. The chapter was originally going to be in Dance of Dragons but was held over.

Arianne and her small entourage are headed for Mistwood Castle. She is sending reports by raven back to Dorne. They shelter in deep cave, and lose Ariann’e cousin Elia for a time when she quietly wanders off to explore. The group reaches Mistwood Castle with Elia still behaving inappropriately. They see gold banners above the walls and surmise that the Golden Company has taken it. They are right; Mistwood has fallen to Jon Connington.

Connington’s forces are also trying to get Storm’s End and it is suggested to Arianne by Connington's men at the castle that she take ship to Storm’s End because Connington has now taken it. An army from King’s Landing is headed for Storm’s End to take it back and Prince Aegon wants to fight them. Arianne agrees to go to Storm’s End because she thinks they would force her onto a ship anyway.

Q&A

GRRM will write about the taking of Storm’s End by Connington in Winds of Winter.

Interestingly he finds it emotionally hard to kill off POV characters.

He feels the complexity of his series now. Sounds familiar…

Post #1 of WorldCon 2011 at Reno: Brandon Sanderson's Reading

2011-08-21T23:57:00.002-04:00

By Linda

Brandon read part of a new novella exploring superpowers. I liked it a lot. There are no super heroes, only super villains, and they take over world. The chapter he read describes two such and how a boy is the only surviving witness to the wounding of one of these supposedly invincible super-powered human. Ten years after the events Sanderson narrated, the protagonist tries to find a group of humans who research the individual weaknesses of the “Epics” and assassinate them.

Sanderson’s idea is of normal people trying to take down someone with superpowers, a reversal of the powerful guy protecting the humble.

Q&A

Sanderson wants fantasy, particularly epic fantasy, to feel more alien. He is trying to achieve this while still using human characters because he doesn’t think he writes aliens well.

He also thinks that technology in fantasy series is too static and his series is a reaction against that. Magic should change the world. There will be a sci-fi series set in the Mistborn world.

There will likely be glimpses of a Stormwarden in the Way of Kings interlude.

He worries about repeating himself in writing and tries to vary his writing.

As research for his writing he has variously: bungee jumped to feel what like to fall off a building; gone to self-defense class; watched sword-fighting at Cons and of course read broadly.

To keep the voice straight, he writes new material in one book at a time, but will revise another series alongside it. He does a lot of redrafts and revision, especially adding description and writes every day for at least 8 hours. Being a full-time writer is a great opportunity, he believes, and he doesn’t want to waste it.

What Sanderson likes most about The Wheel of Time is Jordan’s ability to use third person POV viewpoints. He was wonderful at it. Jordan also had an ability to be subtle (which Matt Hatch and I were discussing the previous afternoon).

No publishing date has been chosen for A Memory of Light, it depends on how long the editing takes. (On Sunday he said that it was likely to be sometime between June and November 2012.)

US Conventions

2011-08-16T01:38:00.003-04:00

By Linda

I've been offline for a day or so because I was travelling to the US. I'm now in Reno for Renovation, the 2011 World Science Fiction and Fantasy convention, where I plan on catching up with as many fellow WOT fans as possible. It runs from 17th to 21st August

I'll be speaking on two panels here:

Fri 14:00 - 15:00, Designing Believable Planets (Panel), A10 (RSCC)

A worldbuilding panel on world-creation. Can planets only form along with stars? Are there planet types other than terrestrial and gas giants?

Sun 13:00 - 14:00, Twenty Years of the Wheel of Time (Panel), A01+6 (RSCC)

The Wheel of Time series is perhaps the most influential epic fantasy after Tolkien. The panel looks back at the series and its importance to the genre.

Ten days later I shall be at DragonCon 2011 in Atlanta from 2nd to 5th September. I'll be on various panels on the WOT track there including blogging, WOT technology, the Ogier, the Black Tower, Perrin, and costuming.

I've brought two costumes with me: an Illianer one and a more generic WOT one.

I'll be posting regular reports on my activities at both Cons here, and I'll continue the read-through when I return home.

Really looking forward to catching up with my WOT friends and meeting new ones!

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #40: Chapter 37 -A Force of Light

2011-08-12T08:10:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Min likens Rand to a circus performer on the high wire. She senses he is on the edge of psychological disaster. He feels it is pointless to express emotion. In fact, much seems pointless to him. He has given up on negotiating with the Seanchan and saving Arad Doman. Both Moridin and Rand are infecting each other with feelings of despair and futility in some sort of positive feedback loop. Min fears the way Rand is bottling his anger and how he is no longer regarding cost of his actions.

Nynaeve challenges Rand to answer people’s questions. He stares her down. Min thinks it is Nynaeve’s fault that Rand is silently bullying her in this way because she shouldn’t have pushed at Rand while he is so tense. But he is always tense these days and becoming increasingly aloof and dictatorial.

Min notices that ignoring heat and cold can be done by those who aren’t bothered by regular human concerns but doesn’t understand the full significance of this. The aloofness and distancing that enables them to ignore temperature closes them off not just from their environment, but from feeling empathy with other people.

Min sees a viewing of Dragonmount with a crater in one side and clouded with Shadows. A tiny light from the heavens shines on it. As the axis mundi, central axis of the world, the mountain represents Rand; but the viewing also indicates that Rand will go there and battle his dark self. The crater in the mountain’s side symbolises Rand’s side wounds. Rand, too, is clouded with shadow – he is linked to the Shadow through Moridin and using the True Power and also through using balefire. Shadows make the mountain seem lower than it really is. Rand’s despair and emotional exhaustion has lowered him and leads to this viewing and to events on Dragonmount. The light afterwards indicates that Min sees a favourable outcome of the viewing, although she has no idea of what any of the viewing means.

Min was totally humiliated by Semirhage’s attack on Rand through her. She thought she could defend herself and Rand, but was wrong and now she sees herself as a liability and thinks Rand does too. Rand thinks she is revolted by his attack on her. He has no idea what she is upset at. (Nor does she of he). One of the many “if only they’d talk openly and honestly” situations in the books. (Min was also liability to Rand at parley where he lost his hand shielding her from Semirhage’s attack.)

Min goes with Rand to prove a point, while secretly feeling a liability. She feels she has to keep trying. Rand doesn’t argue, but in turn defiantly takes the access key. Min says nothing about it. Neither dares talk lest their relationship fall apart. Each fears what the other will say.

Rand is wearing a dragon-marked sword:

The black scabbard, with its lacquered red and gold dragon, sparkled in the light. Such a strange weapon those scholars had found beneath the submerged statue. The sword felt so old. Was Rand wearing it today as a symbol of something?

The Gathering Storm, A Force of Light

The sword was confirmed by RJ’s assistant Maria Simmons to be Hawkwing’s sword Justice. So far it has played no role in the plot. Rand is wearing it because he is going after Graendal to deliver justice. He has apparently told no one about the significance of the sword.

Graendal’s palace she has seized is like her parallel Goering’s Carinhall. Both were flamboyant and luxurious palaces located in woods surrounded by war, where their owners partied on unaffected, indulging in self-gratification and self-display. Both palaces were levelled; Carinhall at Goering’s orders by the Luftwaffe as the Allies approached, and Natrin’s Barrow by Rand’s balefire.

Ramshalan is not dressed as a conventional Domani. Instead, he has bells on like a court fool. Rand assumes Graendal will do something clever to Ramshalan involving Compulsion that he will not b able to anticipate:

"I don't know. I wish I did. She'll think of something clever, then infect Ramshalan with a very subtle Compulsion that I won't be able to anticipate. I'll be left with the choice to keep him nearby and see what he does, or to send him away. But of course, she will think of that as well, and whatever I do will set in motion her other plans."
"You make it sound as if you can't win," Nynaeve said, frowning.
The Gathering Storm, A Force of Light

She does so: getting Delana and Aran’gar to weave the Compulsion. What Rand did does set in motion other plans. He did not win against her and has yet to bring her to justice.

Ramshalan’s accent is quite different when he returns from Graendal’s palace, with his “I say…” like an English gentleman of last century, which I found grating, it was so clumsy. Although it could be a sign that Graendal didn’t weave the Compulsion.

Rand feels very constrained by Cadsuane and somewhat traumatised by her. It is why he reacts so badly to her. He also rejects Callandor as constraining, yet he decides that he must constrain himself, so he does not need to be constrained by others:

"I see a different answer to my problems," Rand said, voice still almost a whisper. "Both times Callandor failed me, I was being reckless with my emotion. I allowed temper to drive me. I can't kill in anger, Min. I have to keep that anger inside; I must channel it as I channel the One Power. Each death must be deliberate. Intentional."

The Gathering Storm, A Force of Light

Min is still not able to voice her feelings to Rand. Nor Nynaeve either. When he is intent but dispassionate like this, Min finds him terrifying.

People who have been balefired are dead, but they can be reincarnated. In this sense they are not dead forever.

Rand’s reaction to his vast weaving of balefire:

Min could see his face again, now that the enormous column of balefire had vanished, leaving behind only the glowing access key. He was in ecstasy, mouth agape, and he held the access key aloft before himself as if in victory. Or in reverence.
Then he gritted his teeth, eyes opening wide, lips parted as if he were under great pressure. The light flashed once, then immediately vanished. All became dark.

The Gathering Storm, A Force of Light

Rand is addicted to the Choedan Kal’s power and to destruction? He is very dark afterward using balefire. It is a stain on his soul, because balefire is the ultimate sin. That is why the Dark One encourages it; so Rand just aided him. It is significant that the Creator’s champion balefires people and it is worse than a Dreadlord or even the Naeblis doing it, because Rand is one with the Land and is supposed to be Good. It is very bad when he does such bad things.

Very aptly, Nynaeve brings light as she asks what has happened to Rand? What indeed?

Rand thinks the removal of Graendal is worth the cost, especially since the people he killed were walking dead anyway because they were made mindless by Graendal. Sometimes Rand wishes that he was burned out of existence.

He left Ramshalan whimpering in the dark alone, which shows how uncaring he has become.

Nyaneve wishes for Moiraine. Min says they have to do something. Nynaeve asks if this is the way Rand has to be to win. They discuss how ruthless Rand has to be:

Can we dare send a man to fight the Dark One who won't sacrifice for what needs to be done?"
Min shook her head. "Dare we send him as he is, with that look in his eyes? Nynaeve, he's stopped caring. Nothing matters to him anymore but defeating the Dark One."
"Isn't that what we want him to do?"
"I. . . ." She stopped. "Winning won't be winning at all if Rand becomes something as bad as the Forsaken. . . We—"
"I understand," Nynaeve said suddenly. "Light burn me, but I do, and you're right.

The Gathering Storm, A Force of Light

In desperation they go to Cadsuane, who has been warning about this all along. They all have to work together to “handle” him. It should be to help him, as Min notes.

"Handle" Rand? That was another problem. Nynaeve and Cadsuane were both so concerned with handling that they failed to see that it might be best to help him instead. Nynaeve cared for Rand, but she saw him as a problem to be fixed, rather than a man in need.

The Gathering Storm, A Force of Light

Merise, Cadsuane and Sorilea go out of their way to patronise Nynaeve. Is this to annoy her enough that she stubbornly persists in her aims? Is it a test? Or is Sorilea, at least, trying to sabotage Nynaeve’s efforts? She tries to send Nynaeve away and asks for her obedience.

Cadsuane insults Merise by praising Nynaeve backhandedly. This is not what she would have done in earlier books. Cadsuane is more negatively written in The Gathering Storm, and Towers of Midnight. Cadsuane orders Nynaeve to find Perrin; why can’t Dreamwalkers find out Perrin’s location from the Aiel with him?

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #39: Chapter 36 - The Death of Tuon

2011-08-08T07:57:00.003-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Mat POV

Verin calls for tea for suspense just as she does when she meets with Egwene.

In this chapter Verin is beginning to be confirmed as a trickster. Mat sees through her because he is one himself (see Tricksters essay). Aes Sedai are tricksters ; as their name indicates Aes Sedai are derived from aes sidhe, the fairy folk, and aes sidhe were considered dangerous trickster figures. Care was taken to appease them – or at least not offend them, just as people high and low treat Aes Sedai with regard and wariness and are careful not to offend them. Aes Sedai are described early in the books as tricksome by a particularly reliable and astute character, Tam al’Thor:

”You see, lad, Aes Sedai are tricksome. They don't lie, not right out, but the truth an Aes Sedai tells you is not always the truth you think it is.”

The Eye of the World, Tellings of the Wheel

Davram Bashere agrees:

“Aes Sedai are tricksome; no man can know what they'll do or why."

Lord of Chaos, Lion on the Hill

Verin is the ultimate Aes Sedai trickster: she tricked the tricksters, both good and bad.

Verin forges a camaraderie with Mat, while tricking the reader as well. It is a masterly performance. I long ago postulated in the Black Ajah article that if anyone infiltrated the Black Ajah successfully it was Verin; but never formalised it as a theory. How I kicked myself after reading The Gathering Storm!

Mat squirms at the thought of a) his ta’veren powers and b) others knowing of them.

Verin thinks Rand is mad but currently in control of himself. She righly judges that his madness is not due just to taint, but to stress and trauma. Mat thinks the cleansing absolutely momentous, as does Moiraine in the next book.

What Verin related to Mat about being pulled by ta’veren may or may not be true. It would be in keeping with her trickster role if it was a complete fabrication. Her tale supposedly accounts for the four week time gap between when she left Rand and when she met Mat. She still has a few letters to deliver, but she may have spent some time already doing so.

One thing her tale does do is make her mission to Mat look all the more important, and thus more likely that he will do as she wishes.

"Curious, wouldn't you say, young Matrim? I accidentally end up here, in your path, right when you have great need of someone to create a gateway for your army?"

The Gathering Storm, The Death of Tuon

The Darkfriend who gave Verin Mat’s mugshot thought she was a Darkfriend because she was known to be one. The danger from the Shadow is extreme now. Mat should disguise himself; Verin knows Mat is essential.

The bargain Mat and Verin make over the price of her making a gateway is: wait 30 days without opening her letter, or open it after 10 days and do what it says. Verin thinks if she could be free of the Oaths Mat doesn’t need to defend Caemlyn. She is convinced Mat’s curiosity will get the better of him; she underestimates his loathing of Aes Sedai and the One Power. Mat already plans to use the extra time to make dragons and find out about the Tower of Ghenjei and the *Finns.

Verin apparently used her angreal to make the gateway, probably so she could make a large one for the Band.

