The Fires of Heaven Read Through #7 Where's Charlie Mesaana?

by Dominic

Where's Charlie Mesaana?

When I've read books so many times over the years as I did WOT's, I often like to have a mental lists of elements I decide to pay special attention to during the next re read. Often it's observing how a specific theme develops over the books and all the little details related to it - how Jordan will use certain colours for symbolism in that theme, how he will create mirrors with other characters that cast some light on the theme developed around a main player, or even sometimes how he used details of the world building to tie with a theme. Another favourite for 'the list' is to pay greater attention than usual to the development of one or a few characters, keeping in mind the hindsight from later books and observing closely the progression. Yet another is to focus on the details pertaining to a secondary story line, or a branch of the main ones.

This year, one of the things I've decided on was to keep an eye out on Elaida's study, so to speak, for all the little things which could point out to Mesaana. This means being very attentive to all scenes around Elaida, with Alviarin, to Forsaken scenes in which Mesaana is present or mentioned, and later in the series, this will involve pretty much all scenes set in the Tower. I will sweep large on this. Like most readers, I have my own ideas already about the person or persons Mesaana use to disguise herself, but I'll still collect all little things and oddities about everyone along the way. Of course, as they'll concern many suspects most (perhaps all!) these notes will turn out to have been wrong post-AMOL, but eh, that's not the point.

In complement, since those scenes coincide pretty much all the time with politics, I also keep an eye on the sisters around Elaida and Alviarin. Though we do not know this at this point, this is a nest of schemers, or at least women with agendas. The 'Too-Young' Sitters have been named at the time in the Tower, put in place by the concerted machinations of five Ajah Heads (all but the Blue, not present, and the Red, Galina, who seems to have been excluded). We also have at least one, possibly more, Sitter in the Hall who is to be exposed as Black Ajah (Alviarin spoke of the Black Sitters, plural, meaning there's a least two, and so far only Talene has been revealed as Black).

I find these scenes very interesting to look at closely, because on first read such scenes were almost Jordan's little secret playground, as he had given us none of the clues to even begin to understand the undercurrents – and play his guessing games. We had to take everything at face value. We had no idea then of Mesaana's plans (nor even that she was in the Tower), nor of the means Alviarin likes to use to manipulate Elaida. Later on, we've learned about them, and can re interpret old scenes in this light.

But to begin, let's establish a few of my boundaries/parameters about the hunt for Mesaana. I'll say right of the bat I don't believe conclusive evidence will show up, even scrutinizing everything. Robert Jordan virtually never did conclusive evidence, not before he was ready to reveal something. Mesaana may or not end up someone I suspect, we'll see. In some of the mysteries, like the murder of Ispan/Adeleas, it turned out after the fact some very subtle clues existed in earlier scenes – Careane showing her Aes Sedai face and spreading a panic among the Kinswomen, for instance. It also turned out the name Careane, with a barely changed spelling, is the name of a demon associated to coldness of heart.

So…

In Tor's "Question of the Week" series, Jim gave us some clue about the motives behind the Forsaken's plans/bases of operations: "For the most part, Ishamael excepted, they set out to create worldly power for themselves using the methods they favored in the Age of Legends. That is, Moghedien worked from the shadows using subversion, Sammael, Be'lal and Rahvin attempted to seize control of national governments and so on."

What does it mean concerning Mesaana? Mesaana was not someone who sat down manipulating a powerful organizations through political machinations, which for a while appeared to be what she was doing at the Tower, what she was solely doing. The methods she favored, the goals she pursued, was rather the indoctrination of very young people (following 'methods' she had devised as teacher) to the Shadow and their use as saboteurs and vandals. She liked to target knowledge and collective memory, destroying academies, museums and so on. She had scholars hunted down, figures of authority captured, tried and killed by her "Children". Mesaana was refused a position of researchers and developed an obsession with the destruction of savants, their knowledge and the concrete results of their research, like technology. One might say she sought to erase all the scientific accomplishment of her Age. The post Breaking Third Age would rejoice her, forcibly – and tempt her to finish the job. Mesaana, Demandred and Semirhage have in common their hatred of Aes Sedai and more specifically Aes Sedai leaders. Mesaana because they deemed her scientific or research skills beneath their norms, Demandred for the fact they chose Lews Therin over him as leader, while Semirhage hated them and sought revenge against Aes Sedai officials for arresting her and threatening to sever or bind her. Through the War of Shadow, she pursued them, to the joy of Demandred every time she succeeded. It is hardly surprising Semirhage stood among Aes Sedai haters (the Seanchan) and their plans to attack the White Tower, already weakened and rendered incapable of concerted action by Mesaana. Demandred's part in this plan, if any, is for the time being unclear. Personally I suspect he is more concerned with keeping Rand and Aes Sedai apart, and with placing traitors among Rand's allies, traitors that will turn their coats during the Last Battle, a little gift to remind Lews Therin of Barid Bel Medar, for old time's sake.

At the beginning, we were many to suppose Mesaana intended to control the White Tower as her powerbase, using the Black Ajah to run things. It became apparent later on that her interest in it is to destroy it, to sabotage it and render it completely incapable of playing the central role it should have played in the years leading to the Last Battle – which is indeed far more in line with Mesaana's War of Shadow tactics and goals, truth be told. Mesaana wants the Aes Sedai to be scattered in small groups hating each other, unable and unwilling to join up for a common cause. All her orders strive to exacerbate divisions and blunders, to alienate Elaida from the Ajahs, the Ajahs from one another, and the Tower from the nations and Rand.

Far from spreading a net of Black sisters everywhere, Mesaana cares very little about them, not even wanting to know who they are, not even if and how many get "wasted" in every mission or which ones are used to carry orders or are being sacrificed – much to Alviarin's chagrin and worry. Alviarin was the one caring to prevent Black sisters from being sent to capture and worse.

But what of Mesaana's "favoured methods", how would they apply in the Third Age if, like Jordan hinted, she could be using them again? Her main targets would likely include all residual elements from her own Age: remnants of technology like ter'angreal, scraps of knowledge, scholars of history and AOL artefacts – and thus locations of interest for her would be Academies, Libraries, Museums. She placed herself at the location which is all of these things – the greatest school, the greatest depository of written knowledge, the greatest holding of objects from the Age of Legends. What does she wants with them? Erase them forever from the surface of the earth was her goal in the Age of Legends. Indeed, as the series progresses, we will see Mesaana is very much aware of where the biggest caches of objects are, and what sort of protection they enjoy, whether the Great Holding in Tear, the wagons left by Moiraine in Cairhien or the Tower vaults. She must be as aware of the locations of all libraries, and aware of Rand's three Academies. These are all possible targets for Mesaana's plans, when the time comes (it's fairly useless to make an attempt against the Tower Library now, Mesaana has to find an opportunity when the Aes Sedai won't be able to save it.. during a battle for instance). In Knife of Dreams, we saw just how much she cares that things develops following her plans, her goals – and how Moridin was forced to interfere and remind her again she must obey. This is a sign that Mesaana's still very much cares for her old obsessions, that she intends to complete her 'great work' against knowledge and civilization. In his within her grasp now to effectively wipe out all that's left of the Age of Legends, or so she thinks.

And what of "Mesaana's Children", what form might they take in this Age? How could Mesaana apply "her favoured methods" of indoctrinating young ones, using them as under cover agents against figures of authority, for sabotage and vandalism? An obvious way to look for this is at the younger people around Tar Valon. There are three groups: the warder students is one of them. Something sparked this group to turn against their teachers. Gawyn is the source of inspiration behind a lot of this and we know his motives are personal grievances against Siuan's administration, but were there agent provocateurs among the students who encouraged Gawyn, who let him understand they'd follow him if he did something about it? It's possible, and turning the young against authority, using them to bring Mesaana's kind of justice to their teachers is definitely typical of Mesaana, according to her bio in "the Guide". The second and third groups are of course the Novices and Accepted. This is extremely fertile ground for Mesaana. The current leadership is most uninterested in them, Jordan spelled it out through Elaida who thought in The Fires of Heaven that "she barely saw novices and accepted unless they intruded on her, and cared less". Using novices and accepted would be… attractive. They can be taught the One Power following AOL methods – the White Tower's are painfully slow. Novices and Accepted taught directly by Mesaana might be more lethal and skilled than most sisters, without anyone suspecting. Taught to invert their weaves, disguise their real potential or to link, they could be devastating, all the more by the effect of surprise and the fact for sisters it is anathema to harm novices and accepted. Before they realise they are facing in fact 'darkfriends', it might be too late. Novices and Accepted are also both everywhere in the Tower but beneath notice: errand girls, attending sisters and even Elaida. They would be perfect for a "terrorist" action against the Vaults or the Library. At this point, they are about the only ones who can enter the various Ajah quarters freely – perfect spies. A network of turned novices and accepted is also practical: Mesaana could gain personal and private access to any Accepted as part of their one-on-one studies. A Brown sister petting a few novices would barely be noticed either. Indoctrinated Accepted could extend the network to novices, as they are often in charge of them. Such a personal and secret network of agents in the Tower might explain why Mesaana cares so little for, underuses and wastes Black Sisters. A problem with Black Sisters is that are not Mesaana's – they are at the beck and call of the first Forsaken calling on them. That makes them unreliable. As we see in Lord of Chaos, this is an issue even with Alviarin, whom Mesaana make swear to obey her and only her, before sending her out of the Tower (and out of the way…) on all sort of errands to give orders to never identified people and act as agent to report on Tremalking and Shadar Logoth etc. – those errands, which Alviarin finds beneath her ended up costing Alviarin her position as Keeper. And Mesaana didn't care.

One last point of suspicion is the fact despite Elaida's and the Tower's disinterest in novices and accepted, their numbers have mysteriously increased since the Tower Coup. There are over a hundred by the time of KOD. There were something like forty before Sheriam took a great many of them with her… To increase the numbers, Egwene's factions went to much efforts – testing expeditions, changing the rules about the maximum age and eventually opening the novice book to anyone with the ability. But, somehow, an astounding number of new novices have fallen on Elaida's lap. Of course, if Mesaana has secretly sent out recruiters…

Time will tell if this intuition is even remotely right, but it's an interesting possibility all the more since Egwene is now involved with the novices a lot, and they are, or appear to be, turning to her side. It may all be real, or this sudden support of Egwene among the novices could be Mesaana's sly answer to the fact Moridin has forbidden her to get involved with Egwene, to use a network of agents no one but her knows about to encourage Egwene to further divide the Tower.

In any case, one of my parameter in the 'hunt for Mesaana' will be to carefully note appearances by novices and accepted, and to pay attention to all mentions of technology, the library and so on that are even remotely tied to Mesaana or Alviarin. I'll take for granted it's even possible Mesaana has invented herself an Accepted/Novice disguise that she uses on occasions – and that mentions like the fact Elaida doesn't know nor care about Accepted and novices means someone like her would never notice a new face among them. This will also include teachers, so all Brown sisters and others mentioned as close to novices/accepted. Sisters showing interest in the Library (and those outside the city) will also go on the list.

