Character Parallels: Moiraine and Thom

By Linda

Moiraine and Thom are a magical duo: one an adept magical user, the other a master of sleight of hand, music and Story. Story and music spellbind their audiences and music is particularly regarded as magical in its effects. Skilled musicians and magicians alike were believed to have sold their soul to the devil—to have links with the underworld.

Moiraine’s entire career was dedicated to searching for the man who would save the world from the Dark One. Thom was drawn in by his attraction to Moiraine and his desire to help the Emond’s Fielders survive the attentions of an Aes Sedai as he was not able to do for his nephew Owyn. Both were excellent mentors to the young people, mesmerising and inspiring in their knowledge and skills and the way they led by example. Moiraine willingly sacrificed herself to save Rand from Lanfear, knowing she would end up in the Otherworld of the Aelfinn and Eelfinn. Thom was willing to risk his life to rescue her from that Otherworld and guarded the entrance to the underworld of Shayol Ghul while Moiraine went inside to play her part.

The parallels of Moiraine and then Thom will be discussed in turn. Here is the outline:

Moiraine
Arthurian Parallels
Fairy
Greek Myth
History
Symbols
Thom
Merlin
Troubadour and Bard
Orpheus
Trickster
Symbol

I’ll start where Jordan started his story: in Arthurian myth.


MOIRAINE


Arthurian Parallels

Grail Maiden

The Holy Grail or San Greal, the ultimate quest in Arthurian legend, arose from the ancient Celtic sacred objects known as the Thirteen Treasures of Britain, which comprised a crock (earthenware pot), cauldron, dish, hamper, knife, drinking horn, sword, chariot, halter, whetstone, coat, mantle, and gwyddbwll board. Sa’angreal are parallels of the San Greal, and of the Thirteen Treasures, but so are other hallowed objects in the series. In Arthurian myth, a grail maiden often accompanies the San Greal, while in the Wheel of Time world it is the women who are able to use hallowed objects of the power safely—until saidin is cleansed. Jordan’s grail maidens can be grail achievers.

Moiraine was the only person to find the Eye of the World twice. Much sought after by questers, the Eye was a hallowed place that could appear anywhere in the world if the quester was worthy and their need great. It contained a well of pure saidin, and thus could be likened to the sacred crock of the Celts.

Regarding the gwydbwyll game board of the Thirteen Treasures, King Arthur and his knights played gwyddbwyll in the Welsh Mabinogion. It is a hunt game rather than a war game like chess. Moiraine is a master of go (stones), rather than gwyddbwyll (sha’rah). Only gamemaster Moridin is a master of sha’rah.

After helping restore Mat with Vora’s sa’angreal, Moiraine fought in the Stone of Tear and distracted and killed Bel’al so Rand could take the sword sa’angreal Callandor. Callandor is a parallel of Excalibur (also called Caliburn), King Arthur’s sword, itself derived from the sword Caladbolg of Irish mythology and the Celtic sword of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain. As his name indicates, Rand al’Thor is a parallel of King Arthur and just as Merlin urged Arthur went to the Lady of the Lake to receive Excalibur, so Moiraine urged Rand to take Callandor:

”You must take Callandor…it is your birthright. Better by far that you knew more before your hand held that hilt, yet you have come to the point now, and there is no further time for learning. Take it, Rand.”

- The Dragon Reborn, What is Written in Prophecy

It is no wonder that Rand took Moiraine and her sister grail maiden Nynaeve with him in his ultimate quest to battle the Dark One (and his own self) and seal the Dark One away. The two Aes Sedai are grail guardians and achievers, having protected the Land and its people with more hallowed objects than any other women.

After her sacrifices to save the world, Moiraine achieved a strong angreal bracelet by her own efforts.

Moiraine’s advice to her King Arthur Rand to take the sword that dispels doubts of his birthright shows Moiraine as a strong analogue of King Arthur’s magic-wielding advisor, Merlin.


Merlin

There were no lack of Merlin figures advising Rand on what he should do, or how: the Amyrlin (A-Merlin), Moiraine and a few other Aes Sedai, Thom Merrilin (see below), even Moridin (whose name is derived from the Welsh spelling of Merlin, Myrddin).

In fact, Rand began his hero’s journey with two Merlin figures guiding him, often in different directions. From the first, Moiraine and Thom recognised each other and respected each other, even feared each other, a little, but they never imagined they would become a duo. But then, unlike King Arthur’s Merlin, who had the gift and curse of prophecy, and knew that he was fated to fall in love with Nimue, the woman who would be his undoing, Moiraine obtains her glimpses of the Pattern from the Prophecies of the Dragon, the ter’angreal rings, the Aelfinn and the Seer Min. It was from Min’s viewings that Moiraine learned that she and Thom would marry—the two Merlins would become as one by the Warder bond—instead of experiencing the foreknowledge of being captive to a Nimue figure as the Arthurian Merlin did. In contrast, Thom was a Merlin who was unconscious of his fate.

Moiraine disappeared and “died” as Merlin died, depriving Rand, of her guidance just as Merlin vanished from King Arthur’s court, trapped in a cave from which he could not escape despite his magical powers. Unlike his parallel King Arthur, Rand knew that Moiraine crashed through to an Otherworld, but believed her lost and dead. Rather than Merlin’s fate of being fatally trapped by the woman he desired, Moraine saved Rand from Lanfear, the woman who intended to capture and destroy Rand out of thwarted desire for him. Both Moiraine and Lanfear were trapped in the Otherworld together—this was fatal for Lanfear, and nearly so for Moiraine.

Interestingly, Merlin was believed to be the child of the devil (or alternatively an incubus) and a nun because he was such a powerful magic wielder, and Aes Sedai have strong parallels to 15‒16th century nunneries and are believed by Whitecloaks to be in league with the devil. About 22‒3% of the Aes Sedai were Black Ajah, sworn to the Dark One and working for the Forsaken, who are equivalents of incubi and succubi. Lanfear, whom Moiraine was trapped with, is a classical succubus haunting people’s dreams.

For the first few books, Nynaeve and the three ta’veren are not sure if Moiraine is a sage advisor like Merlin or a dangerous manipulator like Morgan le Fay because she switches between the two roles, depending on the situation.

Morgan le Fay

By name and by deeds, Moiraine is similar to Morgaine/Morgan le Fay, the sorceress or fairy witch who tried for good or ill to control Arthur for her advantage. Morgan le Fay was the daughter of King Gorlois of Cornwall and Igraine, the half-sister of King Arthur, and the sister of Morgause and Elaine. In later tales, Morgan was the wife of King Urien and mother of the hero Owain. Moiraine is the half-sister-in-law of Morgase and the aunt of Elayne (see family tree in The Noble Houses of Cairhien article). (She is not related by blood to Rand (a parallel of Arthur) but is the sister of the first husband of Rand’s mother Tigraine—a relationship as tangled as any in Arthurian myth!) Owyn was the ill-fated nephew of Moiraine’s love and Morgase’s former lover, Thom.