Tuon POV

Fortuona still contains the name Tuon, so ‘Tuon’ is not entirely dead. The empress kept the name Athaem, which is an anagram of athame, a witch’s knife, and a sign that Tuon will channel. Devi is the Sanskrit word for goddess, and as such is related to ‘the Goddess’ of the Celts, the Goddess of Sovereignty. She embodies the Feminine without which the male divinity is impotent. In other words, she completes him and provides balance. She is pictured right, with Shiva (a parallel of Rand, see Rand essay) at her feet. Devi is a later arrival in Hinduism: the early Hindu goddesses such as Lakshmi (a parallel of Tuon, see Tuon essay) and Parvati were subsumed into her as one ultimate goddess. Tuon’s mother Radhanan also had a Hindu name so it is not surprising that Tuon adopted the name of the Hindu Divine Mother or Goddess of Sovereignty.

The Bloodknives receive a benediction from the Empress (one of whose parallels is Queen of the Dead, see Tuon essay) as though they had died:

"May your death bring victory," she said softly, speaking the ritual words. "May your knife draw blood. May your children sing your praises until the final dawn."

- The Gathering Storm, The Death of Tuon

They are effectively dead men walking, who give their lives in exchange for enhanced assassin abilities, just as Grey Men and Women do in service to the Dark One and are thus one of the parallels the Seanchan society has with the Shadow. The Bloodknives’ ability to blend into shadows is reminiscent of another creature of the Shadow: Myrddraal. Many mainlanders liken the strange creatures the Seanchan use in battle to Shadowspawn and of course ravens are important symbols for both the Seanchan and the Shadow, Ishamael having encouraged Luthair’s invasion of Seanchan.

The assassins are also like ninjas, and thus one of many examples of the Seanchan society’s strong resemblance to Japan. The roles of ninjas were sabotage and espionage as much as assassination and their abilities were the subject of legends. Ninjas were covert operators and contrastred wsith samurai, who followed bushido and had strict rules about honour and combat. Tuon (who also has parallels with a Japanese Emperor) described the role of Bloodknives as to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy, on this mission to be achieved by assassinating Aes Sedai.

The wording used to describe the functions of the Bloodknives’ ter'angreal rings (leech, shroud) suggest influence from games such as Magic the Gathering. There are Magic the Gathering cards with leeching spells similar to that of the Bloodknives’ ter’angreal, notably certain black-coloured spell cards (and Brandon Sanderson said on Twitter on November 10th that he favours Magic decks composed of black- and blue-coloured cards). For example, with the Magic card called Hatred you pay x life and your creature gets x stronger, just as the Bloodknives receive strength and speed in exchange for losing life. Hatred is an appropriate description of this mission aimed at weakening the Dragon Reborn by assassinating as many of the hated and feared Aes Sedai as possible. Another black card called Unholy Strength strengthens the creature’s power far more than its toughness, just as the Bloodknife has enhanced powers but is ultimately weakened by the ter’angreal. There are other Magic cards that could also be considered apt descriptions. Some Magic cards grant the ability called ‘shroud’ which makes creatures untouchable by their opponent’s attacks. The Bloodknives are “shrouded in darkness” by their ter’angreal.

The whole mission is “shrouded in darkness”: it leaves in darkness and has a dark aim which will benefit the Shadow: to weaken the Tower and Rand’s support and increase enmity between forces which should unite against the Shadow. Tuon thinks the attack will turn Rand against Seanchan.
As it turned out, the raid happened to also resolve the division in the Tower and remove a surplus, ineffective and antagonistic Amyrlin, but at a high cost to both sides.

To’raken have never been used before in such numbers. It is the start of a true air force.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #38: Chapter 35 - A Halo of Blackness

2011-08-04T06:01:00.003-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Falme was the turning point in Rand’s life that proved he was the Dragon and declared himself there. It is a turning point in Tuon’s life too when she declares herself Empress after meeting the Dragon there.

This was the place where he'd first acknowledged himself as a killer, the place where he'd first realized what a danger he was to those around him. He'd tried to leave them all behind. They'd come after him.
At Falme, the shepherd boy had burned, his ashes scattered and blown away by those ocean winds. From those ashes, the Dragon Reborn had risen.

The Gathering Storm, A Halo of Blackness

Rand uses phoenix-like imagery here. Empresses in China wore a phoenix crown (see Seanchan Costume article). There are strong influences of Imperial China in Seanchan customs and dress. Tuon’s appearance is not described in the next chapter, but when we next see her after that, in Towers of Midnight, she is wearing an owl headdress.

Rand can’t escape his destiny or responsibility; including of his ambivalent nature. He has a halo of blackness – the reverse of what he should be, which is full of angelic light, as he will be in Towers of Midnight. Here in The Gathering Storm he is Lucifer the fallen angel, and the name Lews Therin is a reference to this figure (see Character Names L article). It is interesting that after Rand re-integrates Lews Therin into himself at the end of the book, he is a positive angel.

Rand and Lews Therin battle for saidin and for Rand’s body. He is not sure which personality he is at times lately. “We are fine” implies he is both. However, they are non-cooperative and inconsistent, with each other as well as with other people. Rand’s struggle for sanity parallels the world’s struggle to maintain reality. Rand’s usage of balefire made his psychological state worse, the Forsaken’s use of balefire as requested by the Dark One at the beginning of Lord of Chaos made the Pattern’s state worse.

Just as Rand balances between the lure of the Choedan Kal and the lure of the True Power, so his emotions of rage and cold stillness are balanced against each other.

He could only feel the cold stillness inside, the stillness that capped a fountain of frozen rage.
He would keep the rage and stillness balanced long enough. He had to.

The Gathering Storm, A Halo of Blackness

Rand believes Min is distant from him because she remembers him trying to kill her. It is the corruption from the True Power - which he used to prevent himself from killing her – the coldness and darkness, that puts her off.

Rand and Tuon are on roughly equal terms at this parley. They are the same age nearly. He is bigger than her, but she has more forces. Tuon expects Rand might burn out quickly as conquering heroes do. Is she not a conquering hero too? Will she burn out? (She could literally do so once she starts channelling.) Tuon is not present in Aviendha’s visions in Rhuidean.

Rand is dressed in red and black – Moridin’s colours, again - and gold. Tuon assumes Rand had the finest teachers as she did. However, Rand is an example of “innate nobility” or “nobility of the humble”.

Tuon likens Rand to a bonfire. Such symbolism was used for the ta’veren in The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt.

Rand is uncompromising and autocratic. It is convenient for the Shadow that this parley fails. If their efforts to corrupt Rand had only this one effect they would have paid off.

This is the first mention of the Essanik Cycle in relation to the Seanchan prophecies. Essanik has overtones of Essene and Messianic in the name. Their differences with the Karaethon cycle, especially in the end of the Last Battle, are striking (and probably misinterpreted by Tuon).

Does Rand’s prophesised bowing before the Empress mean that his kingdoms join with the Empire? Not if Tuon assumes so. Tuon thinks Rand’s words of argument against her are foolishness because the prophecies say he will bow to her. They probably won’t turn out as she expects. It is possible to do a courtesy without being subject to her; just not in Seanchan society, where there has been a solitary over-ruler for a very long time.

“We are fine,” and “We are the Return” show that both Rand and Tuon use the royal “we” for their pronouncements in this chapter. In one way it is regal, in another, distant and dissociated. “Many in the one” can indicate both things.

Tuon and Rand fall out over the enslavement of channellers. Tuon says the a’dam is the “only way to deal with those who can channel.” So, will Tuon accept one when she finally channels?

Tuon is one-sided about her cultural traditions and as convinced of her own rightness as anyone on this side of the ocean, perhaps more. She is in for a rude awakening. Rand and Nynaeve are probably disturbed as much by the threat of Seanchan traditions as by their difficulty in relinquishing their own.

Tuon assumes Rand is mad because he says he saw her face with Mat’s. It’s a reasonable judgement, but wrong. She is right that Rand is mad, but this isn’t a manifestation of it.

She also thinks Mat was sent to her by the Pattern because he knows Rand. If this is so, why did the Pattern move Mat on? It’s not that simple and people do not exist just to serve Tuon. It’s Mat’s duty to be domesticated into Seanchan ways, but Tuon feels it would be a pity. Tuon speaks disparagingly of her husband (although she kept their relationship secret) as a trickster and fool, and Nynaeve defends him. She says Tuon doesn’t know him. Nyaneve is dressed like a sky goddess; Tuon notes Nyaneve's blue dress with white “trim like clouds”. This could be a reference to the cloud collar which originated in the Sui Dynasty in China and thus an appropriate recognition by a (at least partly Chinese) Empress.

Just as he has done to others recently, Rand tries to impose his will on Tuon to sign a treaty. She sees the darkness, a halo of blackness warping the air (and the Pattern?) around him, and refuses because of this. Thwarted, Rand ices over again. Is his entourage disturbed by Rand or by what failing to make a treaty means?

Tuon proclaims herself Empress where Rand proclaimed himself the Dragon. She believes the world needs her and will attack the White Tower to thwart Rand some more. The world certainly needs Rand – for salvation – and he has suffered wounds as the world has. Rand was wounded at Falme when he fought Ishamael. He duels Tuon here in Falme and she decides to wound him.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #37: Chapter 34 - Legends

2011-08-01T05:58:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

The fool motif is a strong one in Mat’s character, and one I’ve written about a couple of times before here and here. It comes to the fore in this chapter, though it’s not always done well.

It was time to stop being a fool. The whole world had decided to turn against him—even rural mountain towns were death traps, these days. Next he knew, the daisies on the sides of the road would be ganging up to try and eat him.
That thought gave him pause as he remembered the poor peddler, sinking into the phantom Shiotan town.
When that ghostly place had vanished, it had left behind a meadow with butterflies and flowers. Including daisies. Burn me, he thought.

The Gathering Storm, Legends

During the Saturnalia and similar festivals in early times, the fool was given power for a day as part of the anarchical reversal of the strict social order which gave a much needed outlet for the suppressed. In The Wheel of Time, the Dark One is trying to turn the world upside down to sow chaos and weaken social order and strength.

Apart from being innocuous little flowers, daisies are also the “day’s eye,” a solar symbol, and thus a link to Rand, the most solar character.

Normally Mat is the most loved character and can go anywhere with impunity. Here he is aware that this is increasingly under threat.

“I'm tired of walking into traps unprepared. I plan to take command of my own destiny, stop running from problem to problem. It's time to be in charge."
"And you do that with ..." Julin said.
"Elaborate aliases with backstories," Mat said, handing Thom and Noal their sheets.

The Gathering Storm, Legends

Mat’s silly background stories are not good characterisation. Most tricksters spin a good yarn, especially ones as skilful as Mat (see Tricksters essay). These stories are deliberately incompetent. I think it’s a mistake to make a mockery of him for a few laughs.

A better example of Mat's skill as a trickster is how he tricked Joline‘s Warder into lending his fancloth cloak by lying by omission. When Verin arrives Mat regrets that his preparations for Trustair are now redundant. Of course, this makes Verin the stronger trickster. The merchant who sketched Mat the plan of Trustair and then reported to Verin that he had met Mat and sold him the “wanted” picture could be a Darkfriend, or he could be a good guy sent by Verin. Whichever he is, we could not realise the significance of this yet.

Mat’s crossbowmen are firing crossbows every 8 seconds, which is faster than early modern weapons, yet Mat now wants to develop a new method of loading which doesn’t require the crossbows being lowered.

Thinking has changed since Jordan devised the crossbows for Mat’s Band. Ralph Payne-Gallwey's book on the crossbow wasn't available on Google books when Jordan wrote Knife of Dreams. It has influenced thinking on crossbow arming speed and one arming device similar to Mat’s crank, the cranequin, is now thought to have taken 35 secs to load, rather than 8. The re-arming speed of another device, the windlass, is still the same at 12 secs though. And Mat wants to shave 4 seconds off the cocking time. That would put the bow up with the re-arming speed of the best of modern crossbows.

Mat is careful not to annoy Aludra because he wants the plans for the dragons. He is using her and she is aware of it. This is the sort of ambivalent thing tricksters do. Aludra is hurt that Mat transferred his attentions to Tuon and makes a sarcastic remark about Mat’s attraction to gold. He is a god of wealth (see Mat essay). She could be implying that Mat married for money.

Aludra is a fire goddess (see Mat essay). She has invented primitive matches, which will strike fire quickly and efficiently at will, and another firepower, the firing of gunpowder weapons. Mat’s “appropriating” of this “fire” to change the face of warfare parallels that of tricksters stealing fire from the gods to aid humanity. Aludra says to Mat:

“Do not complain of the heat when someone offers you the sun in the palm of her hands."

The Gathering Storm, Legends

Aludra is a rather down to earth goddess and has started a feasibility study of her dragons. The copper and tin are for casting the bronze bodies of the dragons, while the sulphur, charcoal and guano (nitrates) make gunpowder (see Mat, Fireworks and Bellfounders article).

Mat thinks Rand might afford the production costs of the dragons, but he couldn’t.

Why, he'd have to dice with the queen of Andor herself to find this kind of coin!

The Gathering Storm, Legends

He’s mistaken. Rand has practically bankrupted his estates to feed people. In Towers of Midnight Mat bargains with Elayne instead of dicing with her and sells the services of the Band to get her to finalise the productions of the dragons.

Egeanin really admires Aludra’s brilliance and it’s appropriate that a fire goddess is brilliant. The exiled Seachan woman won’t aid the Seanchan, but won’t fight them either.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #36: Chapter 33 - A Conversation with the Dragon

2011-07-28T07:05:00.000-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Rand is dressed in a dark red and black dragon robe; Moridin’s colours. He is annoyed that Nynaeve channelled in front of him. This is the sort of thing that the Dark One objects to. Rand is well on the way to being a control freak, but Nynaeve doesn’t back down. If anyone but Nynaeve had sent a message to awaken Rand they would have been flogged. Once, Rand was not so autocratic or arrogant. He no longer even shows affection when he looks at Min.

Rand sees Nyaneve as Aes Sedai:

"You Aes Sedai," he finally said, "share much with rats, I have come to realize. You are always in places where you are not wanted."

The Gathering Storm, A Conversation with the Dragon

He is angry that Nynaeve is doing things off own bat; yet she did them more competently than anyone else. People are too afraid to do anything but follow Rand’s instructions to the letter, or even to make suggestions, therefore things are not done that might have been.

Rand forces his will onto Kerb in an evil way, which makes darkness appear around Rand and food and drink in his presence to rot.

Knowledge from Lews Therin is used absently by Rand. Nynaeve rightly thinks this knowledge from Lews Therin is unnatural and also traumatising. Rand tells Nynaeve to do something very difficult – remove Compulsion – in an offhanded way and Nynaeve feels challenged to do it. She also realises that no one else is capable of removing Compulsion.