2. We have got some clues about Mesaana's appearance. Alviarin saw her wear a dress with a bronze hem, with black scrolls (that dress itself has not resurfaced again, at least not obviously). Mesaana's large, dreamy and quite stunning blue eyes have been mentioned a few times, as well as the fact they are the only noteworthy feature of an otherwise fairly plain woman. These little things are "important", because Jordan loved to use details like this. He got Semirhage keep dressing in black as Anath, and Lanfear stick to white and or silver in all her disguises, from Else (novice dress) to Selene to an invented White sister to Keille Shaogi. A silver belt here, an ivory comb there. A constant so far has also been that the clues to the hidden Forsaken have not been terribly subtle. Jordan rather avoid giving any when he doesn't yet want us to puzzle it out, but when he gave clues, they were all fairly obvious. In Crossroads of Twilight, Alviarin saw Mesaana's face and it was the face of no one she knew. There was something in that woman she found familiar, however, something she could not quite put a finger on. This is a big clue. It's possible Mesaana use a Mask of Mirrors that alter partly her face only – or fake the ageless look. Another possibility is that Mesaana does not alter her 'best feature', that is her stunning large blue eyes.

So that will be another parameter: keep track of big blue eyes on anyone in the Tower and sisters adopting bronze dresses. So far, Jordan has shown bronze on some Brown and Yellow sisters, so I'll put sisters from that Ajah on 'the list'.


3. Suspicious behaviour. I will note down little oddities, like sisters not following tradition, or appearing to be too much what you expect to the point of caricature (a Red who makes an hateful comment about men every two sentences, a Brown who is too dreamy, stained with ink and badly dressed all at the same time etc.). If Mesaana plays a sister, she's likely to make a few slips or errors, as well as going too far in her portrayal, to be a little too much the typical Brown, Red or Grey etc..

4. There are some Ajahs Mesaana is less likely to adopt, at least if she portrays a sister constantly (which personally I doubt – more on this later). Greys' knowledge of Laws and politics is too vast. It would be too easy for Mesaana to make slip among other greys – or to be asked questions she can't answer. Yellows's "basic" healing skills are possibly not beyond Mesaana's (contrary to the advanced stuff Nynaeve or Semirhage can do), but playing a healer seems very unnatural. A Green does not seem very natural either, but it's already a more likely scenario – it's not like Mesaana would be expected to go to a battlefield, yet Greens are very social people with many friends, and most have warders. Those are not easy roles to play – Mesaana can't just become sister X and be expected to know how to handle several friends and warders without raising attention on mistakes. None of the Forsaken has risked anything like this so far. If Mesaana usurped an existing identity, it will be that of a known loner few even care about. The Brown Ajah is also somewhat risky – their knowledge of History and everything from the Third Age would make it difficult for Mesaana to portray one flawlessly – but if that Brown was asocial, concerned mostly with herself and her job as teacher etc., if it's the sort of person whose absences wouldn't be noticed, it's a possible disguise, especially if it's part-time. Mesaana must be at her ease among scholars, she could probably manage to hide what she doesn't know, or deviate the conversations to baffling knowledge – Browns are chatters, constantly jumping from one subject to another. The White Ajah is another possibility. What they do and know is often abstract or theorical, and it would be relatively easy for Mesaana to emulate one. They are also aloof and not really sociable. However, this is a very small Ajah keeping to itself and to the Tower – the two combined suggest the Whites know one another very well, and even more one another's pet theories and modes of thought and logic - and it could be fairly difficult to infiltrate them, to take the place of a known White.

5. The multiple disguises scenario. This is perhaps my favoured theory. I see no reason why Mesaana would have adopted a single disguise, or would chose to live among Aes Sedai at all times. She could have eliminated one or a few sisters, have them drained of the details of their personal lives, and know enough to make brief apparitions as these people, when she needed to be somewhere. Mesaana could have such a disguise to consult the Library, play a temporary role in the Tower Coup, wander the corridors etc. Having many disguises would be useful. The Tower is vast, and nobody has access to everywhere Mesaana might need to go – not that Mesaana needs to go everywhere, really. But inventing a servant would be useful, a servant she could become only at need – there's no way Mesaana would actually do a servant's work. A clerk or secretary would be less useful. It's already more confining, and the second option would require the complicity of a Black Sister, as Halima did with Delana. Arranging to take the place of a novice or accepted only at specific times would be most useful: she could arrange to be attending Elaida, or any sister she wants. For this, Mesaana would only need to get the novices to report all such duties, and she would hide the one she wants to substitute herself for, and perform her duty. This only works if Mesaana has secretly rebuilt her Children network, of course. Having multiples disguises suppose the absences of such people will go unnoticed. Aes Sedai loners fits this pattern, especially Browns who keep a room in the quarters and another above the Library – everyone will assume she's staying at her other room if they can't find her, and if the sister is friendless, few sisters every will wonder. An invented servant nobody knows also fits this pattern, and so do invented novices and even Accepted – for those all Mesaana would have to be cautious about would be to avoid the other novices and Silviana, the Mistress of Novices. No one else in the Tower will think long about a face they have no seen before, they'll assume is a child who recently arrived. And now, imagine all these disguises have one thing in common: all these persons have Mesaana's big blue eyes. Alviarin would have seen them before, but not on Mesaana's face….

6. The matter of her knowledge of what went on in Elaida's study. Early on, Mesaana conditioned Alviarin to report to her even the minute details of what went on in Elaida's study – who said what exactly, even their body language etc. She proved to Alviarin she already knew those details, and punished Alviarin when she had missed something. What is obvious there is that Mesaana went through all this trouble not because she spies constantly on Elaida, but because she didn't want to have to do that, she just made sure Alviarin did her job flawlessly, convinced her she could never know when Mesaana knew and when her report was news to her. This leaves us with the matter of how Mesaana spied on the early meetings, and how occasionally she might do it again. An hidden ter'angreal (Moridin used a call-box that way, to listen on what was transmitted on another) has been suggested. Possible, but a bit too fancy, IMHO. I prefer the possibilities that Mesaana either managed to actually be present at some early meetings, or else that Mesaana managed to get close enough to Elaida's study to use spying weaves. This means I will keep an eye on novices/accepted attending Elaida, and on sisters around Alviarin and Elaida early after the Coup.

7. Strategies. Later in the series, we have gained insight of what Mesaana is trying to accomplish. We cannot always separate what Alviarin wants from what Mesaana ordered – and it's not important for my purpose, so I put Alviarin and Mesaana's goals and methods in the same bag in this exercise.

-First, Alviarin strove to isolate Elaida from the rank-and-file sisters and the Hall. She wanted the sisters to resent (and fear) the Amyrlin and Elaida to become very annoyed with the sisters, especially non-Reds. I will look for signs of this in scenes, as they may point not necessarily to Mesaana but give clues to sisters who are Alviarin's allies, or even Black. This is quite machiavelic, manipulating situations so they would irritate Elaida with Sitters and sisters and make her give in to her vengeful and tyrannical tendencies – which in turn would make the Ajah and sisters target of Elaida's wrath resentful of her – all the while Alviarin herself keeps he cool, appears the reasonable one, the real leader and the one who even listened to advice. It's no wonder a faction ended up listening to her more than Elaida, and it's not necessarily because they are Black sisters .

- Another important goal was to alienate the Tower from the nations. This was in part achieved early on by bringing Elaida to act and meddle… or to do it for her, and to provide her with motives to meddle. At a later stage, it went as far as her edict against nations meddling with Rand, an edict even Elaida saw as a disaster. But many more seeds of this were planted early on, as we'll see.

- Yet another goal was to stir the conflict with the Blue, ensure Elaida got a picture that encourages her not to resolve the conflict, to mistrust the Blue and their allies more and more – a large part of which is already there in Elaida's nature. This needed nudges, at most. In the same vein, mishandling Rand is something else Elaida could be virtually trusted to do on her own. Alviarin and Mesaana seemingly just let her carry on with her plans, just seeded the expedition with Black sisters. And they even got very lucky, Elaida put in charge a high-ranking Red who is also a high ranking Black, Galina Casban.

- A final motif is that Mesaana strives to divide deeply the Ajahs. I will note down all signs of unfairness and unequal treatment which foster such divisions. Again, some of this Elaida herself can be trusted to do naturally as she has a strong pro-Red bias, many prejudices against the other Ajahs and a mean and petty streak. Alviarin and Mesaana will build on this, forcing eventually Elaida to go much further than she would have.


And so, I'm ready now to start gathering relevant notes from The Fires of Heaven. They will center on the scene from The First Sparks Falls, a meeting between Elaida and her 'council'.

Why such a council in the first place? Elaida clearly resents it. It is a mix of Sitters who supported her ascent to the Seat and sisters who helped set up the Coup. It's been clearly set up as a limited, by invitation-only committee, as Elaida points out some Ajahs are very unhappy about the uneven distribution of members. It seems likely to be the result of promises made to these women in exchange for their support, promises Alviarin may have turned into conditions for support and such – claiming this or that woman will help but she wants an advisor position in return, then going to the woman and tell her Elaida intends to ask her to join an advisory council. Elaida became Amyrlin from a position of weakness, and the presence of this unusual council reflects this. It also reflects the deeper motives for removing Siuan Sanche from the Seat, why even natural allies like Greens have turned against her. Siuan painted herself in a corner: one the one hand, she had discovered that she couldn't well trust anyone but Moiraine and so she was forced to work alone. This made her miss the obvious: in the Tower, not an Ajah, not even many individual sister, is willing to fully trust any other to deal with the era of the Last Battle. Moiraine didn't want Verin involved, and Verin didn't fully trust Moiraine, and Cadsuane has very precise views of who should be around Rand and not and Alanna has her opinion etc. In fear of the Black Ajah, with what happened to Tamra's searchers etc., Siuan's plans involved side-tracking all the rest of the Tower. The Red Ajah couldn't help but try to put a stop to this at the first rumour. Part of the Green Ajah couldn't help but be furious – a 'Blue' Amyrlin turning against them and scheming to keep them out of the loop about some of the most important aspects of the Last Battle. Etc. I'm convinced Siuan's scheming, exposed by Elaida and worsened with a few lies, has been the motive that swayed many Sitters to depose her – they didn't accept being sidetracked, and they no longer trusted Siuan to involve them. This is reflected in what happens early in Elaida's rule: everyone seeks to meddle, everyone want their say. Imposing a council on Elaida was a very clever device. It was designed to irritate her and bring her to adopt more and more tyrannical means to regain absolute power and independence, making the Ajahs resent this and fear this. This was exacerbated by the uneven nature of the council itself: Brown, Yellow and Green have a single representative while the White, Grey and Red have more. Alviarin makes very clever use of them in that scene. She encourages them slyly to ignore Elaida, to drive more and more the point home that Elaida is powerless. This has the expected result: Elaida explodes and starts lashing at her allies, handing down unfair punishments, already plotting to get rid of the council, one by one.

Later on in the series, Alviarin will control every news, every report that makes it to Elaida. In this early scene, it's very interesting that the committee members already report the sort of things Alviarin wants Elaida to know, and act on. Elaida is irritated with lack of progress with situations like Taim, Rand and Siuan Sanche's escape. Seeds are planted about situations in Arad Doman and Tarabon, in Altara, Illian and Murandy, in Shienar and Saldaea. This will all lead to forceful moves by Elaida: she will later send infuriating letters rulers will resent, from Tenobia to Mattin Steppaneos to King Easar. Alviarin even manages a clever move: she preempts Elaida by deciding to send an envoy to Tenobia and makes it a Red (and possibly a Black) – and asks the council, not Elaida, for approval. Elaida is furious at Alviarin, furious at the Council and later she'll become furious at Tenobia.

Javindhra, a red Sitter and early ally of Elaida, acts perhaps the most suspiciously, but this is far from conclusive. She paints an almost rosy picture of the situation in Andor, downplays Morgase's growing resentment of Tar Valon – which may be tactic, or the result of misinformation she has got. She has placed a spy in the palace, which would be a good move to make sure no one else feels the need to, or to send an envoy to Morgase. The Black Ajah, will will learn, warned Rahvin who this spy was, which means Javindhra's claims about Andor may be misinformed, or she is covering up.