After her father Gorlois is killed and her mother Igraine marries Uther Pendragon, Morgan was “put to school in a nunnery, and there she learned so much that she was a great clerk of necromancy” (Le Morte D’Arthur, Book I, Chapter II). Moiraine went to the White Tower to learn the “necromancy” of channeling, and became an Aes Sedai, a person regarded with deep suspicion and fear by many people in the Wheel of Time world.

In the earliest Arthurian tales, Morgan le Fay was described as the chief priestess of a sisterhood of nine ruling the Isle of Avalon. Moiraine was one of the stronger, and therefore important, Aes Sedai in Tar Valon. Morgan used her magic ability to fly and shapeshift, while Moiraine used illusion to make herself appear larger in Baerlon (The Eye of The World, Watchers and Hunters), or the group invisible in the Blight. Both Morgan and Moiraine use their magic to heal others.

Morgan le Fay had her origin in Celtic and Irish myth: the Celtic mother goddess Modron and the Irish battle goddess Morrigan. Moiraine was the mentor and protector of the Emond’s Fielders. Lan described Moiraine as a warrior in the way she relentlessly fought against the Shadow and its minions (The Fires of Heaven, Fading Words). The dark side of this is seen when she declares:

“Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself."

- The Eye of the World, Choices

And that she will do whatever necessary for the Shadow to be defeated. She had few qualms about overturning the lives of the Emond’s Fielders, and also that of Lan.

In later Arthurian tales, Morgan le Fay was malevolent and an enemy of Arthur and Guinevere. In keeping with this theme of the necessity of balance, Jordan has two Morgans in The Wheel of Time, one following the Light and one the Shadow.

Morgan le Fay tried to force Sir Lancelot to be her lover by kidnapping and imprisoning him. The price of his freedom was the ring he wore but Lancelot refused to give it to Morgan le Fay because it was a gift from his beloved Guinevere. Fortunately, a maiden helped him escape his captivity. Moiraine bonded Lan as her Warder, but was not in love with him. She never asked for Lan’s ring of sovereignty, which he later gave to, rather than received from, his beloved Nynaeve, but she held Lan to his oath despite knowing his feelings until she went into the redstone doorway ter’angreal and then his bond passed to Myrelle. Moiraine transferred Lan’s bond without his consent and got Myrelle to promise to pass the bond on to a younger sister, Nynaeve.

The Light’s Morgan le Fay confronted the Dark Morgan Lanfear and pushed them both into the Otherworld of the Eelfinn. Both were reduced there: Lanfear by being killed by Moridin so the Dark One could reincarnate her in a smaller body, and Moiraine by having much of her channelling ability consumed by the Eelfinn.

In some Arthurian tales, it is Morgan rather than Arthur’s half-sister Morgause, who is King Arthur’s lover and who bears his son Modred. One of the futures Moiraine saw in the rings in Rhuidean was sharing Rand’s bed (The Fires of Heaven, A Departure). King Arthur’s son Modred was the ruination of his Kingdom and the cause of Arthur’s death. Moiraine’s surname Damodred—Da-Modred—looks to the above parallel. But Moiraine didn’t go down the path of ruination, just as she rejected her house as unethical and too unscrupulous and avoided becoming an Aes Sedai Queen of Cairhien all those years ago.

Morgan le Fay, Morgan the Fairy, leads naturally into the Fee, the Fair Folk, one of the major parallels of the Aes Sedai, and Moiraine in particular.

The Fair Folk are long-lived and other-worldly beings. When interacting with ordinary people they are unpredictable, capricious and manipulative to gain their own ends—dangerous to know. The name Aes Sedai refers to the Aes Sidhe of Irish mythology, who are comparable to fairies or elves. Aes Sedai are long-lived magic users who set themselves as a breed apart. They cultivate inscrutability and are manipulative of others, especially non-channellers. Moiraine is remarkable among even Aes Sedai—regarded as one of the legendary sisters by other Aes Sedai for her achievements, and an archetypal Blue.

Blue Fairy

In the late 1880’s, there was a move away from pious, sentimental children’s stories, with the publication of collections of folk and fairy tales from around the world. Of these, Andrew Lang’s The Blue Fairy Book (1889) was the first ground-breaking collection in English. A classic, it is still in print. Diminutive Moiraine, the first of the fairy-like Aes Sedai we meet, is of the Blue Ajah and hearkens to Lang’s very popular The Blue Fairy Book.

Even only six years earlier, Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, while influenced by European folk tales, is as preachy as any typical nineteenth century children’s story. One of the book’s main characters is La Fata Turchina or the Fairy with the Deep Blue Hair, who criticises the puppet Pinocchio’s behaviour and ultimately enables him to achieve his wish of becoming fully human. She is as capricious or ambivalent as any of the Fair Folk or Aes Sedai. Sometimes she is even malevolent to teach Pinocchio a lesson.

The 1940 Disney animated version of Pinocchio is simpler and far more sentimental than Collodi’s book. The Blue Fairy is entirely benevolent and freely grants his wishes. She is far less mysterious than the Fairy with the Deep Blue Hair. So with the book and the movie, we have two versions of the Blue Fairy, the stern and the sweetly kind, respectively, just as Moiraine seemed ambivalent in the first few books. While Pinocchio had to earn the Blue fairy’s good opinion, Moiraine and Rand had to earn each other’s regard and trust. As Jordan said, “it’s never simple” in The Wheel of Time.

Pinocchio has picaresque adventures in book and movie and survives assassins and monsters, just as the three ta’veren survive attacks from Darkfriends, Grey Men and Shadowspawn on their treks. The naïve and wilful marionette puppet is as rascally as Mat and was also nearly killed by hanging as Mat was, but he also has elements of Rand—that feeling of literally being a puppet of others and not really his own person—and of struggling with his duty. Initially Pinocchio resists the Blue Fairy’s good advice, then later comes to follow her instruction.

Rand was the target of Moiraine’s advice far more than Mat or Perrin. She was quick to admonish his bad or risky behaviour, just as the Blue Fairy did for Pinocchio. From the Blue Fairy’s instruction Pinocchio learns what his duties are and to appreciate and respect others. While Pinocchio’s lies have an immediate and adverse effect on his body, making his nose grow, Rand’s sins—such as balefire and denial of other peoples’ rights—have an adverse effect on the Pattern as well as on his health, due to his links with the Land. The Wheel of Time is cosmic in scale, a macrocosm rather than a microcosm.