Rand is very gentle with Kerb after he divulges the information and looks exhausted after the apprentice dies. Nynaeve is upset that all her efforts did not Heal Kerb, but hastened his end (although truly he was at the end when Graendal got hold of him.) She is disgusted and sullied by the experience and would like to have been warned of the consequences of removing Compulsion. This spurs her to challenge Rand over whether he feels guilt for his actions. He does, but there has been so much that it seems futile. Nynaeve warns Rand that being Winter’s Heart will destroy him He knows, but expects to be used up completely in the battle against the Dark One, so it is not necessary to think of how he will be beyond that. Rand is consciously using himself up.

"Sometimes, you can't turn back. You have to keep pressing on. And sometimes, you know this climb is your last…You all claim that I have grown too hard, that I will inevitably shatter and break if I continue on. But you assume that there needs to be something left of me to continue on. That I need to climb back down the mountain once I've reached the top…That's the key, Nynaeve. I see it now. I will not live through this, and so I don't need to worry about what might happen to me after the Last Battle. I don't need to hold back, don't need to salvage anything of this beaten up soul of mine. I know that I must die. Those who wish for me to be softer, willing to bend, are those who cannot accept what will happen to me."

The Gathering Storm, A Conversation with the Dragon

Rand never intended to come down the mountain; but after Dragonmount he did just that.

Nynaeve wants them to find a way for Rand to win and live on. Rand can’t think of that, because it’s too painful.

"I can't indulge myself. I'll climb this bloody mountain and face the sun. You all will deal with what comes next. That is how it must be."

The Gathering Storm, A Conversation with the Dragon

Rand climbed Dragonmount and considered destroying the world before the sun rose. As the Champion of the Light of the World, the Creator, he is the sun: Lord of the Morning, the unconquered sun, Sol Invictus.

He praises Nyaneve - the first time he has done that to anyone in days. Impulsively, Nynaeve says she did it because she wants Rand to trust her. She immediately regrets saying that, but he responds positively, so it was right to say it. Rand’s ta’veren effect aided him and her:

"I do trust you, Nynaeve. As much as I trust anyone; more than I trust most. You think you know what is best for me, even against my wishes, but that is something I can accept. The difference between you and Cadsuane is that you actually care about me. She only cares about my place in her plans. She wants me to be part of the Last Battle. You want me to live. For that, you have my thanks.

The Gathering Storm, A Conversation with the Dragon

Rand is much more self-aware than Nynaeve thought. He is wrong though, but she can’t express why.

Why couldn't she make herself yell at him that he was wrong? There was always hope. By surrendering that most important emotion, he might make himself strong—but risked losing all reason he might have to care about the outcome of his battles.
For some reason, she couldn't find words for the argument.

The Gathering Storm, A Conversation with the Dragon

Without hope Rand has despaired and become bleak and harsh. Moridin despaired too in the Age of Legends and developed a nihilistic philosophy. This is now stronger than ever as we saw in Chapter 15 of The Gathering Storm. The link to him has damaged Rand.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #35: Chapter 32 - Rivers of Shadow

2011-07-25T06:53:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Last chapter, Nynaeve showed us how far she has come; this chapter she shows us how much she is aware of her own development, not only in channelling, doing consciously what she previously hid from herself, but in how she embraces her power - and her responsibility. She also shows us that she is ambitious and not above making the most of her status within and without the Tower

And with the authority of the White Tower behind her, she was one of the most powerful individuals in the world, matched only by other sisters and the occasional monarch.

The Gathering Storm, Rivers of Shadow

Nynaeve approves of Aes Sedai being bowed to, just like any other Aes Sedai. “Servants” outranking monarchs and having no qualms about bullying them: the world order was overturned at the end of the Second Age.

Nynaeve is starting her career as an Aes Sedai at the top of the tree. Unlike Egwene, most of Nynaeve’s striving was done earlier, when she became Wisdom. Added to her eventual high ranking by Aes Sedai system is the fact that, as she says, she is married to a monarch. Interestingly, this was mentioned in Towers of Midnight as a factor to be considered in whether she should pass her test for Aes Sedai.

Nynaeve thinks Cadsuane partly blames her for her exile. Is this because Nynaeve thinks she could have persuaded Rand not to impose it? Cadsuane has had no thought of blaming Nynaeve in any way.

Merise is either the first to see the ghosts, or the most eager to do so. The apparition is a funeral procession of the dead, doubly a “dance of death”. The dance of death, or danse macabre, originated in medieval Europe perhaps in response to plagues such as the Black Death, and was popular in the 15th century. Songs and pictures were created of Death depicted as a skeleton and often playing a musical instrument while it leads people of all classes and ages in a processional dance. Certainly Bandar Eban, riddle with disease and famine as it is, is not far off being a plague city. A feature of the dance of death was that the great and the small were part of it. There were no exemptions due to importance or wealth.

It appeared when Rand arrived in the city and this backs up what Cadsuane’s agent told her in the previous chapter of only bad events happening in Bandar Eban after Rand arrives there. The procession circles the city where Rand is and where so many people are diseased and starving. There is no Forsaken in the city; Graendal is quite some distance away.

Both Merise and Corele have a low opinion of Rand and want to leave Bandar Eban. Unlike them, Nynaeve thinks it is worth protecting the kingdom against a Seanchan invasion. To Nynaeve’s surprise, Cadsuane gives Nynaeve grudging approval of her judgement, but Nynaeve discounts it because she takes a negative view of Cadsuane. Cadsuane walks off in the middle of Merise’s denigration of Rand so she does not agree with it.

According to Nynaeve the room darkened when Rand threatened Cadsuane like a cloud over the sun. Rand is Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun (see Rand essay), and he is shadowed over due to being too linked to the Shadow:

Rand certainly was effective at subduing countries, but his kingdoms needed more than just handouts of grain. They needed stability, and they needed something—someone—they could believe in. Rand was getting increasingly bad at offering either one.

The Gathering Storm, Rivers of Shadow

If Rand is unstable, the Land is because they are one.

Deep in thought over her worries about Rand, disease, famine and infertility, Nynaeve still notices and searches out someone ill with a bad cough.

She knows bullying Rand – her usual style - won’t work but she doesn’t know what will. Moiraine managed to get Rand to listen to her without bullying or trickery but Nynaeve refuses to “fawn over” Rand as Moiraine did:

In order to get him to take her as his advisor, she'd agreed to obey his commands and offer advice only when it was wanted. What good was advice when it was given only when it was wanted? People needed most to hear the advice they didn't want!

The Gathering Storm, Rivers of Shadow

At least this way Rand listened to Moiraine. People do have a right not to take advice if they don’t want to, even good or vital advice, and they have the right not to have it forced on them. Nynaeve is convinced she is the one Rand actually needs to listen to. Not that she doesn’t give excellent advice, but most of Rand’s would-be advisors think that of themselves. Unlike the majority of them, she has the best intentions:

She didn't want tell him what to do; she just wanted him to stop acting like a fool. And, beyond that, she just wanted him to be safe. She'd also like him to be a leader that people respected, not one that people feared. He seemed incapable of seeing that the path he was on was that of a tyrant.

The Gathering Storm, Rivers of Shadow

She is a very protective woman. Nynaeve thinks punishment and hard measures are for the Women’s Circle to deliver, not the Mayor. She prefers a bicameral leadership where one leader is stern, the other warm and kind. Her bias is to think that each of these roles should be limited to a particular gender.

The king’s “messenger” did not follow Domani fashion and was very beautiful - one of Graendal’s pets. Although Milisair sent him to be tortured, he was alive until Rand searched for him.

He would speak on anything other than the things we wanted!" Jorgin leaned forward. "I don't know how he did it, Lady. Burn me, but I don't! It's like some . . . force had ahold of his tongue. It was like he couldn't talk. Even if he'd wanted to!"

The Gathering Storm, Rivers of Shadow

The messenger couldn’t divulge any information to the torturer because he was under Graendal’s Compulsion. The apprentice Kerb was not part of the chandler’s shop, but was found later among refugees. He was a plant, since he knew Graendal’s location due to having been there.

Nynaeve is annoyed that Rand has stooped to Milisair’s level and permitted inhumane confinement (and potentially torture). This is an indication of how corrupted he has become since previously he refused to abuse Semirhage. Nynaeve decides to demand better conditions for Milisair and discovers she (and the king’s messenger) had been poisoned with tarchrot leaf. Nynaeve doesn’t say how it kills, or what symptoms it produces apart from drowsiness, weakness and pallor. If tarchrot caused diarrhoea (and the cell stank of excrement) and/or vomiting in its victims, as many ingested poisons do, this may have been attributed to an illness such as jail fever caused by the poor conditions. The fact that Nynaeve used tarchrot for euthanasing a dog suggests a real world equivalent might be Fool’s Parsley (Aethusa cynapium) also known as Dog Poison. Fool’s parsley is a fairly strong poison and inflames the gastro-intestinal tract. (Wheel of Time herbs, including tarchrot, are described in the Herbs and Other Medicines article).

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #34: Chapter 31 - A Promise to Lews Therin

2011-07-21T07:20:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Cadsuane POV

Cadsuane is careful to keep her face hidden even when Rand is not around, in case she encounters him unexpectedly. Being from the inland – Far Madding and Tar Valon – she does not like humid air and longs for some refreshing breeze on her face. How appropriate that she goes to The Wind’s Favour inn. Her agent there “tests the wind” for her. Quillin Tasil, with his ultra-clean and tidy inn, is a cameo of Bob Q. Kluttz, editor of Encyclopedia WOT.

Cadsuane tries to get the innkeeper to react defensively but he never does. She met his Aes Sedai daughter at the Tower, noticed she knew a great deal about current events, checked out her parents and asked the father to be her agent. Other high-ranked Aes Sedai would be dismissive of young or low-ranked sisters and so miss this.

Fake orders from the King have been issued although the King has been missing for months. Cadsuane realises Rand could be right that he has been kidnapped by a Forsaken. The orders appear to be coming from different sources, since some signatures are a lot more convincing than others. Presumably Graendal’s forgeries are the more convincing ones.

Only bad unlikely events are occurring. The Pattern is out of balance because Rand is. Food is rotting because Rand has been corrupted by the Shadow, by his link to Moridin and use of the True Power. Rand is one with the Land and the Land with him. Literally.

Cadsuane wants to know where the merchant councillors are, the state of Domani cities, what the rebel factions are doing, and what Tarabon attacks are occurring.

She thinks that the male a’dam was taken from her to make Rand distrust her. Rand already distrusted her, but certainly this “justified” his distrust. She thinks the attacker could have raided the Seanchan instead. I disagree. The a’dam was to hand here, whereas the Seanchan are better policed for rogue channellers than Cadsuane thinks. To go to the Seanchan the thief (a channeller; we know that Shaidar Haran could not take the a’dam himself, see Chapter 23 - A Warp In The Air) would have had to disguise their channelling ability. Cadsuane is making excuses. We don’t know who had the male a’dam made, and whether Tuon knew about it. Cadsuane would be better served trying to work out how the a’dam was stolen.

One thing Cadsuane does understand is that Rand is even more traumatised now. She has to improve his psychological state:

The poor, foolish boy. He should never have had to suffer collaring at the hands of one of the Forsaken; that would only remind him of the times he had been beaten and caged by Aes Sedai. It would make her job more difficult. If not impossible.
That was the question she had to face now. Was he beyond saving? Was it too late to change him? And if it was, what—if anything—could she do? The Dragon Reborn had to meet the Dark One at Shayol Ghul.

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

He should never have been caged and beaten by Aes Sedai. She is grudging in her praise of Rand:

Al'Thor hadn't reacted like most peasants suddenly granted power; he hadn't grown selfish or petty. He hadn't hoarded wealth, nor had he struck with childish vengeance against any who had slighted him in his youth. Indeed, there had actually been a wisdom to many of his decisions— the ones that didn't involve gallivanting into danger.

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

and still looks down on him. She wants to show her face so people step aside for her. Used to high status she might be, but now she’s just one of the crowd. Rand didn’t demote her as far as Elaida has been demoting Aes Sedai.

Cadsuane senses Rand nearby via a prickling sensation. One of her ter’angreal should have alerted her: the eight-pointed star which vibrates when a man who can channel is nearby, even if he is not actively channelling. The more men who could channel, the harder the star quivers (Crossroads of Twilight, Ornaments).

Min won’t let Cadsuane manipulate her or get her to manipulate Rand. I wonder if Cadsuane realises that this is what makes Rand trust Min.

The reason why Cadsuane has never heard of darkness surrounding someone is that the Seals have only recently been weakened enough for the True Power to be accessed by favoured henchmen and to release these favoured henchmen from their prison in the Bore. Cadsuane has no idea the darkness comes from the Dark One’s power or that there is a True Power. Perhaps she should study symbolism more closely. She does pick up on some symbolism. The banners near the docks point to Shayol Ghul where Rand must go and give Cadsuane an idea.

Of the Aes Sedai, only Cadsuane is treated like a Wise One by the Aiel. Cadsuane has no idea the Three Oaths have a physical effect on Aes Sedai – including halving their lifespan. She manages to admit to the Wise Ones that she has failed in handling Rand. Not easy, because she is totally unused to failure, let alone admitting it to others. They agree; what they don’t say is that they also have failed, and they have not tried as hard.

Rand POV

Rand misinterprets Cadsuane’s actions and attire. He thinks she follows him around. Perhaps he regrets his decision to exile her

It had probably been a poor move to exile her in the first place, but there was no going back now.

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

though it’s hard to say if this is a positive or a negative regret. Would he rather have executed her, or would he rather keep her nearby and not provide a motive and opportunity for her scheming?

The Seanchan refuse the neutral ground of Katar for a parley, therefore Rand chooses Falme. Damer and Naeff warn Rand that they could be collared or executed. Rand trusts Damer but makes him submissive.

But still Rand made him wilt and bow his head. Dissension could not be tolerated. Dissension and lies had brought him to the collar.

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

Darkfriends brought Rand to the collar. The others were actually following Rand’s strictures.

Damer actually changes tune and tells Rand his choices is a fine one. Rand’s attitude sounds like that of Moridin.

Lews Therin is appalled and traumatised that they channelled the True Power, whereas Rand is not particularly at all. Perhaps Rand is more affected by the link to Moridin than Lews Therin is. Rand seems to miss Lews Therin being around as though he is less complete without him. He is.

Nynaeve is one of the few who won’t back down when Rand challenges her. Yet she is intimidated by Rand when he presses her about Lan. He is her weak spot. Rand realises Lan is riding to Malkier and Tarwin’s Gap. He gives the courtesy to Lan and Nynaeve of making conventional reactions, but doesn’t really feel them. Rand compares himself to Lan, but thinks he is worse off:

Is that what I do? Rand thought. Ride to my death in the name of honor? But no, it's different. Lan has a choice. There were no prophecies saying that Lan would die, whatever the man's assumptions about his own fate.