There are two oddballs on that council, two sisters who hardly belong in that group 9the rest of those named in the scene are all Sitters). The first is Shemerin, who infuriates Elaida just by breathing, basically. Alviarin would want a scapegoat to start the ball rolling with Elaida lashing at her council that she could hardly have chosen a better unsuitable/infuriating woman than Shemerin – which may indeed be exactly what Alviarin has done.

The second oddball is the young Brown Danelle. She is friendless and unassuming. It makes one wonder how on earth she got herself involved with Elaida's coup in the first place, and why she let herself be pushed aside without a fuss a few months into Elaida's rule. Later Alviarin will pass her in a corridor and muse about this. Danelle is certainly a prime suspect to be one of Mesaana's disguise (or the only one). She meets pretty much all the conditions: she is friendless and not a sister for very long, and thus easier to portray – we can assume no one knows Danelle very well, or cares much about her. She has rooms above the library, which would help go absent for long stretches without notice. As a young Brown, she is very likely teaching novices, her remote room making it even easier to have private meetings with some of them. Best of all, she has those large, dreamy blue eyes that coincide with Mesaana's. As for oddities in details, there is one about her in this scene: she's the only sister wearing a dress of an odd colour for her Ajah, and better yet, it's a shadow-ish colour: dark grey. Danelle also appears a bit too much like the cliché Brown, having all the telltale signs at the same time: ink smudge, rumpled dress (in a very formal setting – this is the Amyrlin's study after all), dreamy and lost in thought. The perfect Brown. She brings up the matter of troubles in Shienar. Jordan in one of his blog posts has once hinted that the Borderlands rulers being out of position might have a Shadow connection. Alviarin brushes this off (and Elaida barely cares), but eventually she appeared to change her mind as Elaida will get involved and send an infuriating letter to Easar. This could be the result of Mesaana telling Alviarin to take action on Danelle's news. Having told her beforehand would have been extremely suspicious and raise Alviarin's attention: Danelle isn't Black (at least unlikely to be, the way Alviarin spoke of her) nor an ally chosen by Alviarin.. which makes her role in the coup even more suspicious, really. Jordan liked to create gratuitous thematic associations which were playful, often ironic. In the Shadow Rising, we learn Danelle was in charge of organizing renovations for the Library. Her main contribution to the coup was actually to hire and infiltrate mercenaries as fake Masons. What motivated a sister like Danelle, a young lonely scholar, dreamy and unassuming, to involve herself all of a sudden so personally and actively in high tower politics than to let herself be sidetracked remains a baffling mystery. Being Danelle at that point of course takes care of how Mesaana was aware of everything going on at those meetings. She could have let herself be side-tracked once it was no longer necessary to remain close, when she was sure Alviarin was doing her job properly and was obedient. After seeing first hand it was the case for both accurate reports and obedience, Mesaana could move on and let Alviarin handle everything herself. Danelle also fits the 'simple' pattern RJ has used for the other hidden Forsaken so far. There are a lot of simple clues, and it seems obvious, yet it's never confirmed or fully conclusive evidence, as RJ doesn't yet want us to be certain.

Interestingly though, there is a second suspect showing up in that scene. An unknown Accepted (unknown to us and to Elaida too) barges in to announce Padan Fain. Jordan makes a point of the fact Elaida doesn't know her and doesn't care, that she is beneath her notice. This Accepted is described with large blue eyes. Attending the Amyrlin in her anteroom during meetings like this, and Elaida's comment suggests it may be a more or less regular chore for this Accepted, would be a perfect spot to spy on the meetings using inverted weaves.

There is last the matter of Joline. Joline has an odd position/worldview for a Green. She was always very pro-Elaida, and remains pro-Elaida even after her punishment, while Teslyn the Red is the one to turn against her. However, I think this is not suspicious in the end. Joline is one of those extremely forceful Greens with very authoritarian views doubled with a sense of disciplined and hierarchy. Joline doesn't share Red hatred of men, but she certainly shares Elaida's opinion about the need to control the Dragon – and the other two ta'veren. It's an opinion other Greens share, Alanna notably. There is also suspicions and resentment from Greens against Siuan's decision not to involve their Ajah dedicated to the Last Battle in any of her plans, which made some of the Green leaders turn against her (with likely involvement of Blacks to help foster and channel this resent, however – Talene is one of those). The Ajah has effectively split in two between those still sticking to the old Green-Blue alliance and enmity toward the Red, and those who are furious to have been left out and preferred to take their chance with Elaida's leadership. Joline simply appears to be one of those latter, and nothing more nefarious. Ironically, with her it's Elaida who could not overcome her anti-Green prejudices and found any little thing about Joline, from her smiles to showing too much bosom, irritating.

As for the others present, Evanellein, Andaya, Teslyn and four or fives unammed others (most Red or White), nothing terribly noteworthy happens with them in that scene. Some may have played into Alviarin's hand, but nothing is very conclusive. We'll keep them on the list for the next books, however!

The Fires of Heaven Read Through #6: Why Lanfear Had To Go

Why Lanfear Had To Go

by Linda

In News Comes to Cairhien, Moiraine tells Egwene and Aviendha that tomorrow will be difficult for them all. This is true. Moiraine is flung around by Lanfear, whom she attacks while dangerously hurtling into another world, and the girls are injured by Lanfear, Egwene grievously.

At the docks Moiraine is dressed in her best clothes and jewellery, not only her kesiera, but a necklace of large sapphires and a silk dress shot with gold thread. Since she was at pains to duplicate what she saw in the rings, placing the bracelet angreal precisely as she remembered, her expensive attire may also be relevant. Is it something to pay the Eelfinn when they bargain?

The rings at Rhuidean showed Moiraine this future and two others: one where Lanfear kills Rand, and the other where Lanfear enslaves him as Lews Therin. Lanfear must be removed since she knows Rand has the access keys and believes Rand is beginning to consider her idea for them to use the Choedan Kal together (The Fires of Heaven, Gateways). She had set up a confrontation with Rand and Sammael which supposedly she, Rahvin and Graendal would use to take Rand (The Fires of Heaven, Prologue and A Silver Arrow). She could present this to Rand as an opportunity for the two of them to kill three of the other Forsaken in one blow with the sa'angreal plural. Whatever her ideas about Rand’s capture, soon she would have pressured him to use the Choedan Kal with her. If he refused to share them with her, she would kill him, or, if she is able to Compel him, then he becomes her slave and they use them together. This is why she had to be removed.

Moiraine does not know anything of the future that comes after she enters the doorway except for one small thing that doesn’t concern Rand, or Lan either. My guess is that it concerns Thom and perhaps indirectly her rescue party.

Moiraine embraces saidar and leaps at Lanfear to push them both through the ter’angreal doorway face to face. Moiraine claws the bracelet away and Lanfear may be burned out as the angreal is ripped from her while she is drawing so much saidar through it. After buzzing a bit, the doorway burned (see Doorway Ter’angreal article). At a booksigning, Jordan explained that the doorway burned in part because both were channelling and the world on the other side of the doorway has a radically different set of natural laws. (Yet channelling is possible in the world of the Aelfinn; after all, Rand made a sword of fire without ill effects when he met them.)

The realm of the Eelfinn is on a different plane of existence from the main world. Moiraine and Lanfear may have torn the connection between the worlds, thus melting the doorway and breaking the Warder bond. A ter’angreal melts if it is overloaded, or misused, or is unable to connect to what it is linked to. For example, the female access key melted after its sa’angreal disintegrated (see Broken Ter’angreal article). The connection between the land of the Eelfinn and the main world was probably snapped when the doorway ter'angreal was destroyed, snapping Moiraine’s bond to Lan as well. Lan could not feel Moiraine anymore, but he could feel Myrelle, and assumed Moiraine was dead. The ter'angreal doorway in Tear connects to a different realm (of the Aelfinn), and the Tower of Ghenjei is closed unless the right mark is made in the right way, so these connections may not have been able to keep Moiraine’s bond to Lan operational when the connection to the Eelfinn’s realm broke. I think that without an open connection between the worlds, the bond breaks. Therefore Lan’s bond transferred to Myrelle because Moiraine was effectively dead as far as the bond was concerned.

I think of the Aelfinn’s world as a tangential world, touching the main WOT universe at only a few points. If you pass through one of these points, such as one of the redstone doorways, you pass through a singularity. So you can't see what happens to you in there, or whether you come back or not, and you certainly can’t see what happens to you after you come back to this world. If you come back.

Forsaken fact file : Demandred

The Age of Legends

- His original name was Barid Bel Medar.

- He was born one day after Lews Therin Telamon.

- He was one of the most accomplished Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends, and was world-renowned.

- His rival during this time was Lews Therin Telamon, who seemed to exceed him slightly in almost every area. Recurrent inferiority is a theme in this Forsaken’s life – he was almost as tall and handsome as Lews Therin, and almost as successful.

- According to Lews Therin, Demandred wanted his wife, Ilyena.

The War of Power

- Demandred might have expected to be named as the leader of the Light, but when Lews Therin was named instead, his jealousy reached a flashpoint.

- Lews Therin said that the more he honoured Demandred and Sammael, the more they hated him.

- Demandred turned to the Shadow in the third year of the War of Power.

- He was one of the greatest generals in the War, and competed with Sammael and Be’lal to be the one to destroy Lews Therin.

- Among others, he conquered two cities that scorned him prior to the War. He then had every single citizen in both cities murdered.

- At some stage he initiated an alliance with Semirhage and Mesaana, whereby they would refrain from killing one another until the other Forsaken had been destroyed.

- He was always one of the Forsaken who stood near to the top of the Forsaken heirachy, due to his skill in political and physical survival.

Since being released

- Demandred was buried deeply in the Bore and untouched by it.

- He is a subtle Forsaken, who rarely undertakes tasks personally. He mentions his irritation at having to fight at the Cleansing, and Sammael says that Demandred uses proxies to accomplish tasks.

- He has tracked some of the female main characters in tel’aran’rhiod without intervening, once again reaffirming his predilection for reconnaissance.

- Mesaana said that Demandred would not move against Rand unless he was sure of victory, and thus mentioned that he would need a sa’angreal to do so.

- Demandred adapted well to the fashion of the third age, and to other aspects presumably.

- Sammael is convinced that Demandred has been up to something in the South, though there has been much speculation on what he was referring to. One popular theory is that he is responsible for Masema and his thugs.

- RJ confirmed that Demandred and Mazrim Taim are not the same person, despite some striking behavioural and even physical similarities.

- Demandred is not willing to use balefire because he considers it to be too destructive.

- He ordered some of the renegade Ash’aman to kill Rand – a task at which they failed. There are doubts about whether it was Demandred who confronted these Ash’aman, or another Forsaken in disguise.

- He shows silent contempt towards Moridin, and is openly dismissive towards Osan’gar. He considers Osan’gar unworthy to be one of the Chosen, though the possibility exists that he thinks the same of all his peers.

- At the Cleansing of saidin, Demandred was chased mercilessly by the circle that wielded Callandor. After managing to evade the attacks temporarily, he was forced back by a circle led by Damer Flinn. He was presumably forced to retreat from the Cleansing, along with the other Forsaken.

As an Individual

- He is a tall man with a hooked nose. Most women don’t find him handsome enough to gain a second glance, mostly stating that he is ‘almost handsome’.