Rand felt like a puppet of fate in general and Aes Sedai in particular from the earliest chapters. Justifiably so, although it was quickly seized upon by the Forsaken and used to undermine any relationship between Rand and his blue fairy mentor. Ishamael said to him:

“What glory or power is there for a puppet?”

- The Eye of the World, The Stag and Lion

leading Rand to refuse guidance:

“I am done with Aes Sedai, Egwene. I won't be a puppet for them, not for Moiraine, or any of them."

- The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn

Puppets and their manipulation are a persistent theme in The Wheel of Time as we see in Egwene’s dream of:

A woman playing with puppets, and another dream where the strings on puppets led to the hands of larger puppets, and their strings led to still greater puppets, on and on until the last strings vanished into unimaginable heights.

- The Dragon Reborn, Fires in Cairhien

And Rand’s thoughts on Moiraine:

She had kept too many secrets herself, made him follow her on blind trust too often. Let it be her turn. She had to learn that he was not a puppet. I’ll take her advice when I think it’s right, but I won’t dance on Tar Valon’s strings again. He would die on his own terms.

- The Shadow Rising, Out of the Stone

Rand’s determination to be a real adult rather than a boy like Pinocchio earned some respect from Moiraine and she said to Rand:

"It has been more like wrestling with a bear than pulling strings on a puppet. Do you want an oath not to try manipulating you? I give it."

- The Fires of Heaven, Gateways

Min foresaw that Moiraine was essential to Rand’s success and therefore to the fulfilment of his wish to live an “ordinary” life after achieving his quest.

It was Pinocchio’s grief and guilt at the Blue Fairy’s apparent death that eventually led him to more positive behaviour, which in turn made him worthy in the Blue Fairy’s eyes of being granted his wish to be a real human boy. Likewise, Rand’s grief and guilt at Moiraine’s death was a turning point for understanding that the Last Battle wasn’t all about him, that he couldn’t win alone, and that he must also respect the right of others to make their own sacrifice.

Even Mat, who was negative to channellers and to anyone who impinged on his fun, realised how much they owed the Blue Fairy:

She was the one who had started this all. He had hated her at times. He also owed her his life. She was the first one who had meddled, yanking him this way and that. Yet—looking back—he figured that she had been the most honest about it of anyone who had used him.
Unapologetic, unyielding. And selfless.
She had dedicated everything to protecting three foolish boys, all ignorant of what the world would demand of them. She had determined to take them to safety. Maybe train them a little, whether they wanted it or not.

- Towers of Midnight, The Light of the World

The Blue Fairy and Morgan le Fay were both skilled at shapeshifting and illusion, while the Wheel of Time magic system limits channellers to using only illusion in the waking world. Greek Mythology also had a master shapeshifter.


Greek Myth

Proteus

Proteus was the Ancient Greek god of bodies of water who embodied change. He knew all things past, present, and future, but strenuously avoided answering questions or telling what he knew. Those who wanted answers from the god had to seize him unawares when he came ashore, and even then Proteus would try to escape by rapidly changing into a variety of forms. His would-be interrogator had to hold on to the god until he wearied of shapeshifting and returned to his own form. The god would then finally answer the question and plunge into the sea.

Moiraine is one of the major agents of change in The Wheel of Time series and she represents knowledge to the Emond’s Fielders and the reader until her disappearance in Cairhien: crucial in discovering the Dragon, starting the Emond’s Fielders on their adventures, removing Forsaken, and intervening at Merrilor. She was very sparing with her answers to the questions of the Emond’s Fielders and they became distrustful of her and very frustrated because she was so uninformative. Rand thought that Moiraine “had kept too many secrets” and Perrin thought she told too little (The Dragon Reborn, Wolf Dreams). When Perrin tried to get more information, he was told:

“Do not question me,” she said coldly. “You do not know which questions to ask, and you would comprehend less than half the answers if I gave them. Which I will not.”

- The Dragon Reborn, Daughter of the Night

The Aes Sedai never considered that the Emond’s Fielders’s questions might inspire a different perspective. Reconsideration can be useful.

Moiraine drew heavily on the Prophecies of the Dragon and on Min’s viewings and thought she knew the likely course of events or shape of the Pattern to a degree. However, the theme of misinformation and false knowledge is important in The Wheel of Time and Moiraine’s ideas—even for the seemingly most straightforward of prophecies—were often profoundly wrong.


Moirae

As her name indicates, Moiraine has parallels to the Moirae or Moirai, the three Fates of Greek mythology, who allotted to every person their destiny, and directed their steps along the path from birth to death. Their dictates could only be circumvented with great difficulty. From the beginning, Moiraine tried to control the three ta’veren, Egwene, and, to a lesser extent, Nynaeve, and direct their development and deeds. Each had to circumvent her control and found this difficult. It was important for them to do so, however, since ironically Moiraine had assigned their fates wrongly.

Moiraine even warned the Emond’s Fielders that if they, or other people met along the way, acted counter to her plans against the Shadow she would have them killed. Crossing the goddess of fate can be fatal.


Mentor

With her knowledge and battle skills, Moiraine has some similarities to the Ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and war, Athena, particularly when Athena disguised herself as Mentor.

When Odysseus was tricked into leaving his island kingdom of Ithaca to fight in the Trojan war, he left his wife, Penelope, and his infant son, Telemachus, in the care of Mentor, his old retainer. Twenty years later, after great heroism in the war and dramatic adventures trying to return home, Odysseus was imprisoned in a cave on the Ogygian island by the goddess/nymph Calypso, who was greatly enamoured of him. She wanted to make him immortal and keep him with her forever, but she was forced to let him go. Odysseus’ now adult son Telemachus (a parallel of Rand), also landed on Calypso’s isle while searching for Odysseus. Calypso fancied him too, and offered him immortality if he would stay with her. However, Athena, who had accompanied Telemachus disguised as the family retainer Mentor, encouraged him to repel her advances. When they couldn’t stop Calypso, Mentor and Telemachus leaped from a cliff into the sea and swam to a ship (Bulfinch’s Mythology).

Lanfear was enamoured of both Lews Therin Telamon and Rand; she offered the latter immortality and to rule the world at her side. In order to prevent Lanfear from enslaving or killing Rand, Moiraine, his mentor, leaped upon Lanfear and drove them both through the redstone door ter’angreal.

History

Damocles

As well as referring to Arthur’s son and nemesis Modred as described above, Moiraine’s surname, Damodred, is also a combination of Damocles and dread. Damocles was:

a courtier of Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse, in Sicily, tyrant from 405 to 367 BC. The courtier is known to history through the legend of the “Sword of Damocles.”

According to the legend, when Damocles spoke in extravagant terms of his sovereign's happiness, Dionysus invited him to a sumptuous banquet and seated him beneath a naked sword that was suspended from the ceiling by a single thread. Thus did the tyrant demonstrate that the fortunes of men who hold power are as precarious as the predicament in which he had placed his guest. The story is related in Cicero's Tusculanae disputationes, 5.61.