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

It is more honourable to choose to do your duty rather than be forced to do it. Rand does have a choice as he discovers at the end of The Gathering Storm, and the Pattern had to force him to realise it and make it.

Nynaeve is prepared to lower herself and ask for help for Lan. Rand says if Lan has gone on ahead to the Blight alone, too bad. Coldly he says Lan could be a useful feint, showing how far he has gone into darkness. Nynaeve controls her temper better than Rand, who is impressed, and yet almost beyond shame or regret for his attitude:

A very quiet place, deep inside of him, was struck with worry over his friend. He had to ignore that worry, silence it. But that voice whispered to him.
He named you friend. Do not abandon him. . . .

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

Nynaeve entirely shows him up here. So does Lan. In Far Madding Lan was prepared to sacrifice himself for Rand but Rand refused to allow it.

In contrast, Rand is trying to do the right thing by the Domani and not be a tyrant. He also still treats Rhuarc with respect. Rand gave the merchant councillor Milisair the same sentence she gave the King’s messenger. It seems to be easier for him to be rough on Lan because Lan is not there.

Lews Therin thinks he cannot break Graendal’s Compulsion. He also hasn’t the skill to Heal it.

Rand is trying to achieve through force of will – or threats:

But he would settle for peace with the Seanchan and food for these people. He could not solve everyone's problems. He could just force them into abeyance long enough for him to die at Shayol Ghul.

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

and has feelings of futility:

And thereby leave the world to break again once he was gone. He gritted his teeth. He had already wasted too much time worrying about things he could not fix.
Is that why I resist naming a Domani king? he thought. Once I die, that man would lose his authority, and Arad Doman would be back where it began. If I don't leave a king who has the support of the merchants, then I'm essentially offering the kingdom up to the Seanchan the moment I die.

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

The three ta’veren are pulling on each other – or the pull is stronger now and they are conscious of it.

He could feel a pull from Perrin and Mat, both distant. It was their ta'veren natures, trying to draw them together. They both needed to be with him for the Last Battle.

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

I think they probably need to be together at Shayol Ghul at the Last Moment.

Nynaeve reproaches Rand for his lack of regard for them. He says:

"They're threads in the Pattern, Nynaeve," he said, rising. "I barely know them anymore, and I suspect they would say the same thing of me."
"Don't you care about them?"
"Care?" Rand walked down the steps of the raised platform that held his throne. "What I care about is the Last Battle. What I care about is making peace with the Light-cursed Seanchan so that I can stop bothering with their squabble and get to the real battle. Beside those cares, a pair of boys from my little village are meaningless."

The Gathering Storm, A Promise to Lews Therin

He belittles their roles to justify himself.

Nynaeve is right, this attitude will break Rand. Rand just sees her as complaining about his choices, and patronising him, when actually she cares about him more than he does and sees correctly that this is the wrong way. Rand threatens to kill her and feels bad enough after that he wants to die. He and Lews Therin both desire death now.

He/they can’t cope with the stress and responsibility now.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #33: Chapter 30 - Old Advice

2011-07-18T06:44:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Gawyn remembers Taringail warning Galad never to trust pretty women or Aes Sedai. (Most men already don’t trust beautiful women.) Galad has fallen for a beautiful woman, but whether he trusts her or not is another matter.

Lelaine is very dangerous: not beautiful enough to make men wary, but attractive. And crafty. In vain, Gawyn is trying to persuade Lelaine that Egwene should be rescued and that Egwene is sacrificing herself rather than endanger the rebels. Lelaine says she doesn’t think Egwene feels in danger. Gawyn suggests to Lelaine that Egwene is wrong about her safety. Lelaine says

"But must I not uphold the Amyrlin, even if she is misguided?"
Gawyn gave no response. Of course she could disobey the will of the Amyrlin. He knew enough of Aes Sedai politics to understand it was done all the time. But saying that would accomplish nothing.

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

Lelaine doesn’t make a firm commitment to convince Egwene because it suits Lelaine for Egwene to remain where she is until Lelaine can supplant her. Gawyn realises this:

He was convinced that neither Lelaine nor Romanda had any real interest in rescuing Egwene—they were too pleased with their increased power in her absence. No, they met with Gawyn because of the new queen on the Lion Throne.

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

although he underestimates Lelaine’s ambition. His main tactic is to play Romanda and Lelaine against each other. This is one Egwene used when she was powerless.

Lelaine’s tactic is to make Gawyn pay for her time with information. She asks him what Elayne’s attitude is to the taxes on Traemane’s orchards. Gawyn can’t see that Lelaine is telling him she knows the circumstances of Elayne’s accession to power and how Traemane is against her. She could also be “reminding” Gawyn of his duty to Elayne and Andor (in the hope he’ll leave), but this is futile since Gawyn is solely focussed on his beloved. Gawyn feels like Lelaine is buying information on Andor from him in exchange for considering aiding his rescue of Egwene:

Lelaine wouldn't be looking for monetary gain; that wasn't the Aes Sedai way. But she would want leverage, a means of securing a favorable connection with the Andoran noble houses.

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

This line of questioning is also a subtle threat that she could make life difficult for Elayne by throwing Blue Ajah support behind Traemane, something that is also lost on Gawyn. He does not appear to know the extent of Traemane’s antipathy to Trakand, but his answer was so bland that Lelaine may not have been able to determine if he is ignorant or subtle.(One can hope.) Lelaine takes notice even of details such as the productivity of the northern cherry orchards. The Blues’ intelligence gathering is formidable, as is how they use it. She spent nearly an hour interrogating Gawyn on Andoran taxation rates. Goodness knows what he divulged without knowing.

Gawyn sees that the rebels respect Egwene but he is still convinced Egwene is in over her head, even after he likens her situation to that of his mother, who was High Seat at age 16. He won’t accept Egwene’s judgment until he talks with her personally and doesn’t truly respect her.

Not surprisingly, Gawyn is not very good at stones; he is not a tactician or a politician.

Then we move scene, and Bryne tries to get info out of Gawyn - on the Younglings. Gawyn says he abandoned them, but won’t betray them. He buys time for them by saying that without him the Younglings won’t be as effective.

Gawyn is convinced that Bryne is mistaken about Rand and that Rand also fooled Elayne. He is determined to kill Rand himself. Gawyn is the one mistaken and will be for some time to come. Sigh.

Gawyn doesn’t want Bryne to attack the White Tower. Bryne says he will if ordered because he gave his word. Then he talks to Gawyn in a roundabout way about Gawyn’s own oath and path:

"I know who you were supposed to be," Bryne said. "First Prince of the Sword, trained by Warders but bonded to no woman."
"And that's not what I am?" Gawyn asked testily.
"Peace, son," Bryne said. "This wasn't meant to be an insult. Just an observation. I know you were never as single-minded as your brother. I suppose I should have seen this in you."

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

It takes Gawyn a while to understand what Bryne asking him about – choosing a side, or someone to guide where to use his soldiering skill.

Gawyn says he will use it for Elayne, but Bryne points out he isn’t, although he certainly should be. Gawyn says he must save Egwene first:

"And if Egwene won't go?" Bryne asked. "I know that look in your eyes, lad. I also know some small bit about Egwene al'Vere. She won't leave this battlefield until a victor has been chosen."
"I'll take her away," Gawyn said. "Back to Andor."
"And will you force her to go?" Bryne asked. "As you forced your way into my camp? Will you become a bully and a footpad, remarkable only because of your ability to kill or punish those who disagree with you?"
Gawyn didn't answer.

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

It really is a good point, although it fell on unreceptive ears. It’s a good thing Egwene stands up to Gawyn. Gawyn won’t use his skill for Elayne, but she will guide him admirably in Towers of Midnight. She sorts him out even better than Bryne does.

Fighting skill must be used in service in Bryne’s opinion:

"Whom to serve?" Bryne said, thoughtful. "Our own skill frightens us, sometimes. What is the ability to kill if one has no outlet for it? A wasted talent? The pathway to becoming a murderer? The power to protect and preserve is daunting. So you look for someone to give the skill to, someone who will use it wisely.

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

Potentially dangerous abilities need to be channelled (pun intended) where they can benefit all. Once upon a time the Aes Sedai and Da’shain Aiel both served.

Gawyn doesn’t understand what the Aiel War was about because he takes the conventionally negative view of the Aiel. Unlike Galad, he has never thought things through for himself and doesn’t it make him annoying! I know Elayne judges Galad as tiresome and adores her brother, but Galad is far less irritating a character.

Gawyn is unimpressed when Bryne says he doesn’t know the answer of whom to serve or why. Or that the answer isn’t simple:

“At least, each person's answer is their own. When I was young, I fought for honor. Eventually, I realized that there was little honor to be found in killing, and I found that I had changed. Then I fought because I served your mother. I trusted her. When she failed me, I began to wonder again. What of all those years of service? What of the men I'd killed in her name? What did any of that mean?"

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

The Aiel say there isn’t much honour in killing – it’s easy and even a child can do it.

Bryne needed to transfer his loyalties after he was exiled from his high position in Andor. He chose the rebels because he loved Siuan, but says he stayed because their cause was right.

”That which has been broken must be made whole, and I've seen what a terrible leader can do to a kingdom. Elaida can't be allowed to pull this world down with her."

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

This surprised me because he had given his word to the rebels, and doesn’t break it; plus when and how would he have left them?

It’s Siuan that Bryne calls a bloody woman, not Egwene. Gawyn thinks only of Egwene and he really is tiresome.

Bryne advises Gawyn to choose a side and know why. Gawyn, alas, is still a mass of confusion:

Gawyn felt as if he didn't know what the different sides were. Let alone which one to pick for himself.

The Gathering Storm, Old Advice

Unlike Galad, he is not used to thinking and normally just follows the party line. All lives are changing now that the world is in such flux, yet good and evil are still as defined as they were, despite the Shadow’s efforts to get people to confuse them. It seems to have worked with Gawyn.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #32: Chapter 29 - Into Bandar Eban

2011-07-14T07:13:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Moiraine is the woman whose loss Rand feels most guilty about. He thinks he allowed her to sacrifice herself for him, yet he didn’t know she intended to do it until afterwards. However his weakness in not being able to attack Lanfear enabled this to happen. Rand/Lews Therin has always had a weakness for her. (She had a strong angreal, however, so he would not have been able to do as much against her as he thought anyway.)

Rand recognises that if Ishamael lives again, so too could Lanfear and therefore Moiraine’s sacrifice was all for nothing. This is not altogether true, since Moiraine found something vital in the Finn’s world for the Light’s victory. He thinks he will never again be too weak to do what must be done. Certainly he wasn’t for Semirhage, but when he meets Cyndane (while in a better psychological state) this resolution seems to be forgotten. According to Rand, Semirhage gave him the strength to bury guilt and hurt.

Rand is not sure he still has a conscience. He thinks if he can “find” Graendal that might justify his invasion of Arad Doman. He is wrong in thinking that finding Alsalam would lead him to Graendal. Rand plans to kill Graendal with balefire, but fails.

Lews Therin chants the list of fallen women with Rand. He is just as affected by their deaths as Rand and is probably a split off personality of Rand’s. Rand has repeated the list so many times that he will never forget any name. Lews Therin adds Min’s name, yet a) Min is alive and b) Semirhage forced Rand to hurt her. Rand blames himself anyway because he should have sent Min away, although he thinks there is nowhere safe for her to go.

Rand is icing over his feelings:

His rage, his anger, his passion—it was all still there, buried within. But he had surrounded it with ice, cold and immobilizing. It was the ice of the place Semirhage had taught him to go, the place that was like the void, but far more dangerous.

The Gathering Storm, into Bandar Eban

Thinking of the True Power (but not daring to name it or its origins) brings him close to the Dark One, the Shadow. Too close:

These little annoyances were not worth his passion, his fury. If one bothered him too much, all he needed do was snuff it out, like a candle.
A dangerous thought. Had that been his? Had it been Lews Therin's? Or ... had the thought come from . . .elsewhere?

The Gathering Storm, into Bandar Eban

This is a reference to his link to Moridin and indicates probable seepage of negative thoughts and feelings along the link. Another example in this chapter is Rand not wanting to be reborn over again, just like Moridin wants to be free of the Pattern.

Cadsuane’s error could have led to:

"The end of all things, Merise," he whispered. "The Dark One with control of the Dragon Reborn. The two of us, fighting on the same side."

The Gathering Storm, into Bandar Eban

Rand is very close to being on that side anyway.

Merise points out that Rand has made mistakes that could have ended the same way. (In fact in The Gathering Storm Rand is currently making just such a mistake. He has more in common with Moridin than he recognises – a tendency to suppress his feelings, for instance). Rand says he is paying for his mistakes every moment and assumes that others aren’t.

As Rand forces his will darkly on Merise, two balconies collapse. This event is caused by Rand’s extreme ta’veren influence:

He had rarely seen an occurrence quite so ... violent, however. Could he be sure it wasn't due to some interaction with the new force? That unseen yet tempting well of power Rand had tapped, used and enjoyed?

The Gathering Storm, into Bandar Eban

Currently only bad things happen because Rand is so dark, so unbalanced and used the True Power. While he was ambivalent and human, the good events balance the bad. Presumably, if Rand is “good” or positive enough events would reflect that, perhaps to a striking degree...

Rand carries the access key because the maximum he can draw though it balances in pleasure what he can channel unaided of the True Power through his link to Moridin.

The access key had allowed him to tap an unimaginable river, a tempest as vast as the ocean. It had been the greatest thing he had ever experienced.
Until the moment when he had used the unnamed power.
That other force called to him, sang to him, tempted him. So much power, so much divine wonder. But it terrified him. He didn't dare touch it, not again.
And so he carried the key. He was not certain which of the two sources of energy was more dangerous, but as long as both called to him, he was able to resist both. Like two people, both yelling for his attention, they drowned one another out. For the moment.

The Gathering Storm, into Bandar Eban

Once Rand rightly feared the temptation of the male Choedan Kal. He doesn’t dare to now.

Rand describes the True Power as “the unnamed power” but the “unnameable power” would be more accurate for him. Just as people don’t dare name the Dark One, so he doesn’t dare name the Dark One’s power. He knows what it is: Lews Therin has spoken of “their so-called True Power”.