- He is very strong in the One Power. The Guide states that he was almost as strong and skilled as the Dragon, which places him very close to maximum strength in the One Power.

- He is one of only a handful of people with the ability to block a gateway.

- He prefers to lead from a distance, and considers physical conflict to be the work of a lowly soldier.

Image courtesy of Dabel brothers

The Fires of Heaven Read-through #5: Fires from Heaven

Fires of Salvation and of Destruction

by Dominic

The Fires of Heaven


The titles of the Wheel of Time books are perhaps not the most original or poetic around, but Jim and Harriet always have the knack to nail a title that is interesting not only for the various ways in which it can be interpreted but also for the way they all reflect, often with some depth, the themes of the book.

I mentionned Harriet because according to Brandon Sanderson, she's responsible for the final choice of the title for most of the books of the series. Which ones in particular (beside The Gathering Storm, which Brandon confirmed was ultimately her choice) and how she proceeded to find the titles would be questions to ask her directly. A great many of them are obviously taken either from verses of the Prophecies of the Dragon, often the one opening a specific book, or other metaphors and sayings, for instance The Path of Daggers, which came from a previously quoted Seanchan saying about the perils/dangers facing those at or near the top of the politcal hierarchy. In this respect, it seems probable Harriet's contribution and talent is to pick the little phrase in Jordan's universe that seems to encapsulate the book the best rather than creating those titles herself. Of course, it's also possible she created the titles and Jim added the verse to fit them, but that'd be surprising. Harriet's talent for titles (and understanding of her late husband's work) is undebatable, however – as many probably knows already, she's the one who found titles for most of the chapters, so often witty, amusing or with double-meanings and hidden depth.

The Fires of Heaven is one of the more interesting titles and is, thematically, linked with the previous book, The Shadow Rising, and the next one, Lord of Chaos.

The early series dealt, notably, with the attempts from the Shadow to subvert Rand to their side before he truly could become the Dragon Reborn, and toward the end to eliminate him when it proves impossible to turn him. The moment when this attempt to kill him failed came about is also the moment in which he was 'officially' recognized by the world as the true Dragon Reborn, Callandor in his hands.

For Rand, the first 'trilogy' was a struggle about own his identity and his destiny: accepting that he is the Dragon Reborn while trying to be seen not as 'Lews Therin Kinslayer' reborn but as Rand al'Thor, something even himself struggled with at times, fearing to be a monster and dangerous.

The title of the first book referred not only to the devic itself, the well found in the book's climax, but was also a metaphor about Rand which became fully intelligible through the dedication at the opening of The Great Hunt, where RJ called a hurricane that hit Charleston the closest thing to the EOTW in the real world.

Not only did Rand became The Eye of the World, this world storm, as a powerful ta'veren and the man of prophecies around which the world would revolve for a time, but he also found himself at the eye, the center of that storm that would shake the whole world, a storm that spirals out of his own thread in the pattern. A version of this motif was used in book 1 for Elaida's Foretelling of Rand's destiny.

The Great Hunt was not only a hunt to recuperate the stolen Horn, but also the great hunt for Rand, and a metaphor for the struggle between Light and Shadow.

The Dragon Reborn, the most 'generic' title of the series, caps the book in which Rand finally accepts his destiny.

The three following books mark a turn. First, these are the books in which the ambiguity between the Dragon as saviour and the Dragon as destroyer really arises, in the sense that this theme present in the earlier books finally gets developped as the Dragon begins to rule. It is also the books in which Shai'tan and his minions begin to try to usurp and twist Rand's powers, place and destiny. We have Lanfear, who wants Rand submissive to her, so she can be the most powerful human being – a quest for ultimate power which for her predates even the Bore, brought the Bore experiment about probably. Then we have Shai'tan who uses 'Solar powers", ie: the Light itself, to destroy.

The first book of this "trilogy" had an interesting twist related to this attempt to usurp Rand's powers. The expression the reader would expect was '"The Sun Rising" – all the more since Rand in this book becomes He Who Comes With the Dawn, ie: the rising sun, and it's the book in which his 'solar powers' grow. The title twists this around, to mark the fact Lanfear was pushing Rand toward his destiny in order to use him, to usurp his powers. Lanfear, like at a whole other level her master, was planning to leash the Sun to augment the powers of the night, the powers of the Moon. The title of the book reflected this ambiguity, that as his solar powers grew, Rand was becoming a more and more formidable weapon for Lanfear to wield, a weapon with which she could destroy her colleagues and set herself as the uncontested Queen, with her hubristic dreams of perhaps even challenging both of the world's Gods. While Ishamael is totally dedicated to destruction of everything and Shai'tan's side, for Lanfear the Shadow appears to be a means to an end: she is on nobody's side but her own, she dreams of setting herself even above the two Gods – another path to complete destruction of everything, but unlike Ishamael it would be a consequence of her hubris, not her goal.

The third book pushes the ambiguity to its end: even for the reader it is a bit unclear if the Lord of Chaos is meant to be Rand as the Shadow's fool, or Shai'tan as the Dark Lord who uses Chaos to destroy the Pattern. I'll look into this one and the sources behind the name 'Lord of Chaos' in more details in the next read-through, however.

The middle book's title is taken from a verse of the Karaethon Cycle which gives us most of the meaning behind it:

"With his coming are the dread fires born again. The hills burn, and the land turns sere. The tides of men run out, and the hours dwindle. The wall is pierced, and the veil of parting raised. Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth. There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death."

The Shadow Rising initiated this very important theme in the series (through the prophecized destruction of the Aiel, through the transformation of Emond's Field in order to fight the Shadow etc.), but The Fires of Heaven really develops it: there is no hope of salvation without accepting destruction and death.

The origin of this theme are found in the natural cycles themselves. First, there is the metaphor of the seasons, an eternal cycle of birth in spring, life in summer, the reapings of life in autumn followed by a decline toward death, death and rest in prevision of rebirth during winter, and finally the barren earth of spring again on which rebirth takes place. Infinitely. So goes the light and the dark, the sun and the moon : awakening at dawn, working by day, resting and feasting in the evening and rest and dreams at night. This, of course, is also the normal course for souls: birth, life, decline and finally death and rest, before rebirth with a blank slate. That is the normal order of the pattern: every Age has to die, peacefully or violently, so a new Age can be born. This is the natural order Shai'tan seeks to escape, so death isn't a reward or a rest, but becomes the immuable, permanent state for souls.

Much like the seasonal cycle becomes a metaphor for the order of things for souls, Jordan had it become a direct target for Shai'tan's ravages, and it is rife with symbolism. In The Eye of the World, Shai'tan attempted to keep the world in an eternal winter, in death, to prevent the rebirth of spring from coming. Symbolically, it was Rand's rebirth the Shadow feared, the Shadow sought to prevent, much as Ishamael was trying to manipulate Rand so he became the Shadow's servant before he even got proclaimed the Light's champion. This was a failure.

By the Fire of Heavens, Lanfear has Rand, so she believes anyway (the ending will prove her very wrong), in training to become her weapon, her path to absolute power as she embarks three other Forsaken in a scheme that would likely bring their death at the end (Lanfear never intended for Rand to go after Sammael - not only she warned him against that, but in Rhuidean she directs him toward Rhavin and Andor...). Shai'tan, on his part, is no longer trying to keep the world in permanent death (winter), he is now trying to use the solar powers, symbolically Rand's/the Light's against the world, to burn the world with the sun which energy should bring the warmth and light that makes life thrives in summer, but that now seers, scorches and burns (okay, enough synonyms. The fact I write this on a scorching day when it's 36 celcius in my appartment is influencing me about 'the fires' of heaven :P).

Symbolically, Shai'tan is no longer just using his own domain, death, he's now invaded the Light's domain, trying to pervert it to destruction. This is one theme of the book. The other is Rand's discovery in this book that part of his role as Dragon is to bring the Age to its end, of making the old order collapse, of re-arranging the Pattern. In a way not all dissimilar to Shai'tan, thus the ambiguity, he is to purge the world first so it can be reborn. He ended The Shadow Rising as the "Rising Sun". With The Fires of Heaven, the Sun begins to scorch, to burn what needs to die. Rand now brings war and destruction, brings the Fires of Heaven, the fires of the Sun, to the world. There is no hope this side of death: to get salvation, the world has to go through the maelstrom of the apocalypse that will transform it, that will ultimately bring it rebirth – just like the Finns tell Rand that 'To Live he must Die'. Whether this will happen literally or not, the motif is clear: to be reborn, you first have to die. For the Fourth Age to be born, Rand has to bring the Old One to its death, to destroy, to 'clear out the rumble' (another metaphor used by Jordan, this one from Herid Fel) so the cycle can go on. For the Lightsiders, salvation comes from the acceptance of the natural cycle, the acceptance of death as the normal 'ending', but like the Wheel's turnings, it is not The Ending, but an ending, the necessary ending so a new beginning can arrive.

In the first three books, Rand feared the past of LTT and what it meant to be the Dragon. In the next three he begins to experience it for himself, his path now sown with wars and destruction, to save the world. This part of the Dragon's mission is the most difficult. Accepting death for himself, taking the path to self-sacrifice on his own, is heroic enough – but this path is blocked to the Dragon. He needs not only accept his own death to defeat Shai'tan, he needs to bring the whole world into it, and take on his shoulders this burden to cause death, even indirectly – and to witness the effects of his 'salvation'. By the Fires of Heaven, it is even worse as Lews Therin becomes conscious in Rand's mind and adds his own terrible burden to Rand's.

I would expect this theme of destroyer and saviour initiated in The Fires of Heaven to play a major part in the next book(s). Through the series, Rand has grown into a capable leader, even to the point of excess (tyranical behaviour, falling in love with the trappings of power etc.) but rathet than being alleviated, his burden as destroyer has become heavier and heavier. Rand is sick of it, literally and metaphorically. He can barely cope with more at this point, but there are terrible information floating around that might reach him eventually, the worse by far would be to learn that his great heroic deed at the Cleansing also brought about the suicides of a whole people, the slaughter of women, the murder of their children.

I suspect this theme was one of the central ones for Jim Rigney. My personal intuition is that it probably comes from his own demons as a soldier and veteran, that he translated into a Hero's Journey and Fantasy his own personal struggle with his role as soldier. Soldier for a cause and country he believed in, but still a traumatic experience he spoke this way of in his blog:

"I had two nicknames in ‘Nam. First up was Ganesha, after the Hindu god called the Remover of Obstacles. He’s the one with the elephant head. That one stuck with me, but I gained another that I didn’t like so much. The Iceman. One day, we had what the Aussies called a bit of a brass-up. Just our ship alone, but we caught an NVA battalion crossing a river, and wonder of wonders, we got permission to fire before they finished. The gunner had a round explode in the chamber, jamming his 60, and the fool had left his barrel bag, with spares, back in the revetment. So while he was frantically rummaging under my seat for my barrel bag, it was over to me, young and crazy, standing on the skid, singing something by the Stones at the of my lungs with the mike keyed so the others could listen in, and Lord, Lord, I rode that 60. 3000 rounds, an empty ammo box, and a smoking barrel that I had burned out because I didn’t want to take the time to change. We got ordered out right after I went dry, so the artillery could open up, and of course, the arty took credit for every body recovered, but we could count how many bodies were floating in the river when we pulled out. The next day in the orderly room an officer with a literary bent announced my entrance with “Behold, the Iceman cometh.” For those of you unfamiliar with Eugene O’Neil, the Iceman was Death. I hated that name, but I couldn’t shake it. And, to tell you the truth, by that time maybe it fit. I have, or used to have, a photo of a young man sitting on a log eating C-rations with a pair of chopsticks. There are three dead NVA laid out in a line just beside him. He didn’t kill them. He didn’t chose to sit there because of the bodies. It was just the most convenient place to sit. The bodies don’t bother him. He doesn’t care. They’re just part of the landscape. The young man is glancing at the camera, and you know in one look that you aren’t going to take this guy home to meet your parents. Back in the world, you wouldn’t want him in your neighborhood, because he is cold, cold, cold. I strangled that SOB, drove a stake through his heart, and buried him face down under a crossroad outside Saigon before coming home, because I knew that guy wasn’t made to survive in a civilian environment. I think he’s gone. All of him. I hope so. I much prefer being remembered as Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles."