- Encyclopaedia Britannica

This is basically the history of House Damodred in a nutshell—great power wielded with little appreciation of the consequences of arrogant actions. The dread in the name merely emphasises the deservedly bad reputation of most of the members of this House. Moiraine rejected ruling the House (and Cairhien) because she was not prepared to be so ruthless.

Moiraine also played a part in changing the historic parallel of the Rand and Lanfear relationship.


Mark Antony

Some time after Julius Caesar (a parallel of Lews Therin) was assassinated, his lover Cleopatra (a parallel of Lanfear) captivated another famous military Roman, Mark Antony, and subtly exploited his unsophisticated and unstable character. Lanfear tried to do the same to Rand, who until his epiphany, was also unstable (due to the taint) and unsophisticated, but thanks to Moiraine, she did not succeed.

The Lanfear/Cleopatra parallel is an important one, not just in showing how history repeats itself, but also in showing the consequences if events were allowed to take their course. Moiraine saw from the rings in Rhuidean that Rand could end up enslaved by Lanfear, or killed by her. Besotted with Cleopatra, Antony forgot about his wife and his planned military campaign in Parthia and returned:

as Cleopatra's slave to Alexandria, where he treated her not as a “protected” sovereign but as an independent monarch.

- Encyclopaedia Britannica

In this Age, Lanfear was determined to be Rand’s equal or superior. She also wanted to make sure that Rand completely forgot about his role as the Light’s champion and also his love of Elayne and Aviendha (and Min, if she had known).

After the Roman armies of Octavian (the future Roman emperor Augustus) defeated their combined forces, Cleopatra realized that she and Antony were doomed. She believed that if he could be induced to kill himself for love of her, they would both win undying renown (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Lanfear planned to use Rand to obtain ultimate power and immortality for the pair of them. However, Moiraine’s bravery thwarted Lanfear’s early plans and Rand was freed of her influence long enough to grow armour against her wiles. This parallel shows what otherwise might have been.


Jigonhsasee

Rand and Moiraine between them completely changed Aiel history. The Aiel were strongly bound by custom, yet Moiraine broke centuries of tradition and spent time among Wise Ones. She was likely the first Aes Sedai since the founding of Rhuidean to go into the Waste and live among the clans. Previously Wise Ones avoided Aes Sedai, but the Dreamwalkers reached out to Moiraine by letter (also surely a first!) to raise the odds of Moiraine going to the Waste. They knew Moiraine was crucial to Rand’s survival, and therefore the Aiel’s survival, as well as the defeat of the Shadow. Moiraine “needed” to go through the three rings ter’angreal and see that she must push Lanfear and herself through the redstone ter’angreal into the Eelfinn’s world. She also needs to make the national leaders see reason and sign Rand’s peace treaty at Merrilor.

The Aiel have strong parallels to the American First Nations and for the Aiel and Rand as Car’a’carn, the meeting of nations at the Field of Merrilor was an equivalent of the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Great Peacemaker, Deganawida, a parallel of Rand, met with Jigonhsasee, an Iroquois woman, and described to her his vision to form a confederacy of the warring nations to bring peace. Jigonhsasee agreed with his idea and to help him realise it worked out which men should be assigned to which positions at the peace gathering. She was considered to be a co-founder, along with the Great Peacemaker and the orator Hiawatha, of the Iroquois Confederacy.

It was Rand who called for all leaders of the nations and influential groups to attend his great meeting at the Field of Merrilor where he would lay out the conditions that were the price for his sacrifice. Moiraine waited outside to gauge the mood and progress of the negotiations—which were not going well. She used the Karaethon prophecy to assign appropriate prophecies to the national leaders to show them that they must agree to Rand’s peace treaty—that prophecy and the Pattern required it:

"These demands are unfair," Gregorin said. "He requires us to keep our borders as they are!"
"'He shall slay his people with the sword of peace,' " Moiraine said, " 'and destroy them with the leaf.' "

It's The Karaethon Cycle. I've heard these words before.

"The seals, Moiraine," Egwene said. "He's planning to break them. He defies the authority of the Amyrlin Seat."
Moiraine did not look surprised. Perrin suspected she'd been listening outside before entering. It was very like her.
"Oh, Egwene," Moiraine said. "Have you forgotten? 'The unstained tower breaks and bends knee to the forgotten sign . . .' "
Egwene blushed.
" 'There can be no health in us, nor any good thing grow,' " Moiraine quoted, " 'for the land is one with the Dragon Reborn, and he one with the land. Soul of fire, heart of stone.' "
She looked to Gregorin. " 'In pride he conquers, forcing the proud to yield.' "
To the Borderlanders. " 'He calls upon the mountains to kneel . . .' "
To the Sea Folk. " ' . . . and the seas to give way.' "
To Perrin, then Berelain. " ' . . . and the very skies to bow.' "
To Darlin. " 'Pray that the heart of stone remembers tears .. .' "
Then, finally, to Elayne. " ' . . . and the soul of fire, love.' You cannot fight this. None of you can. I am sorry. You think he came to this on his own?" She held up the document. "The Pattern is balance. It is not good nor evil, not wisdom nor foolishness. To the Pattern, these things matter not, yet it will find balance. The last Age ended with a Breaking, and so the next one will begin with peace—even if it must be shoved down your throats like medicine given to a screaming babe."

- A Memory of Light, A Knack

Her words—reference to prophecy—spurred rulers to drop their objections by making them seem futile and the impasse in negotiations melted away. Moiraine’s crucial role in the peace treaty at the Field of Merrilor is a parallel of Jigonhsasee’s role in the Iroquois Confederacy. The Wise Ones, led by Aviendha, insisted that the Aiel join the treaty and Rand promised that he would persuade the Seanchan to also sign or else it would be voided.


Literary

Writing in the 1980s when all epic fantasy was compared to The Lord of the Rings, Jordan deliberately gave the first one or two hundred pages of The Eye of the World a “Tolkienesque” feel.

Gandalf

Moiraine is a parallel of the wizard Gandalf. Both are rather mysterious and powerful magic-using figures who guide the young main characters for the first book. Both work closely with a warrior who is a hidden monarch (Lan/Aragorn). In The Eye of the World, Moiraine uses a staff, as Gandalf does, although unlike him, her staff is an aid to concentration while his is a symbol of office and a device—and Moiraine discards hers.

Gandalf vanishes before Frodo leaves the Shire and returns in the nick of time to meet him at Rivendell and he dies in truth in the fight with a monster, the Balrog, and is sent back naked to Middle Earth as Gandalf the White, much more powerful, to finish his quest to rally the West for this last battle against Sauron.