Rand is dismissive of what Dobraine has achieved in Bandar Eban. Even the Aiel thought Dobraine did well, despite Dobraine being a Treekiller, and that Rand would be pleased (The Gathering Storm, The Plan for Arad Doman). Later in the chapter Rand is grudging in his praise of Dobraine, then immediately sends him to Tear because he is too paranoid to trust Dobraine. Lews Therin says the one they can’t trust at all is themselves. That’s very true – look at how Rand nearly destroyed the world.

Alivia watches all this aloof. She mostly stays apart through The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight. Is this for a particular reason? Or a plot device?

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #31: Chapter 28 - Night in Hinderstap

2011-07-11T06:40:00.004-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Darkness comes unnaturally quickly to Hinderstap as the sun sets. Lack of sun and Light brings on the Hinderstap horrors:

"It's as if the darkness itself intoxicates them," Thom said while Mat helped Delarn into his saddle. "As if Light itself has forsaken them, leaving them only to the Shadow."

The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

When the sun returns, the Pattern tries to reset itself, as Thom observes:

Something's wrong in the world. There's a snag in the Pattern here. The town unravels at night, and then the world tries to reset it each morning to make things right again."

The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

The Creator is the Light of the World (see opening passage to The Eye of the World,) and Rand his Champion is Lord of the Morning, and a parallel of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun (see Rand essay). The Dark One is the Shepherd of the Night. As so often happens in The Wheel of Time philosophy and symbolism are literally made manifest.

For most of this chapter Mat is in his King of the Dead role, and not his trickster mode of the previous chapter, which is why he was not trapped in Hinderstap’s living death. He is only a trickster at the end when he makes jokes at the villagers’ expense and laughs at their situation:

"The more tragic things get, the more I feel like laughing."

The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

In the dark the villagers turn into frenzied and raving homicidal monsters: they have inhuman strength, and don’t talk, only scream and grunt. Mat tries to deal them only wounds, but has to use killing blows for his own safety.

Mat says the villagers:

screamed and hissed, like legions of the drowned trying to pull him down into a deep, unearthly sea.

The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

This simile is a link to the phantom village in Altara which Mat and his group witnessed draw a peddler into the underworld.

There’s so many references to the Land of the Dead in this scene.

The villagers do not recognise their neighbours as they attack them, yet the Mayor almost recognises Mat, who is King of the Dead. Mat wants his hat, a reference to Odin’s hat (see Mat essay), in any tales Thom makes of Hinderstap. Odin is the Norse god of the dead and his halls in Valhalla are full of the shades of fallen warriors.

Mat is more disturbed by the wrongness of the village than Talmanes and Harnan, because he worries that he caused all the deaths by staying in the village after sunset. He thinks it is the Dark One’s attempt to trap him and takes it all personally.

Badly wounded Delarn chants Jack o’ the Shadows, which is about death, and is Mat’s signature tune, Mat being a Jack as well as King of the Dead. And of course they are in the shadow right now, as living dead try to kill them at night. Mat thinks that having the One Power used on him is almost as bad as dying.

Only Mat and Thom (a parallel of Orpheus), the two members of the foraging party with Underworld associations, return to Hinderstap, a village of the living dead, and will go on to visit the infernal Finns’ world. Mat thinks the restored villagers are ghosts or spirits at first.

Each sunset the villagers go to sleep or drink to avoid knowing what they do in the dark. Because they can’t leave, and can’t die, being effectively dead already in an underworld village, they seek oblivion, something the river Lethe, one of the five rivers of Hades, the Ancient Greek underworld, granted.

Hinderstap could be likened to the Fields of Asphodel, the first region of Hades, where the shades of heroes wander alongside lesser spirits. The Fields of Asphodel are a kind of limbo for souls who are judged neither good nor evil. These souls have little sensation of humanity unless offerings of blood are made in the living world above. Evil or impious souls are sent to Tartarus and good or pious souls to Elysium, the Island of the Blessed.) The villagers of Hinderstap lose all sensation of humanity and shed copious amounts of blood every night. It vanishes when the sun rises. They are in a kind of limbo, unable to leave, unable to die.

Thom says:

"You can't avoid this entirely," Thom said softly. "You can't pretend nothing is different."
"We don't." Barlden took a drink of tea. "We have the rules. Rules that you ignored.”

The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

Tricksters like Mat disregard other people’s rules and social conventions because they get in the way of what tricksters want to get or do. In Mat’s case, obtain food for the Band; in the Aes Sedai’s case, have some creature comforts for a change.

The scene is also a reference to the crazy homicidal mountainfolk gag, but the villagers prove that they are not crazy or homicidal of their own choice:

"We hold to our word, here. Other things are out of our control, particularly for those who don't listen to the rules. But we aren't going to rob a man just because he's an outsider."

The Gathering Storm, Night in Hinderstap

Tricksters are outsiders and they are morally ambivalent. Mat insists on taking the wagon of food because "I won it fair." His justification is that the villagers can’t travel so they don’t need the wagon and horses either, but they could be used to fetch timber from the hills, etc. Yet Mat left money to redress the balance.

Hinderstap’s trap started just before the feast of Abram this year. The Feast of Abram is on Jumara 9, equivalent to January 27. Hinderstap is in Murandy and at that time Egwene and the rebel Aes Sedai were not that far away, meeting the delegation of Andoran and Murandian nobles. Halima was with them, so perhaps it was an affect of having a Forsaken in regular contact with the Dark One nearby. Another Forsaken who may have been in Murandy then is Demandred.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #30: Chapter 27 - The Tipsy Gelding

2011-07-07T08:01:00.003-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Mat is beginning to feel right again – as in ‘back to his old self’ - and is wearing old clothes as a sign of this. He’s going back to his trickster mode hence the scruffiness and the gambling itch (see Tricksters essay). Tricksters are grubby, greedy and disregard the rules. Mat thinks his longing for dicing and barmaids is bucking the ‘rules’ of marriage.

He feels he has to go back and confront the Finns because they have got the better of him twice now. Three times is for keeps.

Just as Mat spent this last scene fretting over Tuon, so Thom is feeling really down about Moiraine and with far more reason. He doesn’t put on his gleeman’s cloak until he cheers up. Mat notices that Thom cares about Moiraine but doesn’t twig why because he can’t stand Aes Sedai himself – or more properly their channelling:

Mat had little love for Moiraine, but he wouldn't leave her to them, no matter that she was Aes Sedai.
Bloody ashes. He'd probably be tempted to ride in and save one of the Forsaken themselves if they were trapped there.
And . . . maybe one was. Lanfear had fallen through that same portal. Burn him, what would he do if he found her there? Would he really rescue her as well?
You're a fool, Matrim Cauthon. Not a hero. Just a fool.

The Gathering Storm, The Tipsy Gelding

He often calls himself a fool. The fool is an important motif in Mat’s character. (see Fool and Joker essay and Mat essay). Tricksters are often fools or made to look foolish.

It’s Rand who has trouble resisting Lanfear. Mat is still happy to avoid Rand because he believes Rand will be a Kinslayer again. Mistakenly, Mat thinks that if he doesn’t go near Rand he will be safe from Rand’s channelling. Rand nearly destroyed the entire world at the end of The Gathering Storm.

Thom’s speech shows how and why the Pattern and Cycle of Ages work and why Rand’s and Moridin’s despair is wrong:

"We can't go back, Mat. The Wheel has turned, for better or worse. And it will keep on turning, as lights die and forests dim, storms call and skies break. Turn it will. The Wheel is not hope, and the Wheel does not care, the Wheel simply is. But so long as it turns, folk may hope, folk may care. For with light that fades, another will eventually grow, and each storm that rages must eventually die. As long as the Wheel turns. As long as it turns..."

The Gathering Storm, The Tipsy Gelding

The Wheel brings something from the past back into Mat’s mind: his lust for the Shadar Logoth dagger with its ruby “red like his own blood”:

And the old lust, the old desire, would seep into him again . . .

The Gathering Storm, The Tipsy Gelding

Red is the colour of lust as well as war, and tricksters are greedy and lustful. The linking of the dagger with Mat’s blood refers not only to blood-lust but also to Mat’s close relationship – blood-relationship, if you like - with the dagger. And also to Mat’s relationship with Fain/Mordeth, who is now using the dagger to sprinkle his blood to sinister effect.

Deceptively, Hinderstap seems in better order than most towns:

"That's a nice sight," Talmanes noted. "I was beginning to think every town in the world was either falling apart, packed with refugees or under the thumb of invaders. At least this one doesn't seem likely to vanish on us ..."

The Gathering Storm, The Tipsy Gelding

This is a reminder that Mat brings war and is king of the dead, and a foreshadowing that Hinderstap does have deep problems. The village is too perfect, too innocuous; a lure like the witch’s gingerbread house in the lonely forest.

It seems Mat doesn’t just rely on his luck, he can actively manipulate it.

"I can lose when I want to, if it's for the best."

The Gathering Storm, The Tipsy Gelding

In this case he is deliberately on a losing streak but made sure to win a few tosses too, to make it look less suspicious.

Greed nibbled every man, and strict "rules" could be bent if opportunity walked past and winked suggestively enough.

The Gathering Storm, The Tipsy Gelding

Tricksters ignore the rules – that’s how they operate – and they do so to get what they want, satisfy their desires, against the odds. Mat is greedy, as all tricksters are. They are also familiar with outstaying their welcome or their spiel falling flat.

This time Mat is greedy for supplies:

Mat felt a sudden spike of fear. After all of that losing ... if they kicked him out anyway. . .
Desperate, he pulled open the top of the chest again, revealing the gold coins inside.
"I'll give you the ale," the innkeeper said suddenly. "And Mardry, you've got a wagon and team. It's only a street down."
"Yes," said Mardry, a bluff-faced man with short dark hair. "I'll bet that."

The Gathering Storm, The Tipsy Gelding

The Mayor senses a trick and suspects loaded dice but he still thinks he can win against Mat if he makes the throw personally, and Mat is desperate enough to agree.

Talmanes is uncomfortable because he senses something wrong with the place, after earlier remarking on its unusual normality. Mat is oblivious, being so focussed on his epic dice game. It’s only while waiting for food and drink to be gotten that he finally sees what Talmanes saw earlier.

The dice stop in Mat’s head when he says they are staying; so this was an important decision. Mat wonders if he made a wrong decision. We may have not seen the full effect of this, but one important result was that the Mayor told Mat about Trustair. Thom had obtained a drawing and knew there was a bounty on information about Mat, but didn’t learn the name of the village where the woman wanting the information was staying.

Brandon Sanderson said Mat’s trick of manipulating the villagers with their own greed into filling his empty wagon with food, after they had refused to sell him any, in this scene is a nod to the tricksome traveller in the Stone Soup folk tale, who manipulates villagers into contributing ingredients to his soup pot after they refused to share any food with him. Mat’s parallel General George Patton tricked his own superior officers with what he call the ‘rock soup’ method: forbidden to attack, he would send out reconnaissance missions which would meet (expected) resistance and need more and more reinforcements, turning into full-scale attacks. He used it in the Battle of Sicily and again near Metz where he was ordered to halt during Operation Market Garden.

However at the end of the chapter trickster Mat is tricked by the villagers and the Dark One’s warping of the Pattern. He said there was nothing to worry about and was immediately made a fool of.

Afterword: The name Hinderstap is an interesting one. Hinder could mean ‘hold back’ or ‘rear end’. Or both. Stap is an obsolete word meaning stop. “Stap me vitals!” was an eighteenth century exclamation of surprise meaning ‘stop up my bodily organs’ and goes with both meanings of hinder. Mat came close to being stopped at Hinderstap, and indeed three of his men are missing and may well be stuck there, held along with the unfortunate villagers in a terrible loop of the Pattern.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #29: Chapter 26 - A Crack in the Stone

2011-07-04T07:20:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Aviendha POV

This chapter compares Aes Sedai and Wise Ones on leadership, ranking, graduation, duty, ambition, and self-confidence.

Aviendha grudgingly grants that Bashere’s troops are well-trained and efficient. Saldaeans campaign a lot and are modelled on semi-nomadic Central Asian horse people. Aiel are similar to Berber, Amerindian, and Zulu tribes people.

Aiel take only soldiers (an error: should be warriors or spears) and Wise Ones (presumably for Healing and negotiating) when they go to war. Aviendha is disgusted at camp followers and also those who shirk work or don’t look after themselves efficiently. It is why she and other Aiel despise servants.

Sand-staring sounds like depression or a similar mental illness and is regarded as useless. Aiel society is ruthless in its demands of a person’s best on all occasions, with no whining, because their environment is so harsh and life is precarious. All must contribute to the max.

Aviendha herself is not working so she has no honour and is earning toh because she is not helping the Aiel pack. Purposeful vigorous work is honourable. She is now desperate to graduate as a Wise One. Aviendha is ambitious and sees the honour of being one and wants to help guide the Aiel in the Last Days. The Wise Ones are trying to shame her into fury so she stands up against them.

In a way this “punishment” test has similarities to the final Aes Sedai testing of a candidate’s commitment to the Tower and desire to be Aes Sedai. It tests resolve, ambition and self-confidence, but at the end new Wise Ones are accepted as the equal of any other Wise One and expected to stand up for their own opinions, whereas Aes Sedai are ranked according to innate criteria and are expected to obey or defer to those higher-ranked than they. Curiously, Sorilea doesn’t treat any Wise One as her equal, until Amys stands up to her in Lord of Chaos. Cadsuane is more considerate of Aes Sedai below her than any other high-ranked Aes Sedai.

Aviendha is so involved in her thoughts that she does not hear Min approach. Another factor is that she doesn’t want people to approach her. Min has not been Healed, even though Nynaeve was in the camp. She says she doesn’t trust any Aes Sedai and nor does Rand; they probably wonder who betrayed them and freed Semirhage. (A Wise One probably set this in motion, see here and here).

Aviendha thinks Rand a skilled and lucky warrior who has earned much honour through defeating so many of the Forsaken. Where was she when Semirhage attacked? With the Wise Ones? She felt Rand’s agony when Semirhage collared him but thought it was a nightmare at first. Presumably Rand has had these for her to be fooled in this way.

Aviendha is leaving Rand to deal with his problems and face his trials. She won’t join with him unless she is his equal. On the other hand Min supports him regardless and doesn’t worry about her rank, or how others see he,r or whether she has honour or not. Min doesn’t feel that close to Aviendha – not surprisingly since they are from such different backgrounds. She expected Aviendha to want to talk about their relationship with Rand (as Aviendha and Elayne did), or even fight about it. Aviendha finds Min insulting when she mentions Aviendha’s mundane activities, but refuses to consider that she is insulting Min when she patronises her on her relative defencelessness, even though she observed Min’s body language accurately. Aviendha is not averse to sharing Rand with a woman she knows well.