Rand, his hardness and his loss of what Sorilea calls 'laughters and tears', his burden to be Death when he wants to be the Remover of Obstacles is all there, and it's as the real war began, in The Fires of Heaven, that this theme truly started.

In conclusion, it's noteworthy that in Jordan's typical way, this main theme of the book is echoed in all the story lines. Elaida's rise to power came by destroying the 'old Tower' and none of her attempts will succeed at uniting the sisters behind her. For the rebels too, there won't be a reunification without waging war to remove Elaida. For Siuan's group, the path to Salidar will be marked by woes and fights. To save Elayne and Nynaeve, Galad will have to start a war. Etc.

Also typical of Jordan's style, notice how the book is full of allusions to fire and the sun. and how it alternates between the benevolent, like giving aspects of both and the destructive aspect of both – and this is rendered even in details of some scenes. I'll give one example: in the attempt to escape, Logain sets the barn they sought shelter in for the night on fire. In this book, most of the weaves used are references to 'The Fires of Heaven': lightings, fireballs, balefire dominate.

There are three colours that Jordan associated to the sun: Gold is the colour associated to the Rising Sun/The Golden Dawn (and the first city Rand conquers – Tear fell to him and his taking of Callandor - is indeed 'The Hills of the Golden Dawn'. It is the healing sun, the life-giving sun: He Who Comes with the Dawn, The Lord of the Morning, the Prince of Dawn. It is a colour of health and life, the colour adopted by the Yellow Ajah. Red is the colour of fire, the sun that eradicates the Shadow – a belligerant sun, a threatening sun dangerous if it gets out of hands – the colour of the threat the Red Ajah sought to protect the world from. And finally there is white, which I already discussed a lot during the previous read-through as a colour associated to winter and death, but a death that herald rebirth, not the same symbolism as black, the colour of the void, of the final death. In respect to solar symbolism, white is the hottest light, the light that obliterates, that blinds, that kills – but also can purge. This symbolism is largely carried out by the blinding white light of balefire, the ultimate weapon, the last resort one that kills the enemy surely, but might also destroy the Pattern itself.

The Fires of Heaven Read Through #4: The Role of Prophecy

The Role of Prophecy

by Linda

Prophecy is pretty much integral to apocalypticism, the belief in the world’s progress to a foreordained cataclysmic end, and to messianism, the advent of a foreordained world saviour. The Wheel of Time series combines both these beliefs and also millenarianism (the division of history into periods of 1000 years), so it’s hardly surprising that prophecy features large in the series. The Fires of Heaven has some interesting reactions to the Karaethon Cycle, the collection of Foretellings from the Breaking of the World, or possibly even earlier. The earliest translation or commentary thus far in the books dates from about 300 AB.

While Foretelling occurred in the Age of Legends - for example Deindre’s Foretelling in The Shadow Rising, and Mesaana’s observation to Alviarin in A Crown of Swords - we have no evidence that any were recorded into a collection as the Karaethon Cycle was. There are a few reasons why they may not have been. In that Age the war against the Shadow was short and sharp, in this one the war gradually approaches. The Second Age came close enough to apocalypse, but this Age will apparently come even closer, so this is the true ‘apocalypse’ Age. (It would weaken the impact of the Prophecies to prophesy the end of the world twice in historical memory!) More importantly, the Age of Legends was technologically advanced and very well-educated, while the Third Age has declined steadily with much knowledge lost (see the Price and Prize of Knowledge essay). It was born out of the Pattern’s need to warn and inform people in an easily remembered and valued form. Some of its cryptic wording is designed to keep the Shadow from working out crucial things (like the fact that the Dragon Reborn would have two close helpers) while allowing the general gist to be intelligible to readers.

The Prophecies of the Dragon have had a mixed press though, and that is among people even interested in it and what it portends. Siuan and Moiraine, highly educated in a tradition stretching back almost to the Age of Legends, believe that everyone will follow Rand because all know the Prophecies:

"By this time, the Amyrlin Seat will be approaching the rulers of every nation that still has a ruler, laying the proofs before them that you are the Dragon Reborn. They know the Prophecies; they know what you were born to do. Once they are convinced of who and what you are, they will accept you because they must. The Last Battle is coming, and you are their only hope, humankind's only hope."
Rand laughed out loud. It was a bitter laugh. Sticking his pipe between his teeth, he hoisted himself to sit cross-legged atop the table, staring at them. "So you and Siuan Sanche still think you know everything there is to know…You're both fools.”

- The Shadow Rising, Rhuidean

Rand strongly disagrees; and he’s right. Many believe that if there is no Rand, if he is killed, there will be no Last Battle, no War against the Shadow. Others don’t care about the War at all; they are just after their own advantage. Rand’s judgement is well and truly borne out by events in The Fires of Heaven in Cairhien, Amadicia and even in the Tower.

We also learn in The Fires of Heaven a bit more of Gitara Moroso’s actions in aiding the Prophecies: she got Siuan to read up on Aiel when Siuan was accepted.

"One of the books she had me read, an old thing from the dustiest corner of the library, claimed that the Aiel call themselves the People of the Dragon. I did not remember it until I tried puzzling out where Rand could have vanished to. The Prophecies say 'the Stone of Tear shall never fall till the People of the Dragon come,' and there were Aiel in the taking of the Stone.”

- The Fires of Heaven, The Practice of Diffidence.

Thanks to Gitara, Siuan worked out that Rand must be in the Aiel Waste. Which is why Kiruna and Bera, sent to the Waste to contact Rand, meet up with the nine rebel embassy Aes Sedai and two other ‘chance-met’ Aes Sedai to form the alarming number thirteen. This will panic Min and Rand to stay in Cairhien, where they will be captured by Elaida’s embassy, leading to Dumai’s Wells and to Aes Sedai swearing fealty to Rand…

Galad is one noble who does take note of the Prophecies. In Leavetakings, he warns Nynaeve and Elayne to stay clear of Rand because Rand brings destruction and will break the world again before he is done. This sounds like Galad knows and accepts Rand is the Dragon Reborn. He is also the only one of the three Lord Captain Commanders we see who definitely believes in the Dragon Reborn.

Galad always does what is right, so he will feel it his duty to work toward fulfilling the Prophecies, or at least not hindering them. Therefore he won’t try to kill Rand. Or will he? Elayne’s comments regarding conflicting duties for Galad may well Foreshadow Galad’s (and any Whitecloak’s) dilemma regarding the Dragon Reborn, a male channeller and therefore someone to be killed. This will add another twist to the whole deal. I wonder how Galad would feel if he knew Rand was his brother?

To complement this post, a compilation of all the Prophecies of the Dragon mentioned in the series and their possible interpretations in now released on the Thirteenth Depository.

The Fires of Heaven Read-Through #3: Inns

Inns and Outs

by Linda


As has been pointed out here on the blog before, the inn names often refer to what the characters are experiencing. The Fires of Heaven inns are no exception. In fact, Jordan had a lot of fun here.

At the Good Queen’s Justice in Kore Springs, Siuan, Leane and Min were treated justly by Bryne's court, thereby escaping the summary justice of the villagers. Bryne himself was back on his estates after having been treated unjustly by Queen Morgase. Siuan stretched justice to breaking point, swearing an oath to Bryne that she immediately intended to violate the spirit of. Leane was prepared to go along with her, much to Min's horror. Having dispensed justice, Bryne is determined to see it enacted.

Which brings us to their arrival in Lugard, and the infamous Nine Horse Hitch and all the other Lugarder inns with sexually suggestive or explicit names. These do mirror the characters’ experiences. Leane is trying out her sexual powers for the first time, so it's not surprising that one of the inns - the least sexually explicit name, reflecting Leane's flirty, but not sexually promiscuous, behaviour - is called the Domani Wench’s Kiss. She is using her seduction skills on Logain to keep him from falling into deep depression. Min has her head full of Rand and for the first time in her life wants to be overtly feminine. She studies Leane’s techniques and will soon change the style of her hair and clothes. Siuan is about to fall in love, perhaps for the first time. (All these 'first times' makes this post sound like a Madonna song!) Bryne has collected a band of veterans to pursue the three women, purely out of attraction to Siuan.

Jordan said that there is no prostitution in his world, so these inn names do not advertise brothels or demean women.

The Lugard inn names are not just about sex though. Some are named to attract merchants or craftsmen or offer entertainment. However, it should be noted the women stayed away from those. This underlines the changes they are undergoing.

While she was in power, Siuan was accused of sending people out to hunt bears and of having people dance to her tune. The inn name The Dancing Bear alludes to both. Siuan passed it by; no longer Amyrlin, she will soon have to lead from behind. Egwene will rein her in even further. So will Gareth Bryne. She will dance to their tune.

Even the Nine Horse Hitch has a second meaning. As well as a sexual connotation, horses often symbolise saidin in the series (although male channellers can’t be linked together in this way) and soon male channellers will band together and be a force to be reckoned with, especially for Aes Sedai.

Meanwhile, Elayne and Nynaeve encounter their fair share of inns. The Upriver Run in Tar Valon was referred to by Ronde Macura as where she sends her reports to the Yellow Ajah. When Nynaeve and Elayne travel by water, it will be down river, away from Tar Valon.

The King’s Lancer in Amadicia smashed by a Seanchan elephant foreshadows the Amadician army being smashed by the Seanchan and Ailron himself being killed.

The Light of Truth is an appropriate name for the inn where Nynaeve and Elayne discover Galad had joined the Whitecloaks, and where Galad discovers that sometimes there is no one right action, but two equally right but contradictory actions.

The Blue Bull and the Dancing Goose were glimpsed as Galad, Birgitte and the Shienarans fought a way for Nynaeve and Elayne to the docks. It symbolises the bull-headedness and foolishness of Galad and the Prophet being on the side of Light, but commanding forces which use dubious means, and even fighting each other. Elayne thought Nynaeve as reckless as a charging bull and foolish as a goose for informing others of their predicament and getting not just the Prophet to find them a boat, but Galad as well. The destruction Nynaeve unleashed nearly prevented them from getting a boat at all. It nearly got them killed.

To accompany this Read-through post, we are publishing the The Fires of Heaven entry of Dew Drop Inn: Wheel of Time Accommodation, where you'll find a complete listing of the Inns from the book, plus a discussion of the symbolism of their names.

The Fires of Heaven Read-Through #2: Gang of Four

Gang of Four

by Linda


In the early books there is little information on the Forsaken’s plans. Of course there’s also little information on their weaknesses and disunity either, so that they seem more all powerful and knowledgeable than they really are. The Forsaken appear as demigods at first – with the mythological parallels underpinning their characters well to the fore – to make the male and female heroes more vulnerable and ignorant in comparison. From The Fires of Heaven on, as our heroes gain in knowledge and abilities, the weaknesses of the Forsaken are revealed. This is when the historical parallels of the Forsaken – such as members of the Nazi high command – are more obvious. And lest you think I’m reading too much into the Forsaken here, RJ himself compared the Forsaken to the Nazis on his blog.