Moiraine leaves Rand’s storyline at the camp east of Falme, and again in Cairhien through the doorway into the land of the Eelfinn and Aelfinn. The latter was seen as a death since her bond to her Warder Lan was broken, and with the melting of the doorway ter’angreal there appeared to be no way back. While in the Otherworld of the Eelfinn and Aelfinn, she lost much of her channelling power and gained a strong angreal to compensate. She was brought back naked to earth to aid Rand in uniting the nations in the Last Battle against the Shadow.

Unlike Gandalf, who was part of the forces distracting Sauron while Frodo and Sam went to Mount Doom to unmake the Dark Lord, Moiraine joined Rand and Nynaeve in the Pit of Doom to help seal the Dark One away.


Symbols

Spreading Tree

The tree of life sigil adopted by House Damodred commemorated the prosperity and power that Cairhien obtained from its pact with the Aiel, who gave them an Avendesora sapling to seal it. As a Cairhienin ruling family, the reward for Cairhien’s kindness in giving aid freely made the Damodreds so prosperous that they became arrogant, which led to their downfall. Yet the Damodreds still keep the sigil representing the tree that they cut down in pride.

Unlike her Damodred relatives, Moiraine has actually seen Avendesora up close in the Aiel Waste. It’s very telling that this family adopted as their own the image of the Cairhienin nation’s deeds and prosperity even after they butchered the tree the sigil depicts. A truly selfish and oblivious family—they are Cairhien and Cairhien is theirs.


Moiraine’s Colour Choice

Moiraine left House Damodred, with its red, green and white stripes, and joined the Blue Ajah. In her mind, blue outweighed red, green and white. Symbolically red is the colour of energy, fire, aggression and war. Green represents nature, growth, fertility, life, and renewal, but is also traditionally associated with money, ambition, greed and jealousy. White symbolises purity, truth and innocence, but on the negative side, it can seem stark, cold, and isolated.

Most Damodreds express the negative aspects of their House colours—aggression, greed and coldness—which is one reason why Moiraine rejected her house (she tellingly said that her ruling relatives had blackened, made dark, their house name) and exclusively embraced the Blues. She refused to become an Aes Sedai Queen of Cairhien, thinking the divided loyalties and resulting suspicion too difficult to navigate well. In constrast, blue represents infinity, eternity, truth, faith, purity, and spiritual and intellectual life (Jack Tressider, Symbols and their Meanings). It is the most detached and least material colour.


THOM

Merlin

As Thom Merilyn’s surname indicates, Thom has some parallels with King Arthur’s advisor and tutor, Merlin. Thom has been an invaluable teacher and guide to Rand and his companions, particularly in the beginning when they were so vulnerable, much as Merlin was for a young Arthur and his companions, and provided the Emond’s Fielders and the reader with an alternate view and in-world lore when Moiraine seemed too manipulative or cryptic.

Merlin and Thom were both fated to fall in love with younger women with great skill in magic, Nimue and Moiraine respectively, women who they would have much rather have avoided.

The important difference is that Thom’s love was returned by Moiraine, whereas Merlin’s desire for Nimue was not, and Thom and Moiraine each behaved very unconventionally as a result. Thom disliked Aes Sedai because they were responsible for the deaths of Thom’s only living kin, his beloved nephew Owyn and his wife. Yet Thom risked his life to help her quest to see Rand reach Shayol Ghul and to rescue his beloved Aes Sedai from an Otherworld. For her part, Moiraine promised to betray to Thom the names of the sisters that broke Tower law in their treatment of Owyn—unheard of for an Aes Sedai, who would much prefer not to shame the Tower, and believe in “benefit of clergy” (separate administration of laws for clerics) for Aes Sedai.

In contrast, after wearying of Merlin’s persistent attentions, Nimue imprisoned him in an Otherworldly cave from which he could not escape on his own. While Thom rescued Moiraine from an Otherworld that she could not escape on her own, this rescue has perhaps closer parallels to Orpheus (see below), not Merlin.

Arthurian myths lead us to the composers and storytellers of such myths: the bards of the Celts and troubadours of the Middle Ages.


Troubadour and Bard

Thom taught Mat how to juggle and Rand how to play the flute. With these new skills they were able to earn their keep as wandering performers along the road to Caemlyn. They were far from troubadours, though—perhaps novice jongleurs.

On the other hand, troubadours were composers and performers of songs in Medieval Europe. They were among the first poets to write in the vernacular languages of their countries so that all their compatriots could understand them, not just those educated in Latin and Greek. Many of the troubadour songs have themes of chivalry and courtly love, including contributions to the Arthurian mythos; others described historical events. More mundanely, these traveling poet-musicians also passed on news and information from town to town.

In the Wheel of Time world, the equivalent of Classical Latin or Greek would be the Old Tongue, the language of the Second Age, a Golden Age in Third Age eyes. Only the well educated learned it. Performers related their tales or songs in the Third Age language in three different “styles” ranging from highly poetic and imagery rich to mundanely vernacular:

It was what the gleeman had called Plain Chant, those nights beside the fire on the ride north. Stories, he said, were told in three voices, High Chant, Plain Chant, and Common, which meant simply telling it the way you might tell your neighbor about your crop. Thom told stories in Common, but he did not bother to hide his contempt for the voice.

- The Eye of the World, Strangers and Friends

Thom’s disregard of the everyday vernacular as suitable entertainment indicates that he is not a jongleur at heart, even though he disguises himself as one in Emond’s Field and also with Valan Luca’s menagerie. And he does a good job not just of necessity but also out of pride, but he feels it is too limiting. Someone with an experienced eye, like Moiraine, for instance, would see through Thom’s disguise even if he had changed his name.

Before he adopted the role of gleeman—a medieval term that covers both jongleurs and troubadours—to earn a living in exile while travelling, Thom was a bard. His regard for the harp, and insistence that Rand’s skills were not fit for it, emphasises this fact.

In medieval Celtic society, a bard was a professional poet, composer, musician, storyteller and oral historian employed by a noble or clan chief. Pre-Christian Celts had no written histories. The bards committed history and notable achievements and events of nation and clan to memory in verse and song and passed this extensive oral tradition from generation to generation. As well as oral archivists, they also celebrated the achievements of their patron and their patron’s family and clan. Bards mastered hundreds of verses and composed their own without writing and their preferred musical instrument was the harp.

Thom related epic ballads of remote historic events and also knew songs of praise composed to earn patronage:

He had to see Rand face-to-face, no matter what he had told him about keeping clear. Perhaps no one would think it too odd if a gleeman asked to perform a song for the Lord Dragon, a song especially composed. He knew a deservedly obscure Kandori tune, praising some unnamed lord for his greatness and courage in grandiose terms that never quite managed to name deeds or places. It had probably been bought by some lord who had no deeds worth naming.