Mins’ comments on Aviendha’s odd activity finally make Aviendha lose her temper and storm off to confront the Wise Ones. Yet Aviendha still has no idea of why she is being punished. She knows she can channel better than any Wise One, since Melaine intimated as much in The Gathering Storm, The Death of Adrin, and refuses more punishments from them. However Aviendha nearly backed down when the Wise Ones asked her if she thought she was their equal. They tried to intimidate her one last time and nearly succeeded but Aviendha continued on. She was surprised that their warm welcome showed this was the right thing to do.

"No woman is ready to join us until she has declared herself ready," Amys continued. "She must present herself as our equal."

The Gathering Storm, A Crack in the Stone

A Wise One has to believe in her own mind that she has graduated. Becoming a Wise One is not a matter of putting in the time and completing assignments.

Sevanna announced she was a Wise One and so they had to accept her as one. They nearly did not.

Wise Ones supposedly don’t have rank; but earn honour though through their actions and judgement. Sorilea is high-ranked though.

Aviendha could have been a Wise One weeks ago. The Aiel stuck to their ways despite the chaotic end-times, while the Tower hasn’t; they promoted women too fast in the Trolloc Wars and again now. The Aiel are one of the most conservative and insular Wheel of Time societies.

Rhuidean has been opened but Bair doesn’t think this is sufficient reason to abandon the old ways. She is described by Sanderson as a small woman, but by Jordan as the usual Aiel size, which is tall. She is thin though.

The Wise Ones still insist on a time of contemplation before Rhuidean despite the need for haste. They tell Aviendha they planned for it because they think it is really needed.

Amys wants to discuss the changes to Rand with Aviendha when she returns. Time is pressing, but Aviendha did not return before Rand changed again about 19 days later.

The Wise Ones’ test also teaches an apprentice much about punishment.

"A punishment is not a true punishment unless you accept it, Aviendha," Bair said, still smiling.

“Remember this time you spent and the shame you felt, for it is the shame any da'tsang will know, should you consign them to their fate. And they cannot escape it simply by demanding release."

The Gathering Storm, A Crack in the Stone

Which brings us to another woman who has been punished unjustly but accepted it: Shemerin.

Romanda POV

For all that Romanda thinks of Shemerin as still full Aes Sedai, she refers to her as a “runaway”. She responds to Shemerin’s subservient attitude. This underlines why the Wise Ones won’t graduate subservient candidates.

"A Wise One cannot allow others to step upon her," Amys said. "If she comes into the shade of our sisterhood thinking like an apprentice, then she will never see herself as one of us."

"But it is important—vital, even—that each Wise One be willing to defend her own well. If she believes that she is right, she cannot let herself be shoved aside, even by other Wise Ones, no matter how aged or wise."

Romanda had rarely seen a woman as determined to punish herself as this poor child.
Not a child, Romanda thought. A full Aes Sedai, whatever she says. Burn you, Elaida, for turning one of us into this! Shemerin had been Yellow. Burn it, she was Yellow.

The Gathering Storm, A Crack in the Stone

Shemerin is punishing herself for the shame of demotion and for running away. She has no resentment or anger to Elaida, and fully accepts her authority. Romanda agrees Shemerin is too weak a character to be Aes Sedai, but thinks there are other ways of dealing with weak Aes Sedai. Shemerin is traumatised though and embarrassed at having to admit in front of Siuan that she backstabbed Siuan.

Siuan wants a map of this little known way into and out of Tar Valon. She gives an order in front of Lelaine and Romanda against the Aes Sedai ranking system and backs down – a little. Romanda didn’t want Siuan as full Aes Sedai again because she is a schemer and Romanda doesn’t like schemers. No wonder, since she came off the worst when the Blues schemed for their second Blue Amyrlin in a row: Tamra.

What a contrast between the rebels and the Tower: Elaida demoted Shemerin from Aes Sedai ranks by decree for no reason except to get the Tower used to the idea of judicial demotion without stilling (stilling no longer being permanent, and anyway it is prescribed for specific crimes) and to intimidate others into obeying her. The rebels promoted Aes Sedai by decree, and when stilled Aes Sedai have their channelling abilities restored, their rights and rank are fully restored too. The senior Aes Sedai didn’t believe Egwene about Elaida’s decrees before this.

Magla and Lelaine are sceptical that Shemerin was demoted for lack of poise and not disloyalty. Romanda is more savvy:

"I suspect she used poor Shemerin as an example, acclimating the White Tower to the concept of demotion. That will let her use it on those who are actually her enemies."

The Gathering Storm, A Crack in the Stone

She really is wise and intelligent. Demotion is a dangerous precedent, if only because the Amyrlin shouldn’t be given that much power according to Romanda.

Romanda knows Lelaine is ahead of her in the power game and prays for Egwene’s return. Egwene told them the night before of her imprisonment and forbade rescue. Lelaine is taking advantage of Sheriam being Blue. Sheriam (Keeper, a position normally above Sitters) and Siuan are Lelaine’s attendants. Magla (Sitter) is Romanda’s. This is such a contrast with the Wise Ones’ conferences.

Sheriam is withdrawn and agitated; no doubt due to Mesaana’s impending deadline. Because Sheriam is there, the Blacks in theory learn of a secret way into/out of Tar Valon.

Just after Romanda saidthe lump under the floor of her tent is not important, it splits the canvas and huge cockroaches pour through. Siuan physically swatted the first ones. The heroic Black Ajah leader Sheriam jumps on her chair. Siuan is the first to channel to kill them, even though she is the weakest there. Romanda hates to kill things with the Power, fellow Yellow Magla probably does also. The roaches were ones from Shara, so they are ‘out of place’. Siuan dismisses the cockroaches believing, rightly, that there will be worse stuff.

All that Romanda owns is burned. This really drives home to her that Egwene is right and the Last Battle is coming fast. Along with Shemerin’s demotion it makes her think about the threat of losing even more:

The Tower needed to be whole. Whatever it took. Would she be willing to bow before Elaida to make that happen? Would she put on an Accepted dress again if it would bring unity for the Last Battle?
She couldn't decide. And that disturbed her nearly as much as those scuttling roaches had.

The Gathering Storm, A Crack in the Stone

Romanda has said previously that the Tower is her life. She knows it is vital the Tower be whole, yet can’t decide if she would acknowledge Elaida as Amyrlin or accept demotion to Accepted if these were required for that unity (and they would be by Elaida). Yet Shemerin did. Romanda is really worried about that – what it means, what other Aes Sedai would do.

Whether to put self first or not; that is the main problem of the war against the Shadow. Many people are not committed.

Some are prepared to commit any deed, yes, but not to accept any sacrifice.

New Article Released: Wheel of Time Tricksters

2011-06-30T07:43:00.002-04:00

By Linda

There are quite a few trickster figures in the Wheel of Time series and they are some of the most popular characters due to their daring and subversive, yet very human natures, and their power to enchant other characters and the reader. I’ve wanted to write an essay on them for over a year now and have finally done so. In it I describe the typical characteristics of trickster figures in myth and legend and how Jordan has incorporated them into his trickster characters Mat, Thom, Noal, Vanin, Fain, the Aelfinn and Eelfinn, and of course, Verin. Without their almost accidental abilities to twist events, dodge disaster, or get past boundaries, the Pattern of the Last Days and the books would be far worse off.

Since balance and boundaries are important themes in the Wheel of Time, I should briefly mention that the opposite of the cheeky tricksters, the anti-tricksters, if you like, would be the Ogier: also lovable, but in no way subversive, manipulative, suave or cunning. Tricksters are morally ambivalent and shamelessly or haplessly untrustworthy, and the Ogier are anything but that. If, for some reason, an Ogier changed to the extent of showing such characteristics that would be a trick indeed.

The Thirteenth Depository has also reached 1.5 million page views and the release of my Redressing the Balance and the Boundaries – Wheel of Time Tricksters essay celebrates that.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #28: Chapter 25 - In Darkness

2011-06-27T07:39:00.001-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Sheriam POV

Rebel Aes Sedai sharing tents inevitably forms or strengthens bonds between sisters and hopefully breaks down selfishness. Sheriam is accommodated by herself and uses a separate tent – Egwene’s - to work in. She has four times the space as the average Aes Sedai, so I guess that makes her four times more selfish and less cooperative.

Chesa, the maid Sheriam chose for Egwene, is very attached to Egwene and worries about her being captive. There was a time she was suspected of being a Darkfriend, but her concern shows she probably isn’t one.

Halima was the one punishing Sheriam. Not a great surprise, although Sheriam never commented that her abuser wasn’t using saidar. Presumably she has previously encountered Forsaken who hid their ability or weaves from her and assumed Halima was doing the same.

So being a member of the Black Ajah is rough, and Sheriam feels sorry for herself. She is not committed to the Shadow’s cause but is in it only for personal gain. She justifies her apostasy and treason by claiming that all Aes Sedai would backstab to get ahead and Black sisters just go that little bit further...It was very amusing that after Sheriam stops moaning she gets to savour peace for a few seconds and then senses a woman of great strength about to enter her tent. Mesaana isn’t hiding her ability this time, even though if Sheriam can sense her outside, so could other Aes Sedai nearby.

Sheriam assumes that someone very strong in the Power will be high in the Shadow’s hierarchy. (Aes Sedai follow a “might is right” policy like the Shadow, the only band of female channellers to do so.) Since she considers that this figure could be an exalted aide, she also knows that there are strong female channellers who aren’t Aes Sedai/Black Ajah. Sheriam is really alarmed by this figure whether Chosen or powerful servant.

Mesaana likes her black ribbons illusion; she wears it again in Towers of Midnight. It is customary to grovel for most Forsaken, but Mesaana is in a hurry this time and tells Sheriam to skip these preliminaries. I guess she is conscious that she shouldn’t waste time in the rebel camp because she hasn’t disguised her ability. She probably didn’t mask her strength in the Power to scare Sheriam into line quickly.

A Chosen ordered Sheriam to raise Egwene, or more properly to take up Siuan’s and Leane’s suggestion. Halima arrived in Salidar a few days before Egwene was summoned by the rebels to be raised, so it was probably she who gave the order. Mesaana wants Egwene deposed. She tells Sheriam to steal all 19 sleepweavers in 3 days to keep Aes Sedai out of Tel’aran’rhiod and then travels back to the White Tower without bothering to hide her destination from Sheriam. It is curious that she threatened to punish failure for her second, offhand command, but not her first command.

Egwene POV

Egwene is determined to be dignified despite her abuse. She is beaten every day, denied clean clothes, and is only out of her unlit cell and seated on a chair because she has visitor. Her jailers are still following Tower law and allowing visitors.

Elaida’s tactic of showing off to the Sitters backfired since a senior member of five Ajahs witnessed her break the law. She tried to forestall a trial but failed. Her argument is that Egwene is a Darkfriend and so she expelled her from the Tower and then beat her. I don’t know how she justified this to herself, since no formal charges have been laid, and apart from being summary justice (illegal), it’s not the appropriate punishment for a Darkfriend anyway. The Tower is worse than a backward village:

"It will not stand," Seaine said, consolingly. "This is not some backward village, where the Dragon's Fang scrawled on someone's door is enough to convict."
Egwene raised an eyebrow. She'd been raised in "some backward village," and they'd had enough sense to look for more than rumors in convicting someone, no matter what the crime.

The Gathering Storm, In Darkness

Elaida’s behaviour is not an offense for which she could be deposed. The maximum punishment is formal censure and a month’s penance. She would retain the shawl – an error: it should be stole. Elaida is losing credibility. Egwene worries that Elaida will hide her away and she will be inaccessible to visitors or unable to influence events.

The Tower is badly affected by the Dark One’s weakening of the Pattern, perhaps because a Forsaken and so many Black Ajah are in residence. The blighting is less of a problem in the rebel camp, despite having about the same number of Black sisters, so maybe Mesaana makes the difference. Also, belief and order give strength, as Herid Fel wrote, and the Tower is very disordered and its residents are short on belief in the Tower’s administration and hold on events. The rebels are comparatively better focussed.

Yellow sisters are now in the basement and the second kitchen is on the sixth level. This kitchen will be needed soon, when the Tower reunifies and 1000 novices arrive; so it has risen in prominence, which is appropriate since food and nutrition are very important now. The Yellows have not been doing their bit to help against pestilence and have been dumped in the basement. However Yellow sisters should not have had rooms on the sixth level because the bottom half of the Tower is for communal use, not Ajah living quarters, according to The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time.

The remainder of the novices have been brought up to the 21st and 22nd levels, so they too have risen in prominence and will soon save the Tower from the Seanchan. The Browns are now in the novice wing, symbolising that Aes Sedai are not as well trained or knowledgeable as they think. This is another error. The Tower was described as being divided vertically with the Ajahs each having equal pie-shaped wedges of each floor and not owning whole floors:

Each Ajah occupies one of seven pie-shaped sections in the top half of the huge main Tower containing living quarters for its members as well as meeting rooms and workrooms reserved for that Ajah, though some members of the Brown have rooms in or near the huge library as well. These sections are equal in size, although the Ajahs are not, but even the largest Ajah, the Red, does not come anywhere near filling its allotted space. The main Hall of the Tower and all common rooms are located in the lower half of the building.

The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time

Egwene encourages Seaine and her fellow independent Sitters to remind the Hall and other Aes Sedai that the Last Battle approaches and they should work together, not divide further. She worries that Elaida could have her executed for falsely claiming to be Amyrlin, but decides to stay firmly on her chosen course. Belief has certainly given Egwene strength.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #27: Chapter 24 - A New Commitment

2011-06-23T08:28:00.002-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Allowances should be made for Gawyn because he has sleep deprivation, but honestly, his blindness and arrogance is so annoying in this chapter. He says the White Tower doesn’t deserve his allegiance and he can’t go back to the Younglings either. That’s right looked at from either point of view, I guess. He has taken the fork in the road Egwene dreamt in A Crown of Swords probably some time ago, but now is open about it. The wavering he has experienced these last few months has been revealed publicly.

Gawyn behaves badly and expects privileges and acknowledgement of his rank when he has abandoned its responsibilities. Bryne puts him in his place.

"The watch sergeant was belligerent, and I had no patience for the posturing of a fool. This seemed the best way."
"The best way to what?" Bryne asked. "Outrage me?"
"Look," Gawyn said, "perhaps I was hasty, but I have an important task. You need to listen to me."
"And if I don't?" Bryne asked. "If I instead throw you out of my camp for being a spoiled princeling with too much pride and not enough sense?"
Gawyn frowned. "Be careful, Gareth. I've learned a great deal since we last met. I think you'll find that your sword can no longer best mine as easily as it once did."
"I have no doubt of that," Bryne said. "Light, boy! You always were a talented one. But you think that just because you're skilled with the sword, your words hold more weight? I should listen because you'll kill me if I don't? I thought I taught you far better than that."