During the early part of World War II, the Nazi commanders seemed dangerously malevolent and powerful, yet at the Nuremburg trial, onlookers were struck by their mediocre characters. RJ deliberately de-mythologised the Forsaken to follow this historical example.

Take Graendal as an example. She’s Circe and Aphrodite at first, but by Lord of Chaos she is more like Goering, actually a lot like him, with some Goebbels and even a little Poppaea Sabina and Messalina of Ancient Rome for good measure.
This issue is explored further in Three Strands Common to the Forsaken now released on the Thirteenth Depository, which has a discussion of the similarities of the Forsaken to the Nazis, and a list of the mythological, Nazi and Ancient Roman parallels of the Forsaken, and also in the individual essays on the Forsaken (Lanfear, Graendal, Asmodean and now Sammael have been published so far).

In The Fires of Heaven, a Gang of Four meets to plot against Rand. He will be lured to Illian to attack Sammael and a circle of Rahvin, Graendal and Lanfear will take him.

Graendal needles the others to put them off balance as is her wont, but Lanfear does the same more successfully to goad them into supporting her plan. It’s a curious plan for Lanfear to propose, since she still has hopes of Rand becoming her lover, yet here she is arranging for three other Forsaken to kill him. Or is she? Was she going to nip back to Rand just before kick-off and betray them to him? If so, Moiraine’s actions were in the nick of time. (More on this in a later read-through post.)

Sammael doesn’t believe Asmodean chose to back Rand, because Asmodean never took a chance before. Lanfear says Asmodean set an ambush he thought would put him above other Forsaken and when it failed he chose Rand rather than death.

Rahvin decides information on Rand’s friends companions and allies (The Fires of Heaven, Fanning the Sparks) will be handy. Lanfear later tells Rand that Rahvin sent the Darkhounds to Rhuidean since he sees Rand’s Tairen soldiers as a threat to his ambitions to be King of Cairhien as well as Andor (The Fires of Heaven, Gateways).

In A Silver Arrow Rahvin says he can ensure that Rand goes for Sammael by arranging for someone close to Rand to die plainly at Sammael’s orders. (Rahvin doesn’t want Rand and his enormous and highly skilled forces anywhere near Andor.) This assassination nearly happened: when Mat mentioned Caemlyn, Melindhra attacked him with a knife ornamented with the sigil of Illian. Mat and Rand fell for it, and assumed it was arranged by Sammael but they wanted to get Rahvin first. The attempt did stop Mat from running away, however, and make him decide to fight back for a change:

“Are you dressed for the ride south, Mat?”
Mat shoved a hand into’ his coatpocket, fingering something. He usually kept his dice and dicecup in there. “Caemlyn. I’m tired of them sneaking up on me. I want to sneak up on one of them for a change.”

- The Fires of Heaven, Choices

Sammael wanted to be part of the link because he feared the other three would turn on him. Graendal says Rand would notice since Asmodean would have taught him that much at least. This would fuel Sammael’s keenness to get rid of Asmodean.

Moghedien spied on this second meeting. Ever alert, she sensed Nynaeve and Birgitte doing the same. It was probably Nynaeve she sensed, since Nynaeve didn’t know the trick of masking her ability to channel.

In the Battle for Cairhien, Rand quotes the Duke of Wellington while focussed on Sammael:

Only a battle lost is sadder than a battle won. He seemed to remember saying that before, long ago. Perhaps he had read it.

- The Fires of Heaven, The Lesser Sadness

And like Wellington, he said it after a great and bloody battle. To emphasise the importance of this quote, the chapter is named after it. Linking Rand will Wellington in this way, even hinting that Rand might have been Wellington in a former life (see Rand essay), highlights the many similarities between Sammael and Napoleon. These are described in the Sammael essay now released along with his parallels to other historical figures such as the Nazi military commanders Rommel and Jodl, and Nazi governor Seyss-Inquart, and to mythological figures such as Apollo and Ull.

Ironically, Rand’s belief that Sammael attacked him during the battle for Cairhien may not necessarily be right. It could well have been Rahvin.

The Fires of Heaven Read Through #1: Fractions or Factions?

Fractions or Factions?

by Linda

The Aes Sedai not only are split into three groups, but two of the groups are further split into factions. This is all part of Mesaana’s plan to mire the Aes Sedai in useless division to prevent them from unifying the nations or aiding the Light’s cause. So far it has been very successful. Likewise Siuan had to go at the earliest opportunity, since she had a tie to the Dragon Reborn through Moiraine.

As an aside, one of Cadsuane’s most positive aspects, recognised by senior figures of other nations including the Aiel, is that she has properly focussed on the war against the Shadow and aiding Rand to win it and keeps her group, the third faction, on track also.

The White Tower

The book opens with Elaida and a council of twelve Aes Sedai: one Brown (Danelle), one Green (Joline), one Yellow (Shemerin) (and three unhappy Ajahs), four Reds (including Teslyn and Javindhra), two or three Greys (Andaya and Evanellein) and two or three Whites (including Alviarin). Some of those around Elaida are Sitters, or soon to be Sitters. It is also interesting that Andaya, who is on Elaida's council, was chosen by Serancha as a too-young replacement Sitter.

Alviarin was given the Keeper’s job as a reward for bringing Elaida support. Elaida thinks:

And Alviarin knew full well why she wore the Keeper's stole instead of someone from the Red. The Red Ajah had favoured Elaida unanimously, but the White had not done so, and without wholehearted support from the White, many others might not have come round, in which case Elaida would have been in a cell instead of sitting on the Amyrlin Seat.

- The Fires of Heaven, Seeds of Shadow

In other words she believes that some other Sitters followed the Whites, who never do anything without a logical reason. Yet at best Alviarin convinced one White Sitter, Velina, to vote against Siuan and stand for Elaida, since the White Sitter Seaine was not asked to the Sitting, and Saroiya joined the rebels. This is hardly ‘wholehearted support’ no matter how vehement Velina was. The voting pattern may have had more to do with the Black Sitters (it is likely there was more than one Black Sitter besides Talene, since we know from Alviarin’s thoughts in A Crown of Swords, that Elaida’s Hall has Black Sitters plural) and which of the other Sitters in their Ajah they could persuade to follow their lead, than any White Ajah influence. That White vote was crucial though, since in order to depose an Amyrlin, there must be a Sitter present from each Ajah except the Amyrlin’s former Ajah and all present must stand in favour.

By the chapter To Boannda about 43 days later, only six stools remain in Elaida’s study – and this is also the size of Elaida’s faction in the Hall in A Crown of Swords. Note that Elaida unwisely made her own faction smaller by sacking two Sitters, and angering three Ajahs, including the Yellow, long time allies of the Red. Or is it previous long time allies?

Elaida shows both favouritism and bullying in her leadership - not a wise combination, especially in a politically fragile regime. Such a style was a gift to Mesaana and Alviarin, making their task of fracturing the Aes Sedai in the Tower even easier. None of their enforced commands, issued from A Crown of Swords onwards, would appear unusual or against Elaida’s character.

Elaida wants Rand shielded in the Tower as though he were some wild beast. She seems to think that he could be dragged to Tarmon Gai’don on a leash, and somehow beat the Dark One without ever having been taught anything, including how to channel; all without diminishing Elaida’s greater glory. Elaida has been doing some selective reading of the Prophecies.

It is ironic that the Tower ostensibly split over Rand, because Siuan and Elaida had similar plans for him originally: to keep him in the Tower, although the Blues were prepared to educate him. Moiraine at least realises it was the wrong plan by the time of the chapter What Can Be Learned in Dreams, and that he must be allowed freedom to learn and affect the world. (Just like any young person).

The Rebels

In Salidar, a faction of six (Sheriam, Morvrin, Myrelle, Carlinya, Beonin and Anaiya) is running things when Siuan arrives.

Sheriam says that what was done to Siuan and Leane followed the letter of Aes Sedai law narrowly, but was malignantly unjust and an extreme distortion of the law’s spirit. (I have an essay on Aes Sedai laws and customs which will be posted in the coming weeks.) Most of the charges should have been “laughed away.” Carlinya says not the charge that Siuan knew of Rand and conspired to hide him from the Tower. Sheriam nods but says this is still not sufficient for the penalty given. Siuan should have been tried openly and given a chance to defend herself (The Fires of Heaven, The Practice of Diffidence).

To prevent the rebels returning to the Tower, and to revenge herself on the Reds, Siuan lies about the Red Sisters setting Logain up as a false Dragon. It is a measure of the depth of the division, and perhaps the low reputation of the Reds, that not only are they believed without any dissenting voices, but no Aes Sedai expresses surprise. At this stage Romanda and Lelaine aren’t in Salidar, since Sheriam is rated the strongest channeller there (see Saidar Strength article). This is also why these six can act as though they can present a candidate for Amyrlin to a proposed new Hall, rather than let the Hall choose. An Amyrlin they can guide is also highly palatable to them.

When Nynaeve arrives in Salidar she decides to stay to ensure that the rebels support Rand (The Fires of Heaven, To Teach and To Learn). The presence of someone close to Rand is required to remind them of the main game, to familiarise them with his character enough that they don’t get frightened away from the idea and to reassure them that they have someone Rand knows and trusts with them to advise them and make him look favourably on them. Moreover, by throwing their support behind Rand, the rebels gain credibility at the expense of the Tower. (Elaida’s solution to this was to kidnap Rand, but that is for the next book).

Egwene is of a similar opinion, but thinks Rand is too hard, independent and distrustful of Aes Sedai to be palatable to them:

The way he was now, they (rebel Aes Sedai) would be more likely to gentle him, or at least send thirteen sisters of their own, than help him. She would have to stand between them in Tel’aran’rhiod, she and Nynaeve and Elayne, and hope those Aes Sedai had committed themselves too far to back out before they discovered how near the brink he was.

- The Fires of Heaven, News Comes To Cairhien

The Composition and Politics of the Halls 998-1000 NE, an article detailing the Sitters of Siuan’s, Elaida’s and Egwene’s Halls, their voting patterns and factions and a discussion of the young Sitters is now published on the Thirteenth Depository.

New Article Released: The Price and Prize of Knowledge

It is my pleasure to announce the release of Dominic’s excellent essay that he wrote in 2006, The Price and Prize of Knowledge. Knowledge, and the gain, loss, corruption, withholding, misusing and disregard of it, is one of the major themes of the series, and in his inimitable way Dom explores each of these in turn, with instructive examples from the books, and weaves them into a wonderful Pattern from which we can glimpse What Might Happen Next. All the main characters, and quite a few minor ones, are touched by the theme in both its positive and negative aspects.

Knowledge is dear to the hearts of Dominic and myself, as it is to the Brown Ajah. The Brown sister Nesune, as is mentioned in Dominic’s essay, never goes anywhere without specimen boxes. In my recent, all too brief vacation I had planned to work out what size and amount of ‘specimen’ (archival) boxes I need to house my collection of playing cards, but prepared articles for the blog and did embroidery instead. (Some of the cards in my collection feature in essays on main character parallels or the Fool and Joker theme.)

What do playing cards have to do with the theme of knowledge? Skill in card games lies in the choice of what to play when, and in the gathering of information to overcome the randomness of the distribution of the cards and the secrecy of the other players’ cards. Card games are games of imperfect information:

Information is gradually released as cards are played or announcements are made, and much of the information that has not yet been revealed is to be deduced or inferred from that which has. The acquisition of information is as much the goal of strategy in strategic card games as the positional moves made as a result of the knowledge acquired.