- The Shadow Rising, Strings

which he ironically considered using to gain unobtrusive access to his former student, Rand, whose deeds would be remembered for Ages to come.

Thom also was training Dena as his apprentice bard when she was tragically murdered in Cairhien. Like Thom she had excellent, even perfect, recall. Thom has a vast repertoire of oral tradition which struck me as surprising in a world that not only has writing, but even mechanically printed books—but I guess it saves on luggage. And at the end, he is using pen and paper to compose at the entry to Shayol Ghul.

Thom is an “early modern” bard who recites tales of our distant past as well as our recent history, blurring time lines since time is a wheel in Jordan’s world. The events of the series, that we see an alien historian, Loial, record in writing, appear to be in our future, but have so many references to our past.

Also looking to modern times, Thom’s enthralling solo performances are contrasted with the new forms of dramatic storytelling arising in Cairhien (theatre) and Andor (opera)—much to Thom’s disgust.

Bards were revered, even mythologised in some cases: the Welsh bard Taleisin, for instance, who was court bard to three kings and whose life story was blended with legends of Celtic heroes, even that he was a bard at King Arthur's court. In Irish legend, the bard Amairgin could calm a storm with his music, just like Orpheus in Greek myth.


Orpheus

Orpheus was the best musician and poet of Greek mythology—so much so that his music could charm animals, rocks or trees. His preferred instrument was the lyre, an equivalent of the harp, and he was believed to be either a son or student of Apollo. A large amount of Ancient Greek religious poems were attributed to Orpheus.

Orpheus took part in Jason and the Argonauts’ quest to find the Golden Fleece and was crucial in preventing the sailors from being shipwrecked by drowning out the bewitching song of the Sirens with his playing.

Orpheus was one of the few Greek heroes to visit the Underworld and return. His music and song even had power over Hades, stern god of the Underworld. When Orpheus’ wife Eurydice was fatally bitten by a venomous snake as she tried to escape a satyr, Orpheus mourned her so movingly with his playing that the gods and nymphs wept. They suggested Orpheus go into the underworld and plea for her return. Orpheus made that perilous journey and his playing so moved Hades and his wife Persephone that Hades relented and permitted Eurydice to follow behind Orpheus back to the earth, with the stricture that Orpheus must not look upon her until both of them were in the upper world. In his excitement at reaching the surface, he impatiently glanced back at Eurydice and she returned to the Underworld forever.

Thom knows a vast quantity of songs, stories and music, and his preferred instrument by far is the harp. His performances are outstanding, with his listeners able to visualise and feel the events he describes:

He had heard gleemen, performers and bards. Thom made the entire lot seem like children with sticks, banging on pots.
The flute was a simple instrument. A lot of nobles would rather hear the harp instead; one man in Ebou Dar had told Mat the harp was more "elevated." Mat figured he would have gone slack-jawed and saucer-eyed if he had heard Thom play. The gleeman made the flute sound like an extension of his own soul. Soft trills, minor scales and powerfully bold long holds. Such a lamenting melody.

- Towers of Midnight, The Seven-striped Lass

Mat and Ituralde consider Thom to be the best and Mat makes a point of rating Thom’s performances as superior to those of Asmodean (if he had but known who Natael was):

Natael did a fair job of it; nothing like Thom's sonorous recitals, of course, but the rolling words drew a crowd of Aiel thick around the edge of the fire's light.

- The Shadow Rising, Imre Stand

Asmodean has parallels to the Greek god Apollo, and since The Wheel of Time’s Orpheus, Thom, is the better performer, Asmodean continues to not quite live up to expectations.

The quest to rescue Moiraine from the Otherworld of the Finns is a parallel of Orpheus in the Underworld. Thom’s playing was able to drown out the siren voice of the Eelfinn that tried to lure them into its clutches:

Its voice was hypnotic, soothing. It did make sense. What need had they of fire? It was light enough with that mist. It . . .
"Thom," Mat said. "Music."
"What?" Thom said, shaking a little bit.
"Play anything. It doesn't matter what."
Thorn took out his flute, and the Eelfinn narrowed its eyes. Thomn began playing. It was a familiar song, "The Wind That Shakes the Willows." Mat had intended to soothe the Eelfinn, maybe put it off guard. But the familiar tune seemed to help dispel the cloud on Mat's mind.
"This isn't needed," the Eelfinn said, glaring at Thom…
The creature was obviously trying to lull them again, but its cadence was off, at odds with Thom's playing.

- Towers of Midnight, Gateways

Not only did his performance charm the Aelfinn and Eelfinn, it helped Mat concentrate on recalling his previous visit to the Eelfinn and thus find a way out. Appropriately, the songs Thom sang during the rescue were of mourning or lamentations, as was Orpheus’ preference after his Eurydice died:

Thom, looking desperate, unhooked his harp from his back. He began to play it. Mat recognized the tune, "Sweet Whispers of Tomorrow." A mournful sound, played for the fallen dead. It was beautiful.
Remarkably, the music did seem to soothe the Aelfinn. They slowed, the ones at the front beginning to sway to the beat of the melody as they walked. They knew. Thom played for his own funeral.
"I don't know how I got out last time," Mat whispered. "I was unconscious. I woke up being hanged. Rand cut me down."
He raised a hand to his scar. His original Aelfinn answers revealed nothing. He knew about the Daughter of the Nine Moons, he knew about giving up half the light of the world. He knew about Rhuidean, It all made sense. No holes. No questions. Except...
Thom began to sing. "Oh, how long were the days of a man. When he strode upon a broken land."
Mat listened, memories blossoming in his mind. Thom's voice carried him to days long ago. Days in his own memories, days of the memories of others. Days when he had died, days when he had lived, days when he had fought and when he had won.
"I want those holes filled . . ." Mat whispered to himself. "That's what I said. The Eelfinn obliged, giving me memories that were not my own."
Moiraine's eyes had closed again, but she smiled as she listened to Thom's music. Mat had thought Thom was playing for the Aelfinn, but now he wondered if he was playing for Moiraine. A last, melancholy song for a failed rescue.
"He sailed as far as a man could steer," Thom sang, voice sonorous, beautiful. "And he never wished to lose his fear."
"I want those holes filled," Mat repeated, "so they gave me memories. That was my first boon."
"For the fear of man is a thing untold. It keeps him safe, and it proves him bold!"
"I asked something else, not knowing it," Mat said. "I said I wanted to be free of Aes Sedai and the Power. They gave me the medallion for that. Another gift."
"Don't let fear make you cease to strive, for that fear it proves you remain alive!"
"And . . . and I asked for one more thing. I said I wanted to be away from them and back to Rhuidean. The Eelfinn gave me everything I asked for. The memories to fill my holes. The medallion to keep me free from the Power. . . ."
And what? They sent him back to Rhuidean to hang. But hanging was a price, not an answer to his demands.
"I will walk this broken road," Thom sang, voice growing louder, "and I will carry a heavy load!"
"They did give me something else," Mat whispered, looking down at the ashandarei in his hands as the Aelfinn began to hiss more loudly.
Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made. It was carved on the weapon. The blade had two ravens, the shaft inscribed with words in the Old Tongue.
Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades.
Why had they given to him? He had never questioned it. But he had not asked for a weapon.
What was asked is given. The price is paid.
No, I didn't ask for a weapon. I asked for a way out.
And they gave me this.
"So come at me with your awful lies," Thom bellowed the final line of the song. "I'm a man of truth, and I'll meet your eyes!"