The Gathering Storm, A New Commitment

Gawyn is just as belligerent as the watch sergeant, what with threatening Bryne if he makes him leave the camp and then again when Bryne tells him the state that Andor descended to in Gawyn’s absence. Bryne knew Gawyn attacked soldiers to get his attention. The general radiates calm and command and makes Gawyn ashamed of his behaviour. He admits to being hasty and then to being a fool. All very true, and understated if anything. Gawyn is not good at introspection, which is why he has little insight into himself or objectivity about himself and his relations with others.

Gawyn is like Elaida in believing that might is right; in his case might is based on swordsmanship instead of strength in saidar.

Gawyn can’t imagine Egwene not wanting to be rescued, and is convinced he has to rescue her. His plans after he saves her are so different from reality:

I’ll save her somehow. Then I'll talk some sense into her and bring her away from all of the Aes Sedai. Perhaps even talk sense into Bryne. We can all get back to Andor, to help Elayne.

The Gathering Storm, A New Commitment

The one in dire need of sense is Gawyn.

Bryne insists on keeping his oaths, unlike just about everyone else, and reminds Gawyn that he made an oath to Elayne. Gawyn says he puts Egwene first. Bryne wonders why Gawyn is not helping Elayne and realises he led the Younglings. Immediately he sees Gawyn as an enemy commander. Gawyn says he left that command (just as he left Elayne) and swears he will reveal nothing of the rebel camp to the Tower Aes Sedai. Bryne is sceptical, to Gawyn’s surprise, but that is due to Siuan renouncing her oath.

Bryne understands that Gawyn doesn’t know what Egwene is to him because he is in the same situation with Siuan. Egwene seems to need rescuing all the time and Gawyn seems to spend most of his time walking away from people he has sworn to aid and withholding that aid. Bryne wants Gawyn to return to Andor and leave Egwene to the rebels and their army. Gawyn asks why Bryne isn’t in Andor and that opens a can of worms.

Gawyn is disbelieving that Morgase exiled Bryne on pain of death and even more so about Morgase’s weakness for Gaebril. In fairness, she acted entirely out of character due to Compulsion so it’s no wonder Gawyn was incredulous.

When Bryne says:

"Al'Thor saved Andor, son. Or as near to it as a man could."
"How could you say that?" Gawyn said, pulling his hand away. "How could you speak well of that monster? He killed my mother!"
"I don't know if I believe those rumors or not," Bryne said, rubbing his chin. "But if I do, lad, then perhaps he did Andor a favor. You don't know how bad it got, there at the end."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Gawyn said, lowering his hand to his sword. "I won't hear her name soiled like that, Bryne. I mean it."
Bryne looked him directly in the eyes. His gaze was so solid. Like eyes carved of granite. "I'll always speak truth, Gawyn. No matter who challenges me on it. It's hard to hear? Well, it was harder to live. No good comes of spreading complaints. But her son needs to know. In the end, Gawyn, your mother turned against Andor by embracing Gaebril. She needed to be removed. If al'Thor did that for us, then we have need to thank him."

The Gathering Storm, A New Commitment

Gawyn immediately blames what Bryne said on Rand, although that is a long leap of ‘logic’ even for him. There is a likeness here to his brother Galad in having strongly held beliefs, the difference being that Galad’s actually have thought behind them and are reassessed when contrary evidence comes to hand. Gawyn is more like a Questioner or rabid Whitecloak and dispenses with the requirement of evidence. Seeing Gawyn’s reception of this news, Bryne explains further:

She gave the kingdom to that snake. She sent her allies to be beaten and imprisoned. She wasn't right in her mind. Sometimes, when a soldier's arm festers, it needs to be cut free to save the man's life. I'm pleased at Elayne's success, and it is a wound to speak these words. But you have to bury that hatred of al'Thor. He wasn't the problem. Your mother was."

The Gathering Storm, A New Commitment

Bryne’s words are wise and his suggestion that Gawyn get Elayne to confirm them is a good one. Gawyn seems ridiculous in his blindness.

Gawyn tells Bryne of a mystery Aes Sedai among the washerwomen. Both men suspect she is a spy from the Tower, but Shemerin is an outcast. Her yellow kerchief shows that Shemerin can’t give up thoughts of the Yellow Ajah or the affiliation of a lifetime. Bryne is so nicely tactful with her. Shemerin didn’t chat with the other women; they knew she was higher ranked than they. She is ashamed of losing her rank, hence her seeming masochism. She cannot switch off her loyalties despite Elaida’s treatment of her. Without the Tower she has nothing, hence she has become a fringe dweller to the rebels. I agree with Romanda that Elaida’s decree – considering the effect it has had on Shemerin, which must have been obvious when she was still in the Tower - is disgraceful.

Gawyn is solidly on character – if annoying – and Bryne is well-drawn too. However the phrase “White Tower loyalists” grates. Neither side has used this term before. Only the readers.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #26: Chapter 23 - A Warp In The Air

2011-06-20T06:44:00.000-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Cadsuane sees straight away why Corele and Nesune were left alive while Daigian was killed. Warders would raise the alarm. However they should have noticed that something had happened to their Aes Sedai. Corele and Nesune were put in a trance, but neither saidin nor saidar weaves could be detected. They may have been reversed weaves, or the True Power. Weaves of the True Power would not be sensed by others at all, so it is more likely that Shaidar Haran did this bit.

Cadsuane was not in her quarters but out in the Wise Ones’ camp. What a coincidence that the very night she was visiting the Wise Ones – at their invitation? - after showing one of them where she kept the a’dam, she was burgled. Cadsuane has a paralis net plus knowledge and strength. It was essential that she not be there.

It is interesting that when Rand suddenly shows Cadsuane the remnants of the a’dam only partially on view, we get told of Sorilea’s reaction:

"Do you recognize that, Cadsuane?" al'Thor said, nodding toward something metallic sitting on the bed, mostly hidden by the sheets.
Hesitantly she walked forward. Sorilea looked over, expression unreadable. Apparently, she didn't wish to be drawn into the conversation when al'Thor was in such a mood.

The Gathering Storm, A Warp in the Air

Maidens reported immediately to the Wise Ones while Cadsuane was entering the room. A Maiden held Cadsuane’s box so the Wise Ones knew of it before Rand showed Cadsuane. I think Sorilea blanked her expressions because she knew more than anyone else how the a’dam was betrayed to the Shadow and was wary about either Rand or Cadsuane reading her body language.

The male access key was left behind in Cadsuane’s room by however stole the a’dam and Rand has it now. Elza would know its function since she was at the Cleansing. A Wise One would not necessarily since no Aiel was there. Shaidar Haran might not want any person, even Moridin, to have that much Power. Maybe it wants Rand to despair and break the World and that is why it was left. Alternatively it may never have been told the access key was there. Cadsuane blames Forsaken for being able to disarm her box. But Sorilea was there when Cadsuane disarmed it and could have learned how to do it. Cadsuane earlier noted what a quick study Sorilea is for weaves even if she is weak in the Power. Sorilea could demonstrate the weave to Elza (since she can do that, even if her weave is too weak to be effective) and then Elza fetch the a’dam at Shaidar Haran’s command. Elza would follow an order exactly and not take anything she wasn’t ordered to.

Rand demonstrates balefire for Narishma and explains why they have to use it. He openly speaks of having Lews Therin’s memories to prove he knows the consequences of the weave.

Cadsuane thinks Rand insolent when he doesn’t answer her. She is annoyed with his overconfidence and stubbornness. Rand ignores her. Both are too angry and alarmed to talk. Cadsuane wonders how Rand survived. She refuses to apologise; she is over confident and stubborn just like Rand. He exiles her and threatens to kill her. He didn’t even react to Min when she objects.

Only Narishma is considerate enough to ask Min how she is. For some reason Min hasn’t been Healed.

Rand is really dark because he just used the True Power and balefire:

There was a danger to it, a shadowy cast to his eyes that struck her with more fear than she'd thought her aging heart could summon. As she watched, the air around him seemed to warp, and she could almost think that the room had grown darker... from the corner of her eye, she saw a deep darkness emanating from al'Thor, warping the air even further.

The Gathering Storm, A Warp in the Air

The shadow or darkness which warps the air is an after-effect of drawing the True Power. Foolishly Cadsuane says Rand doesn’t kill women. Considering what Semirhage forced him to do, she could hardly have said anything more stupid. He threatens that he can now kill solely by warping the Pattern to do his will:

"Cadsuane," he said softly, "do you believe that I could kill you? Right here, right now, without using a sword or the Power? Do you believe that if I simply willed it, the Pattern would bend around me and stop your heart? By... coincidence?"
Being ta'veren didn't work that way. Light! It didn't, did it? He couldn't bend the very Pattern to his will, could he?
And yet, meeting his eyes, she did believe. Against all logic, she looked in those eyes and knew that if she didn't leave, she would die.

The Gathering Storm, A Warp in the Air

What a bully Rand has turned into. This seems to be the corrupting influence of the Dark One (and how immediate it is!) – not that Cadsuane knows why he is like this. No wonder Cadsuane is terrified, in part for her life, but also for what he has become. She is powerless and doesn’t know what to do about the changes to Rand.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #25: Chapter 22 - The Last That Could Be Done

2011-06-16T07:03:00.005-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

And now for one of the pivotal chapters of The Gathering Storm, due to the effect its events have on Rand's character.

Semirhage POV

The Lady of Pain likes to receive physical pain as well as give it, although she much prefers the latter. She’s not that tough on blows to the ego though: the humiliation of her treatment made her cry and according to the Dark One has broken her. It didn’t take long. Semirhage’s ego is over-inflated and fragile. Mengele, one of her parallels, was just as psychologically brittle when captured (see Semirhage essay).

Semirhage mistakes rationalising for rational reasoning, but then she isn’t honest with herself, as her hypocritical claim that she experiments on people, while others merely abuse them, shows.

The Dark One confirmed that Semirhage was ordered to capture Rand and that she is judged to have failed greatly. She doesn’t dare lie or make excuses to Shaidar Haran, yet Moghedien did so, in the Pit of Doom, no less, and Graendal lies and makes excuses to Shaidar Haran at the end of Towers of Midnight.

Semirhage says the Dark One’s punishment for failure would make anything Aes Sedai could think up seem childish. Childish was exactly what worked on Semirhage and she found that it wasn’t that childish at all…

When Semirhage sees the three Aes Sedai sprawled on the floor she assumes they are all dead. So much for her Healing talent. Elza tells Semirhage that she must remove Verin’s compulsion (and it is referred to as such, despite Verin’s modest disclaimer). Semirhage is delighted because of the opportunity to observe the nasty effects. Afterwards Elza is dazed looking from having the Compulsion removed, but is coherent enough. Had Semirhage listened to Elza they would both probably be alive.

Shaidar Haran removed Semirhage’s shield but didn’t remove Elza’s Compulsion. Someone told where the a’dam was and how to get it. As reported on Terez’ Interview Database, Shaidar Haran has limitations:

Brandon hinted at some severe limitations on Shaidar Haran to affect the physical world. He says that a lot of actions that people assume to be those of Shaidar Haran in the book in one particular scene were physically carried out by Elza. He further indicated that Shadar Haran would have been incapable of physically placing the collar himself.

Q: You mention that Shaidar Haran has quite a few limitations on his power. Can you give us a few concrete examples of these limitations?
A: Shaidar Haran needs a minion to do most of his work for him. Elza was essential to Shaidar Haran in getting things done.

Q. How did Elza defeat the wards on Cadsuane's plain wooden box?
A. Elza had been given knowledge of several rarely known weaves, and in other ways made into a tool of Shaidar Haran. Not all of it was pleasant for her.

The simplest way would have been for a saidar channeller who witnessed the weaves to demonstrate them to Elza. Sorilea is the only one we know of that fits. But Elza was also given other knowledge as Sanderson says above.

Shaidar Haran appeared in black with a red light. Moridin claims red and black as his own, but it is the Great Lord’s livery.

Rand POV

The Blight is advancing very quickly. However the lack of Shadowspawn raids is very unusual. And ominous.

Bashere is aware that Tenobia could well be angry with him for following Rand and not asking her for orders. Rand admits that bringing 50 thousand soldiers into a nation was an act of war, but the rulers have left their nations under-defended. He wants Domani forces in Saldaea rather than Dragonsworn Saldaeans because they will be less of a problem, not of disloyalty to Rand, but of upsetting other Saldaeans. Ituralde had problems anyway in Towers of Midnight with being regarded as an invader.

Rand promises Ituralde 100 Asha’man by the end of the week. Lews Therin is convinced that no Asha’man can be trusted and that they will turn on him and Rand. I guess we’ll see if he’s right in A Memory of Light.

Rand wonders why Moridin helped him in Shadar Logoth against Sammael. Moridin only wants Rand dead beforetime if he thinks the Shadow is losing, otherwise he’d rather Rand save himself by removing a disobedient and unreliable Forsaken (who is also a rival of Moridin).

Rand is frightened that his dreams are no longer safe due to his link with Moridin. The Shadow let his dreams alone long enough for Rand to get over this, and then Cyndane breaks through…

Lews Therin says Min is right about needing to break the Seals. He explains the little he knows about Sealing the Bore. Something has to touch the Dark One, to bridge the gap, but then the Dark One is able to taint it. Therefore if something has to bridge the gap it must be something the Dark One can’t taint, like, say, the Shadar Logoth evil.

Rand is peeved that Lews Therin doesn’t have an answer on how to seal the Bore, but if he did, Lews Therin would have done things differently then and now. Rand seems to only tolerate Lews Therin for his knowledge. While Rand thinks that maybe if women had been included there might have been a successful outcome to the sealing of the Bore, we know from what RJ said that this wouldn’t have worked:

The result of this was that Lews Therin carried out his plan with only male Aes Sedai, so there were only male Aes Sedai channeling there, which was a lucky thing, because if there’d been women as well, then both saidin and saidar would have been tainted.

RJ at a booksigning

It would have been worse if anything. Rand is right; there surely is more to it than including women.

It is interesting that Rand thinks he could break the rules by killing the Dark One just as it is necessary to break the rules to win against the trickster Finns.

Rand wants Min’s approval and holds back a little from being too hard:

Except that Min didn't want him to be hard. He didn't want to frighten her, of all people. There were no games with Min; she might call him a fool, but she did not lie, and that made him want to be the man she wished him to be. But did he dare? Could a man who could laugh also be the man who could face what needed to be done at Shayol Ghul?