- David Parlett, A History of Card Games

So it is with reading The Wheel of Time series. Knowledge is gradually released to the character and to the reader, and from this we can make judgements on what should be done, or what is going to be done, next, just as the characters themselves do. In some games, cards may be played purely for the purpose of acquiring information, even at the expense of losing points. This is a tactic that Ishamael/Moridin and Shai’tain himself follow, as Dominic shows, only they play people.

Card games play many variations on the theme of information, for example in the amount of it they make available, the speed at which they give it out, and the ways in which it may be ascertained…[They] are, by nature, not so much games of imperfect information as games about imperfect information and about its acquisition or perfectibility, and that this character derives directly from the basic two-faced nature of the cards themselves – mysterious on one side and self-evident on the other, and therefore ‘played from ambush, because they are concealed’.

- David Parlett, A History of Card Games

Many characters in the series collect knowledge assiduously, and some try to prevent others doing so. A few are oblivious until forced by events to be otherwise, perhaps by being ambushed. In the five-suited poker game Chop in Tear in The Shadow Rising, Mat, the holder of all the aces (actually Rulers) was unable to use them in time, before the Shadow turned them on him. It was a warning that having knowledge isn’t enough, it has to be used and shared.

According to Min, Nesune will found a library in the future, and this, in a way, is what Dominic and I are doing here at the blog: a library of knowledge of The Wheel of Time series, itself about knowledge and its loss, mutation and regaining over Time. And now we have an essay on that very theme of knowledge. Quite a Pattern.

New Article Released: Character Ages

A new article is now available in the Reference Library: Character Ages

This compilation of the ages of the characters, written for the Wotmania FAQ in 2005, is a useful reference. It's divided up into Non-channellers, Female and Male Channellers, and has a discussion on slowing, the effect channelling has on lifespan.

New Blog Feature: Theory Corner

A new addition to the blog is Theory Corner, where the authors of the site will post their theories on events in the last three books. So far ten theories have been posted: three about Mat, two about Rand, one about Egwene, two about cuendillar, one about the a'dam, and one about the Seanchan attack on the White Tower, but with only three months until The Gathering Storm, there will certainly soon be more!

The link to Theory Corner is located on the top left with the Wheel of Time Reference Library Index links.

The First Review of The Gathering Storm is up on Dragonmount.com

Our colleague Jason Denzel from Dragonmount was allowed to read The Gathering Storm early and, more interestingly (if I'm allowed to be selfish for a minute), Harriet agreed to let him publish his review of it.

Not very spoiler-ish, for those who worry (and Jason highlighted the section where he touched on some of the plot) - from someone like Jason you can expect the safest sort of early review, which may not be the case when people less concerned about the fans and respectful of the material will review it (though we've heard through the branches Tor is not planning to send ARCs of TGS out on any wide basis, which hopefully is the truth - we haven't waited so long to be spoiled!)

Needless to say, I'm a bit envious of him as no doubt all of you will be, but if anyone deserved that treat of reading the book early and posting the very first review of it, it's certainly Jason, after all his done over the years through Dragonmount to for both the series and its online fandom (including the warmest welcome to Linda and me as we opened this blog).

It's gonna be three very long months after reading this review, especially that bit he says about Rand which seems to confirm Linda's and my intuitions about the importance of the theme of "laughters and tears". As for what he says about Egwene, it's tantalizing too, to say the least.

The Shadow Rising Read-through #23: War Comes to Emond's Field part 2: Bloody Sunday

War Comes to Emond's Field, part 2: Bloody Sunday

by Dominic


On Amadaine 14, the day before the Sunday festival (the important midsummer day of Festival that takes place between Amadaine 14 and Amadaine 15 - more discussion on why RJ attached quite a few battles with the Shadow to his festivals in the future read-throughs), as Perrin Aybara came back from his expedition to the East of the Two Rivers to hunt Shadowspawn he found Emond's Field much changed. The village was now completely surrounded by a wide low hedge of spikes, broken only at the main roads, where carts and wagons were used to block entrance. Every fence, hedge and low stone walls dividing the fields and pastures closest to the village had been sacrificed - crops higher than barley stubble had been scrapped (again much of what's green has to be sacrificed), every tree in a perimeter of 500 paces (250 spans, 1/4 mile) from the spikes hedge had been cut leaving a field of low stumps, and the men were still hard at work pushing the woods back even further (they will have pushed them back to 600 paces by the time of the final battle). Many of the farmers around had regrouped in Emond's Fields and the villagers were sending the flocks out to the closet remaining pastures only in large groups (equivalent to ten men's flocks, according to Perrin) with many more shepherds than usual. More wagons and carts had been used to block the spaces between houses. The Green was now crowded with sheep, cows and geese.

The hedge of spikes is of course meant to break or at least slow down charges by Trollocs, the cleared out perimeter (which we had first seen used in Shienar, all around the town of Fal Dara) is meant to give a clear bow shot and to deprive the Shadowspawn of any cover.

Very interestingly, Robert Jordan chose to give the farmers of the Two Rivers their own iconic weapon: the Two Rivers longbow. This choice was not innocent and reflects his theme that the characters from this area bring a massive transformation to the world and most of all to the world's leadership, largely in the hands of nobles, several of which Rand ended up 'casting down', while both Perrin and Mat find their different ways to nobility. Rand, Mat, Perrin and Egwene are turning the old order upside down so a new Age might arise, each in their own way. The Two Rivers longbow (which is fairly unique in the series' world, though now spreading to the Band and such) is largely based on the English longbow, the medieval weapon that contributed massively to bring an end to the age of chivalry and the domination of heavily armored mounted knights in battles (all of them nobles, of course), most famously with the Battles of Crécy and Agincourt, where the French nobility met disaster. The longbow became for a time the iconic symbol of the commoner soldier, as the common men gradually displaced the mounted armies of nobles from the field. This change is also beginning to happen in the story, between the Band of the Red Hand and the Legion of the Dragon, though for different reasons. Though this happened earlier in history than the period of reference from which Jordan took his inspiration for material life in the series (16th to 18th centuries), this delay is coherent with his decision that gunpowder has not yet been introduced. In the series, the real nobility of the arms is in decline in several nations outside the Borderlands (from Tear to Cairhien etc.), with professional armies emerging while nobles dedicate themselves more and more to politics and to enriching themselves.

Another thematic element associated to the longbow is that it is a weapon that while very deadly against a single target with good marksmanship (also for hunting, its primary purpose in the Two Rivers), in battle it is most effective when used in large volleys at long range to break charges, which goes hand in hand with RJ's theme that the people need to regroup, come together and work together - learn to be as one - if they want to be able to keep the Shadow at bay and defeat it, completing thematically with the weaponry used in those scenes the alliance of the villages that save Emond's Field at the end. Jordan liked to use the Two Rivers' longbowmen in such situations: in The Shadow Rising in the Two Rivers where all the villages come together; again in Lord of Chaos where they are part of an impromptu multinational alliance lead by Perrin of Aiel, Cairhienin and Mayeners (including even Aes Sedai) to save Rand at Dumai's Wells; and again at Malden, where Perrin makes an alliance with the Seanchan.

There is a very good article on the Two Rivers longbow on The Compendium of Weaponry and Military Costuming in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time site, to which I redirect readers who want to look at the subject in more details. I will cover here the basics that relate to the map. Before doing so, I'll discuss briefly Jordan's system of measurements (the Compendium is also a good resource for a more in depth discussion of this). Jordan apparently told some readers his foot was equivalent to the real life's one, however there is much evidence from the series to suggest the foot is slightly shorter. Paul at the Compendium found evidence the foot might be somewhat under 11 inches, which seems to fit best with real life information on weapons. Following this, Linda and myself decided to take a guess that the inch is approximately the same size as in real life, which makes 10 inches to his foot, 30 inches to a pace, 2 paces to a span, and a thousand spans to his mile. RJ's miles would be 60000 inches instead of the 63360 inches to the mile in real life. This estimation makes the Two Rivers longbow more effective than the best English longbows, but not terribly so. The Mary Rose, for instance, could cover a range of 360 yards, which would correspond to 432 of RJ's paces. Perrin calls 500 paces 'a longbow shot', and in action on the Sunday battle, the farthest arrows fell 'about a hundred paces short' of the woods, so around 400 paces. This estimation put the Two Rivers longbows with the best of the English longbows. Tam al'Thor, who lead the longbowmen in the Sunday battle, had them shoot their first volleys has the Shadowspawn reached the 300 paces mark only - that's probably his estimate of the distance at which the volleys would have been most deadly - more accurate than at full range, and with greater strength to pierce armour.

The Two Rivers bowmen used their traditional broadhead arrows though all these battles. Neither Perrin nor the Warders (or Faile) apparently introduced Haral Luhhan to the chiseled type used in Shienar and the borderlands, designed to pierce the Trollocs' crude armour (Rand and Mat came to use them in The Great Hunt, and we concur with Paul's idea at the Compendium that they acquired those arrows in Shienar, the Two Rivers hunters would have had no need for those). Those Borderlander arrows would correspond to the classic bodkin point arrow that came to be used with English longbows, and which introduced changes in the type of armour worn by knights, lighter and ridged, designed to deflect the bodkin points.

Other weaponry used in the Sunday battle includes an assortment of old halberds and polearms and such found in attics and all sort of makeshift pikes assembled from agricultural tools. This motif of the people turning every day objects into weapon is very present in the series, especially associated to the Two Rivers. Back in TEOTW, the blacksmith hammer that becomes iconic to the Wolf-King was already wielded by Alsbeth, the blacksmith's wife. Working from descriptions by the warders Tomas (Verin's) and Ihvon (Alanna's), the carpenters and Master Luhhan assembled simple catapults (the type with a central beam). Through the battle, the two Aes Sedai put weaves on field stones used for projectiles that make them explode, seemingly on contact. The exact range of these catapults is not given, though Perrin describes them in action at the same time the Trollocs had reached the 300 paces mark. By the time of the Sunday battle, six catapults had already been completed. One was located on the side of the road to the South, two more were placed on the Western side of the village. The locations of the three others, to the North and East are purely illustrative on the map, though it sounds likely one was at the East end of the village and two were placed on the more exposed northern side that also has the Westwood in the West.

The map of the events of Sunday 999 NE



(1) The wide low hedge of spikes, all around the village, some distance from the last houses.

(A) Marks the 500 paces mark, what Perrin calls 'a longbow shot', likely the distance reached by the best and strongest bowmen, like Abell and Tam.

(B) Marks the 300 paces mark, the distance from the hedge reached by the Shadowspawn at which Tam orders the first volleys to be launched.

(C) Marks the 50 paces mark, the closest to the hedge some Trollocs managed to get.


-----

The Events:


As Perrin, recently healed and still very weak, wakes up at the Winespring Inn in early morning of Sunday, there is some commotion and a large crowd of villagers assembled at the West end of the village to which he rides Stepper to investigate. Faile riding Swallow at his side, they are accompanied by a mounted escort of the local younglings who have begun to call themselves the Companions - a sure sign the normally extremely reserved Tam al'Thor has recently started to tell stories of his soldiering life as officer of the Illianer Companions. Interestingly, with this Jordan gave the future Wolk-King, his 'unifying' Hawkwing-like character, Lews Therin's Companions the Dragon Reborn doesn't have this time around.