- Towers of Midnight, The One Left Behind

Thom’s performance re-focused Mat’s faded memory and enabled them to escape the Otherworld. Except for one they left behind to buy them time. It was Noal who did not return to the earth, not Moiraine.

In some legends, Orpheus was attacked by Maenads, followers of the god Dionysus, for concentrating his worship on the sun god Helios. Orpheus’ music was so enchanting that the sticks and stone the Maenads threw at him refused to hit him and so the women tore him to shreds with their bare hands.

While satyrs are a major source for Shadowspawn such as Myrddraal and Trollocs, the satyr who indirectly cause Eurydice to be killed by a snake represents Lanfear. Maenads are parallels of the Black Ajah, while Dionysus is a parallel of Balthamel, who as Aran’gar instructed the Black sisters with the rebels on how to further the Shadow’s cause. Apostasy, the renunciation of allegiance to the Light (or the Shadow), in The Wheel of Time is a capital offence on both sides for most groups.

However, Thom did not suffer Orpheus’ fate. He helped fulfill the ultimate quest of the series, by guarding he entrance to Shayol Ghul. His beloved Moiraine went into the Underworld along with Rand and Nynaeve to seal the Dark One away. Thom guarded the entry, not to keep the shades of the dead within as Cerberus guards the gates of the Greek underworld, but to keep the Black Ajah out. He paused in his strumming and composition to knife Black sisters.

Once the Dark One was sealed away, Moiraine, Nynaeve and then Rand all returned to the surface. It was Moiraine who looked back over Thom’s shoulder at the closing of the Bore and of Shayol Ghul:

Moiraine burst into open air without realizing it, and almost ran off the edge of the path, which would have sent her stumbling down the steep slope. Someone caught her.
"I have you," Thom's voice said as she collapsed into his arms, completely drained. Nynaeve fell to the ground nearby, gasping.

Thom turned Moiraine away from the corridor, but she refused to look away. She opened her eyes, though she knew that the light was too intense, and she saw something. Rand and Moridin, standing in the light as it expanded outward to consume the entire mountain in its glow.

The blackness in front of Rand hung like a hole, sucking in everything. Slowly, bit by bit, that hole shrank away until it was just a pinprick.

It vanished.

- A Memory of Light, Light and Shadow

So intent was Moiraine on seeing the closing up of this Underworld that Thom had to save her from a serious, if not fatal, fall. Thom’s role here was to enable his Eurydice’s safe return once she had achieved her quest in the Underworld.

Thom fell from a high position to become a wanderer, and with a need to be on guard but with little social standing and resources, gets by on his wits—a trickster by necessity.


Trickster

Trickster figures aspire to enter a social group which excludes them, and use their wiles to do so. While Mat Cauthon is the prime trickster in The Wheel of Time, his mentor and fellow trickster Thom taught him some useful skills and supplied him with some useful knowledge.

Trickster are outsiders in society and are very adaptable in their behaviour. They readily ignore social rules to achieve their aims. Thom is a wandering vagabond minstrel outlawed from his country for shouting at Queen Morgase. He is skilled at disguising himself and is able to imitate the conventions and manners of any nation he is passing through to gain social acceptance and find out what is going on. Thom broke the rules in Cairhien first by ‘breaking cover’ and getting involved too openly with Rand’s group, and then by killing King Galldrian in retribution for Dena’s death. He removed a corrupt king, but started a civil war, which set in motion many critical events of the end of the Age.

Thom tricked the Tairen nobles with expertly forged notes to make them attack each other rather than plot against Rand. Thom is more the magician type of trickster and is not as rebelliously dishevelled as the other Wheel of Time tricksters. Or rather, he can be scruffy when necessary to blend in, but polishes himself up very well, as we saw at his audience with Elayne:

How had the man so perfectly transformed from an old scamp of a gleeman into a royal courtier?

- Towers of Midnight, Talk of Dragons

Symbol

Grey Fox

According to Moiraine, Thom Merrilin was known as the Grey Fox (The Shadow Rising, Deceptions). The fox is one of the most cunning creatures of world mythology, a trickster who may aid or harm mankind. Thom is knowledgeable and manipulative; a skilled player of the Great Game not above a little forgery to help the Dragon Reborn.

In Zoroastrian myth:

the fox has unusual powers including the ability to frighten off demons…[and] in Japan the fox is associated with shapeshifting, trickery and the power to subdue ghosts and vampires.

- John and Caitlin Matthews, Element Encyclopaedia of Magical Creatures

Thom is skilled in disguises and other trickery. He fought a Myrddraal with just a pair of knives and used his skills as a musician and bard to enchant the Eelfinn.

While Thom was named the Grey Fox because he is elderly, it also represents the knowledge and experience he has gained through age. Grey is the colour of neutrality, compromise and negotiations—and more negatively, moral ambiguity. Thom thought he wanted to stand aside and stay out of the way of Aes Sedai and of the Dragon Reborn but was drawn in and used his skills, even his morally ambiguous ones such as forging, to help:

He was glad that he'd not been able to escape, that his attempts to leave Rand, Mat and the others behind had failed.

- A Memory of Light, Two Craftsmen

The colour grey also has connotations of depression and loss, and Thom carries these due to the death of his nephew, Owyn, whom he was not able to help.


Separately and together this magical duo, Thom and Moiraine, mentored a great magus, Rand, and helped him fulfill his Opus to save the world.

_________________________________________

Written by Linda, October 2022

Character Parallels: Nynaeve and Lan

By Linda

One of the most iconic love stories of the series is that of Lan and Nynaeve: the kingly paramount Knight, who was wedded to his quest and bonded to a fairy princess who had renounced her royalty, and the powerful and protective hedge-witch considered too young and rebellious for her role.