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

He thinks:

It would take a hard man to face his own death, to fight the Dark One while his blood spilled on the rocks. Who could laugh in the face of that?

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

Rand doesn’t need to laugh; he just doesn’t need to be hard or brutal either. As usual, balance is the key.

Rand is crushed by all his duties and impending sacrifice. Going one step further, Lews Therin is expressing a wish for nothingness like Moridin:

We die. You promised we could die!
Only if we defeat the Dark One, Rand said. You know that if he wins, there will be nothing for us. Not even death.
Yes . . . nothing, Lews Therin said. That would be nice. No pain, no regret. Nothing.
Rand felt a chill. If Lews Therin began to think that way . . . No, Rand said, it wouldn't be nothing. He would have our soul. The pain would be worse, far worse.

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

Rand says that to frighten Lews Therin off from wanting nothingness. Is Lews Therin infected by the link to Moridin? Or Moridin by Lews Therin’s despair? Whichever way, Lews Therin, being the madder part of Rand’s personality, is showing the effects sooner than Rand is.

Rand says:

He had worked hard to make them think he was a man without affection. At times, he feared that his ruse had become reality.

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

He’s right; this is a dangerous ploy because an act can become real if it is done often or really convincingly.

Rand thinks a moment of running to his father would be a fatal weakness to him and to Tam. He’s wrong about this as he shows in Towers of Midnight in Tear. It’s an indication of how much he changed over the two books.

The prophecy of Rand living by dying is interpreted by Rand to refer to his legacy of memories and histories. At his most negative he believes this will be war, famine and chaos; when he is more positive, he hopes his schools will be effective. Either way he thinks he can’t worry about afterwards:

To do so would be to take his eye off the goal. And what is the goal? that voice seemed to say. Is it to survive, or is it to thrive? Will you set the groundwork for another Breaking or for another Age of Legends?

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

Indeed, his spiritual state is important as Cadsuane has said from early on. The Gathering Storm shows what happens when Rand reaches a spiritual nadir: despair, violence and contemplation of genocide.

Min encourages Rand to relax but he brushes her off saying it is not a time for laughter:

"You would have me be happy while children starve and men slaughter one another? I should laugh to hear that Trollocs are still getting through the Ways? I should be happy that the majority of the Forsaken are still out there somewhere, plotting how best to kill me?"

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

He makes a nonsense of her suggestions by taking it to its extreme. He did something similar when he suggested that laughing was the alternative to being hard.

Rand becomes suspicious when Min mentions Cadsuane and accuses her of manipulating him on Cadsuane’ behalf. Then he feels he went too far by distrusting Min and backs down. At that moment Semirhage strikes with the male a’dam.

Semirhage tested the male a’dam previously and has apparently spent a lot of time working with the female a’dam. How and when?

The Domination Band (see A'dam article for more on both types) prevents movement and channelling unless the controller allows it. It is more enslaving than the female a’dam. While being abused by Semirhage through the a’dam Rand has a flashback of his captivity by Elaida’s embassy. It was in the box that Rand split Lews Therin off from himself more:

Rand could remember communicating with the madman; Lews Therin had started to respond to him only shortly before that day. Rand hadn't been willing to see Lews Therin as part of himself.

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

He doesn’t acknowledge his Lews Therin fragment until he is at least as bad as Lews Therin and fully realises it.

When he tells Semirhage that she can’t do anything more to him she reacts as though Rand has challenged her. She makes him attack Min instead. Rand refuses to kill Semirhage as Lews Therin urges; instead she forces him to torture Min. It was a futile suggestion anyway because Rand can’t do what Semirhage won’t allow while the a’dam is being used on him.

Semirhage should be taking Rand to Shayol Ghul but decides to play with him first. She tries to make him kill Min physically. This, plus a flashback of Lews Therin killing Ilyena, drives Rand to draw on the True Power through his link to Moridin. First he went emotionally cold, then dead. When Asmodean was teaching Rand how to seize saidin in the void, Rand always went emotionless. Asmodean said Rand could or would go beyond that in time

Aviendha began dividing them while he seized saidin, filling himself with life and death, molten fire and liquid ice.
“Split them equally,” he told her. He knew his voice was cold and emotionless. Asmodean had said he could go beyond that, but he had not managed to so far.

The Fires of Heaven, A Short Spear

but Rand took a very long time to do so and may only have fully achieved this in Towers of Midnight. Rand has always had this tendency to suppress his feelings - the heart of stone.

The unseen face would be that of Moridin. We know from earlier chapters how closely they are tied now.

Lews Therin thinks the True Power/Dark One - they are the same in his mind - is death and betrayal. Semirhage thinks the Dark One betrayed her by allowing Rand to draw the True Power rather than let her be disobedient and put her little games first above the Dark One’s commands.

The True Power is totally addictive as we soon learn. The modest amount Rand uses to kill Semirhage and Elza rivals in seductiveness what Rand can draw through the Choedan Kal. The Dark One = overkill. Not just kill.

Rand knows how to use the True Power, so the knowing must be part of its access:

Rand raised a hand and, filled with the power he did not understand, wove a single weave.

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

The bracelets were not destroyed by True Power balefire, but the weave did not hit them directly.

Lews Therin thinks he and Rand are damned by using the True Power, especially True Power balefire.

Rand is still emotionally numb. Now he knows what it is like to kill a loved one while fully aware thanks to Semirhage. He thinks the worst has been done to him and he can make himself strong enough to withstand it now:

Once, weeks ago, he had decided that he must become stronger— where he had been iron, he had decided to become steel. It appeared that steel was too weak. He would be harder, now. He understood how. Where he had once been steel, he became something else. From now on, he was cuendillar.

The Gathering Storm, The Last That Could be Done

But he isn’t making himself stronger. Cadsuane was right when she told Sorilea that Rand confuses strength and hardness. In fact he does so in the quote above. At this point Rand is not strength, only hardness. Perrin is strength (see Perrin essay). Rand is making himself harder and more brittle just as Fain found Elaida was compared with Siuan:

He had been surprised to find Elaida on the Amyrlin Seat. Better than what he had expected, though. In many ways she was not so tough, he had heard, as the woman who had worn the stole before her. Harder, yes, and more cruel, but more brittle, too. More difficult to bend, likely, but easier to break.

The Fires of Heaven, Prologue

Rand is now staying emotionless in a different void. A void is nothingness just as Lews Therin and Moridin advocate. Rand states that they can’t bend or break him and thinks he’s safe from that. But he’s not safe because he can break himself as we shall see.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #24: Chapter 21 - Embers and Ash

2011-06-13T06:28:00.004-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

Perrin POV

Black clouds and silence spread all through Tel’aran’rhiod from Shayol Ghul. They are very persistent and reflect the real blighting of the world, not the usual transitory weather. It’s a Foreshadowing that the Last Hunt comes that can be read in the dream long before it happens in the waking world.

The wolves believe that:

If Shadowkiller falls to the storm, all will sleep forever. If he lives, then we will hunt together.

The Gathering Storm, Embers and Ash

And title of this book is The Gathering Storm...

Perrin has been literally left hanging in Tel’aran’rhiod. He needs Hopper to show him how to jump down from the sky since he’s somewhat hamstrung still by his fear of the wolf part of himself and of losing his humanity. Perrin asks Hopper for help in controlling himself or suppressing his wolf side. Hopper encourages Perrin to be more wolf-like, if anything, in Tel’aran’rhiod. Perrin demands that Hopper teach him and then endangers himself by pulling himself more strongly into Tel’aran’rhiod. Unimpressed with Perrin’s petulance, Hopper boots him out of the dream.

Faile POV

Even Aes Sedai told Faile that Perrin spent the night in Berelain’s tent. I wonder which ones? Faile has not doubted his faithfulness though. Perrin assures Faile that if she was pressured to be unfaithful in Malden to acquire a protector, then he accepts this. Faile is insulted a bit, but it is close enough to what happened. It’s one reason why she keeps her relationship with Rolan secret. The other is that she thinks Perrin would have been upset he had killed Rolan unjustly after he aided them. Perrin would not have been though; he lumped the Brotherless and the Shaido in together as equally culpable.

In Malden Faile learned the true responsibility of a noble. Perrin is still learning to accept the responsibilities of a leader. Faile is content that both of them grew a lot in the last two months:

She actually felt a stab of guilt for the times she had lorded over Perrin, trying to force him—or others—to bend to her will. Being a noblewoman meant going first. It meant being beaten so others were not. It meant sacrificing, risking death, to protect those who depended upon you.

The Gathering Storm, Embers and Ash

Faile is very fond of Bain and Chiad and says they are more loyal than those who have sworn to her:

They were more loyal—even—than those who had sworn to her. Loyal to her, yet free of oaths to her. A contradiction only Aiel could pull off.

The Gathering Storm, Embers and Ash

Actually what they show is true friendship. It says a fair bit about court life and nobles’ relationships that Faile thinks this is something remarkable that only the Aiel would do.

Gaul fought twelve men to get Chiad back and also managed to acquire Bain in all that fighting. He is doomed to have the pair of them. Gaul, Bain and Chiad mirror the situation of Perrin, Berelain and Faile. Both men love one woman but can’t seem to escape the other. Each pair of women makes their male sweat. Bain and Chiad perhaps aim to get Gaul to be fond of, or at least appreciate, both of them. Their teasing of Gaul is one of togetherness and friendship, while Berelain and Faile are rivals where there can be only one victor. They are contending over Perrin.

Faile and her three fellow ex-slaves hold a memorial service for those who helped them escape Malden and died for it. They acknowledge their debt, their toh and their guilt. Faile still doesn’t know if her distraction of Rolan was deliberate or not. Lacile actually killed Jhoradin herself. Faile killed Kinhuin, Alliandre’s protector. All to protect Perrin. How wise of Bashere to prepare his daughter for situations when she has to kill someone that she didn’t want to because she sees it as necessary.

Rolan’s piece of turquoise is kept from the miniature pyre of belongings by Faile as a memento of the dead and their sacrifice. Turquoise is popular with Amerindians and the Aiel have parallels with American Indians. In Europe turquoise is a symbol of friendship or esteem and means “forget-me-not”.

The embers and ash which are all that remains of their Aiel protectors’ belongings reminds Faile of a proverb:

The past was a field of embers and ash, an old Saldaean proverb said, the remnants of the fire that was the present.

The Gathering Storm, Embers and Ash

I thought it so succinctly wise. Perhaps my favourite bit of the chapter.

Perrin POV

Laying alone in the dark, Perrin decides to make decisions. He has three issues to work out: his acceptance of leadership, controlling his inner wolf and allowing Faile to go into danger.

He resolves to face his problems over leadership:

He wanted either to be free of all of these people who followed him, or to learn how to accept their loyalty.

The Gathering Storm, Embers and Ash

but still has no idea which way he will jump though. That’s not surprising, considering that a short while earlier he needed help jumping in Tel’aran’rhiod. He’s stuck mentally.

Perrin needs to allow Faile to go into danger. Perhaps the realisation that she will be in danger whatever she does will help him face up to it.

He hasn’t decided which way he will go on each of the three problems, just that he is going to think about each problem first. The decision that he will consider and decide eases his mind a little.

The Gathering Storm Read-Through #23: Chapter 20 - On a Broken Road

2011-06-09T07:07:00.003-04:00

By Linda

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT

The map-maker’s map allowed them to find an old road, possibly dating to the Age of Legends. Is it a road from the past or to the past? Or the road to the Underworld?

Talmanes mocks Mat, but Mat is too busy mocking womankind to notice. I guess the Cairhienin lord is amused by twenty year old Mat’s claim to vast experience. And why is Mat complaining bitterly? One reason is that Mat feels bad about the deaths in battle that he is responsible for. Another is that Mat thinks he can’t be lucky because he couldn’t escape battle – or marriage. Yet he appears to have come out ahead from both. Certainly richer! (And Mat is the god of wealth.) That’s good if you take the materialistic view of life. And Mat often does. Mat always wanted to be rich, and now he’s married to the richest woman on the planet. So why is he complaining?

Which brings us to the third reason: he’s missing Tuon and worried about her safety. Talmanes appals Mat by saying he sounds husbandly. In defiance, Mat is determined not to give up gambling and drinking. Talmanes teases him again, saying he’s becoming boring, but he stops and offers sympathy when he realises Mat is miserable. Mat won’t talk about it. He’s very tense but refuses to admit it is because of Tuon.

Vanin feels his position is threatened by the map maker. Mat used to really admire Vanin as a mature man with the sort of trickster skills he’d like to acquire. But he is a fully fledged trickster now and finds Vanin’s insecurity and weaknesses amusing (see here for an analysis of Vanin’s character development).

As egalitarian as Mat, Vanin tries to treat Aes Sedai exactly as he does everyone else but backs down at just a look from Joline.

Mat naively thinks Joline couldn’t hurt him with the Power if he wasn’t wearing his medallion because she is bound by the Three Oaths. He is mistaken: she only has to think of it as ‘discipline’ or ‘punishment’. Teslyn stopped Joline from hitting Mat with indirect weaves of the Power in Knife of Dreams, A Short Path.

Teslyn respects Mat; the first man she ever has (see this post analysing Teslyn’s character). Mat almost regrets rescuing the Aes Sedai because they show little gratitude. Yet as far as appreciation goes, Teslyn was well worth rescuing.

Joline and Teslyn are on poor terms with each other, partly because Teslyn is starting to stand up for herself again. Prior to her capture she used to be very dominant:

As inexorable as Elaida, she ground down whatever lay in her path. They stood as equals in every real way, certainly, but not many managed to prevail over Teslyn without a clear advantage.

A Crown of Swords, The Triumph of Logic

but she no longer is; an effect of her traumatic enslavement.

Joline tries to get more horses than is reasonable out of the Band. This, and Vanin backing down makes Mat be rude to her and bluntly show her the faults in her plan. Ultimately he will earn her respect too.

Teslyn is disappointed in Mat for being rude to Joline. Not necessarily because he is being unpleasant to an Aes Sedai, but because he is showing bad manners. Mat has rarely insulted anybody before. Mat is ashamed; he wants Teslyn’s respect. This is not something he’s ever worried about before with Aes Sedai. Talmanes is surprised that Mat is not prepared to pay such a price to get rid of the Aes Sedai, but Mat won’t be ripped off by them or pushed around. After all, as he keeps telling himself in Towers of Midnight, he’s a married man now.

Mat realises that to get food will require a lot of money and so brings his whole chest with him into Hinderstap. Perhaps he already has an idea of how he is going to get them to sell food: which is to be an Odin/Loki combination; a trickster. (An essay on Tricksters in the series is currently being written.) Talmanes openly goes along for the ride. (For an in-depth analysis of Talmanes, see here).