At the West edge, Perrin learns a lone Trolloc scout or wanderer was seen and attacked by the men still doing woodcutting at the edge of the Westwood (wounding a few, which were healed by Alanna and Verin). Bain and Chiad had gone in pursuit and came back, announcing the imminent arrival of a Shadowspawn army, perhaps five hundred strong, that was then a mile or two at most behind them. The shepherds and flocks in the pastures are warned to return by Abell, as the two Aes Sedai prepare for battle at the catapults (3) (We do not know the exact positions of Verin and Alanna, placing the first to the south and the second to the north is illustrative only) and Tam al'Thor takes command of the Emond's Field's forces. Tam placed around a hundred men with the pikes and halberds in a single line along the hedge (5). They kneel to clear the way to the longbowmen, around 200 of them, arranged in two lines (4) behind the "pikemen".

The crowd is sent behind the last houses. The Companions have gone into the village and, having dismounted and left the horses behind, they return armed with their longbows (and the portable, bannerman's version of Wolf-Head Banner), surrounding Perrin and Faile who stand behind the lines (2).

After a time that seemed interminable to Perrin, the Shadow's army pours of the Westwood (8), perhaps five hundred Trollocs lead by three Myrddraal that ride back and forth to the rear, urging the Trollocs forward.

A few stray arrows are immediately shot (reaching 400 paces for the best ones, about a hundred paces short of the vanguard) by panicky untrained farmers before Tam manages to bring order back and remind them they need to shoot together at this order and wait until the Trollocs have reached the 300 paces mark (B). The catapults are put into action, sending the exploding stones in the midst of the Shadowspawn. The firing rate of the Aes Sedai decreases fast (Perrin will learn later those weaves are very taxing on the sisters). Soon, Tam's orders for volleys stop and the archers begin to spread out and take targets.

The battle is over in minutes, most of the Shadowspawn dead - only a few were seen escaping through the wood. The closest to the hedge of spikes some Trollocs have reached was 50 paces (C). The Emond's Fielders celebrate the 'great victory' but Tam, the warders and Perrin know better: the Myrddraal would have known this attack would forcibly fail, this was just a test of the village's defenses and defenders.

After the battle, Perrin rides to the South entrance (6) where the men left to guard have clustered (many of the older men and drunks were there, seemingly Tam had called to the West end most of the forces of the village to face the threat). Pretending at first they have also faced Shadowspawn, Perrin's keen eyesight soon disabuses Cenn Buie and his companions: hiding behind the first stone wall left standing about 500 paces away (7) are about 20 of the Tuatha'an, the first survivors to reach Emond's Field from Raen's caravans that faced a disastrous attack by Trollocs some distance south from the Aybara farm, on the edge of the Waterwood in the East (and many miles off the border of the map). The attack killed most of Raen's people, who learn the harshest way the price to the followers of the Way of the Leaf to have isolated themselves from the people.

Much later the same day, it's the arrival of 2 long files of horsemen (about 400 of them) on the North Road that causes a new commotion. Dain Bornhald had come to arrest Perrin. Perrin makes a deal with him: he will give himself up after the crisis has abated, if Bornhald will stay to participate in the defense of Emond's Field.

----

The third and last part of this article will cover the final battle of Emond's Field. Not to further delay the read-throughs, this last post for The Shadow Rising will be published between posts for The Fires of Heaven... as soon as the map is ready. :)

New Article Released: Egwene's Dreams

A new article is now available in the Reference Library: Egwene's Dreams


This article, written by Linda in 2004 for the Wotmania FAQ section and kept up-to-date with each new book, is a compilation of all Egwene's dreams in the series and their possible interpretations. The Weaves and Talents and Fate, Free Will and Divining the Pattern articles have a general discussion of the rare Dreaming Talent. While Dreams only indicate a likely future event, rather than something that will definitely occur, many of Egwene's dreams have indeed come true precisely as described.

The Shadow Rising Read through #22 - There Are No Beginnings or Endings... Unless the Dark One Ends Time

There Are No Beginnings or Endings... Unless the Dark One Ends Time

by Linda

Between The Shadow Rising and The Fires of Heaven seems an appropriate time to look at the theology and philosophy of the Wheel of Time world. The Shadow rising across the world to a final confrontation with Good is an apocalyptic (originally Zoroastrian) concept, while the Fires of Heaven which purge the earth could be an Old Testament reference or the final cleansing fire that purges evil from the earth in Zoroastrian end times.

Many belief systems make up the concepts underlying the Wheel of Time theology and philosophy. Jordan’s original basic idea was to explore what it would be like to be told you were the messiah, whose sacrifice would save the world. The series is set at the potential end of Time, certainly the end of an Age, and contains ideas about end-times, eschatologies, of various cultures.

In 2005 I wrote an essay "There Are No Beginnings or Endings... The Paradox of WOT's Eschatology" for the Wotmania FAQ and it is now re-published here. Paradox is right. Much of this paradox stems from the nature of the Dark One. As Verin said, the Dark One is sealed away on all worlds and remains so unless he is freed on one of them. While ever he is imprisoned in one world, he is imprisoned in all (The Dragon Reborn, A World of Dreams).

Paradox confounds, but then so does chaos and the Dark One thrives on that. People who think they’ve lost their grip on events are more likely to despair. Order and belief give strength as Herid Fel wrote (Lord of Chaos, Thorns), and this may, nay will, be a key factor in defeating the Dark One. The Dark One didn’t order chaos unleashed for nothing.

So what do we have? Two equally powerful gods, one locked away, but able to interfere with the world; the other won’t, or perhaps can’t, interfere. We don’t know why. Has the Creator invested so much of himself in Creation that he is effectively part of the Pattern as some have speculated? Would it put too much strain on the Pattern or on Time if the Creator interfered? Whatever the reason, the Creator wants humanity to fix what they messed rather than come begging for help. We know very little about the most important things in WOT, and I am sure that the theology is much more important than the identity of Demandred or who killed Asmodean. The climax of the Last Battle and the solution to defeating the Dark One is likely to be theological and not a simple ‘Who Would Win In A Fight?’ between Rand and the Dark One: the symbolism pervading the series, and especially in The Eye of the World (as discussed in this read-through post) assures us of that.

RJ described his dualistic theology as ‘a bit Manichean’. He was right. It is only a bit. It is a lot more Zoroastrian with its emphasis on end-times, apocalypses and the contention between two equal and opposite gods. There is also the cyclic time and wheel of Hinduism/Buddhism/Jainism and the opposing forces, balance and change of Taoism. Another very strong influence is the Book of Revelation of New Testament and some of the apocryphal writings between the Old and New Testaments.

We are assured at the start of every book in the series that there are no beginnings or endings in the Wheel of Time. Taking this at face value, this would mean that the Ages have turned endlessly and will continue to do so. However, since we know the Wheel was created in some very distant past, there was a beginning. Correspondingly, the Wheel may come to an end in an impossibly distant future, or may follow a cycle of creation and destruction in the Indian mode. It may even exist eternally. Thanks to the Dark One, it is at risk of ending in the next three books.

Eschatology is the study of the end times of the world. Special forms of eschatology are: apocalypticism (belief in the world’s progress to a prophesied cataclysmic appointed end), messianism (belief in a future salvation figure) and millenarianism (belief in a periodisation of history into multiples of a thousand years and in the idea of a return to conditions of peace and happiness; it is the broad definition of millenarianism that is meant here, not the specific evangelical Christian term for the period of one thousand years of Christ’s rule on earth). These types of eschatology are not always all present in the end times of a theology. However, in the Wheel of Time series, all three are present to about equal degrees. This is one of the more remarkable features of the series, as is the lack of an organised religion.

Religion itself is abundantly present because “this is a world where what might be called the proofs of religion are self-evident all the time” (Robert Jordan at a book-signing in the Wotmania Plots, Characters and the Wheel of Time FAQ). A summary of the tenets of the general millenarianism of the series would be:

• Prior to the beginning of the next Age, human society will have declined – morally, socially or technologically. This will culminate in a global trauma (eg the Breaking of the World, Tarmon Gai’don) which is man-made, natural, divine (Dark One) or a combination of these three.


• Appropriate evidence is sought and found to justify such theories of decline and global trauma (eg the Prophecies of the Dragon).


• The coming Age will potentially be a distinct improvement on the present one, although decline eventually returns as the next Age nears. (An Age where the Dark One doesn’t touch the world would be an improvement although there is the risk that the coming age will be that of the Shadow and therefore much worse.)


• The end of some Ages is heralded by the appearance of the world saviour, the Dragon, his death ending the Age. (Some Ages don’t have a Dragon according to Jordan).


• The entire historical process moves forward according to a plan that is in outline preordained (the Wheel of Time spins the Age Lace to make the Web of Ages according to the Pattern).


• It is the duty of every citizen to actively prepare for the next phase of history, to further the Pattern with integrity, since their lives are the threads from which the Pattern is woven, although not all choose to follow this path.


• The Transformation is imminent, since the Dragon has been reborn…

The Dark One wants to end the world as it currently is and the Light’s forces want to retain the current Pattern and Wheel. The Last Battle between the two forces will be cataclysmic, apocalyptic even. The Last Battle is only the last if the Dark One wins and ends time. Otherwise the cycle of time will continue.

The Wheel of Time world does have Golden Ages: the Age of Legends was one. (This is probably the Pattern for the Second Age). After the Last Battle, will the Fourth Age be one? Not necessarily. At a book-signing, Jordan described the end of the Age of Legends as a "long drawn-out apocalypse". With so much at stake - the chance of total victory – the end of the Third Age may be even worse. The place is probably going to be a mess after all the battles – the world shattered as the Prophecies of the Dragon say – and there might be an unpleasant price for humanity for sealing up the Bore again. However, it will be far better compared to what the world would be like remade in the Dark One’s image as he intends.

The biggest paradox of all is that a world with a cyclic time frame shouldn’t have a Last Battle, since the Last Battle should be final. (Herid Fel pointed this out to Rand in a conversation in Lord of Chaos, A Taste of Solitude.) Moreover, the Last battle is occurring at the end of an age named the Third. By some, according to the Story. The middle of the great cycle of Ages. Yet no one thinks of this Age as the Seventh Age and to me, Tarmon Gai'don would be more convincing at the end of the Seventh Age. I guess it is a strong hint that the Light will win – probably the strongest possible hint. But the Pattern is for it to occur now. Even if this is the Dark One’s idea, going against the Pattern, the Wheel seems prepared. A paradox as I said. Presumably attempts have been made before, although whether they occur at random times or at the same Age, we don’t know. Not every Age has a Dragon so there are Ages when the Dark One doesn’t get near freedom.

If the Shadow wins, the Dark One intends to break the wheel and remake the world in his own image – resulting in the end of the world as it is currently known. The Dark One won’t care about the imbalance in the Pattern since he wants to change the Pattern anyway. Judging by his nature, he would be quite content if the Creator were extinguished, or at the very least, sealed in the prison the Dark One so recently vacated. With this outcome the Last Battle would truly be last.

If the Light wins, would the Pattern (and therefore the Creator) allow itself to become unbalanced to this extent by extinguishing the Dark One? If the losing deity is extinguished, there will be an imbalance in Creation and changes to the Pattern of Ages; therefore this should not happen. Perhaps this is where Jordan’s dualistic theology and cyclic view of time really takes effect. It is more likely that the Dark One will not be destroyed if the Light wins, but resealed in his prison so he cannot touch the world, thus restoring the Creator’s Pattern. The downside is that the Dark One could be contacted in a future Age. And so it goes.

We were warned that there were no beginnings or endings to the Story.