It began in mutual respect and rapidly deepened. They had quite a bit in common. Both were orphaned while young. Both were given heavy responsibilities while young. Separately and together, both fought hard against the Shadow and to support Rand and his duty to die saving the world. Lan’s abilities were thoroughly trained and honed, and always recognised and respected. Until Moiraine, he thought he knew his ultimate fate. Nynaeve also thought she knew her fate, although she did not know her abilities and would have been appalled if she had. Partially trained, mostly by herself, she was reluctantly respected.

And their relationship? In one way, the result is that the perfect knight who is emotionally crippled and chronically depressed due to a geas laid on him at birth is given just the medicine he needs by a young witch with a chip on her shoulder; in another, a well-educated warrior widens the horizons of a powerful small-town witch to encompass a national and then universal world view, and she rises to heal and protect the world. Balance. And change. Two major themes of the series.

Their stark but healing reversals were facilitated by Moiraine. As is typical for Moiraine, one of the major agents of change in the series, neither party could appreciate all that she did—the necessity for the changes she wrought—until the climax of the war.


The parallels of Nynaeve and then Lan will be discussed in turn. Here is the outline:

Nynaeve
Arthurian Myth Parallels
Healing Goddesses
Mother Goddesses
Battle and Hunt Mythic Figures
Religious Parallels
Historic Parallels
Symbol
Lan
Arthurian Myth Parallels
Fairy Tale Parallels
Battle Gods
Historic Parallels
Literary Parallel
Lan’s Surname
Symbols


NYNAEVE


Mythic Parallels

Arthurian Myth Parallels

The Wheel of Time is deeply rooted in Arthurian mythology—was based on it in the early drafts—and Nynaeve has aspects of three Arthurian figures: Nimue, the Lady of the Lake and the Grail Maiden.


Grail Maiden

The San Greal or Holy Grail, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper, is the ultimate quest for the knights of King Arthur’s court. A closely-related sacred object in Celtic mythology is a magical cauldron that can miraculously feed and heal. In Arthurian tradition, a Grail Maiden is often seen accompanying the Holy Grail whenever it makes itself manifest, usually as the bearer of the vessel.

Sa’angreal, prized objects which can grant a select few access to the greatest amounts of the One Power, are parallels of the San Greal. They are hallowed objects for channellers. The Sea Folk’s hallowed object, the Bowl of Winds ter’angreal, is a reference to the Celts’ sacred cauldron. Nynaeve is the only person who has participated in the use of all these hallowed objects of the Power: the Bowl of Winds to undo the Dark One’s distortion of the seasons and to heal and restore the Land, the Choedan Kal to cleanse saidin, and Callandor to seal the Dark One away.

The female Choedan Kal is the sa’angreal, the San Greal vessel, that provides the ultimate amount of the feminine half of the Source, but Nynaeve herself is a hallowed vessel for saidar, since she provides the link and access to that source and Heals to a miraculous degree.

She was acting as a conduit for far more of saidar than the entire White Tower could have handled using every angreal and sa'angreal the Tower possessed.

- Winter’s Heart, With the Choedan Kal

Nynaeve enables Rand to remove the taint from saidin so that male channellers could once again be equal partners in using magic to fight the Shadow and aid humanity. A paramount Grail Maiden.


Lady of the Lake

The Lady of the Lake is the title used by several fairy-like figures in Arthurian myth that made important contributions to King Arthur’s life: providing Arthur with the sword Excalibur, eliminating Merlin, raising Sir Lancelot after the death of his father King Ban, and helping to take the dying Arthur to Avalon.

The Lady of the Lake taught Lancelot du Lac about courtly love and the duties of a true knight. In Arthurian myth, Lancelot got his epithet from his foster-mother the Lady of the Lake, whereas in the Wheel of Time world, it is the other way around—Nynaeve married Lan, the Lord of the Thousand Lakes. Nynaeve’s surname al’Meara is similar to the words “of the mere”, of the lake, linking her to the Lady of the Lake as well as foreshadowing her married title of Nynaeve, Lady of the Thousand Lakes.

Nynaeve taught Lan to love:

”You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no room for anything else. You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones.”

- The Shadow Rising, Leavetakings

When Morgan le Fay stole Excalibur from Arthur, and gave the magical sword to her lover, Accolon of Gaul, it was the Lady of the Lake who rescued the king when he was losing his duel with Accolon by knocking Excalibur out of Accolon's hand with her magic. Nynaeve rescued Rand from Rahvin by distracting the Forsaken, and when Moridin killed Alanna and seized Callandor (equivalent to Excalibur) from Rand in the Pit of Doom it was Nynaeve who kept Alanna alive long enough for the Green sister to release Rand’s bond so he did not go insane.

The Lady later became the guardian of Excalibur, when the dying Arthur returned the sword to the lake. It was Cadsuane rather than Nynaeve who took this role at the end of Winter’s Heart, ‘securing’ Callandor. However, Nynaeve and Moiraine helped Rand trap Moridin to use it against the Dark One in the Pit of Doom, which is a lake of lava. After the Dark One was sealed away, no one knows what became of Callandor. Presumably it remained there beside the lava lake in the cave.

The Lady of the Lake was one of four ladies who took the dying Arthur on a boat to be healed in Avalon. However, in The Wheel of Time three women are prophesied to be on a boat with Rand: Elayne, Aviendha and Min (see Foretellings article).

For more information on Arthurian parallels see Matter of Britain: Arthurian Myth Parallels and Arthurian Who's Who essays).


Nimue

Nynaeve also has parallels to Nimue (also spelled Niniane, Viviane, Nyneve and similar variants) of Arthurian myth, a budding enchantress who takes on the role of Lady of the Lake at Avalon after her predecessor is slain at the hands of Sir Balin le Savage. In Arthurian legend, Nimue mistrusts the scheming and morally ambivalent Morgan le Fay and looks to expose her machinations. She also has problems with Merlin, who falls in love with her and wants her for his mistress. Nimue convinces Merlin to teach her magic and then uses it against him when she grows weary of his advances, sealing him in a cave from which “he came never out for all the craft he could do” (Le Morte D’Arthur, Book IV, Chapter I). At first, Nimue’s ethics are just as questionable as those of Morgan le Fay and of Merlin. Having removed Morgan and Merlin from Arthur’s life, she then uses her magic for good, especially to aid Arthur and his knights.

Nynaeve has problematic relationships with Morgan le Fay’s parallel Moiraine and with Merlin (in this case, Merlin’s equivalent is the Amyrlin). The positive Merlin figure, Thom Merrilyn, who is NOT keen on Aes Sedai when the story begins, she respects. His future wife, though…

In the beginning, Nynaeve was very suspicious of Moiraine, and took her to task for leading the young Edmond’s Fielders away from their village with her and placing them in danger. At this stage, Moiraine was both a Morgan le Fay and Merlin figure (and also an abducting fairy) in their lives, protecting and guiding them, but in a secretive and morally ambivalent way (see Moiraine in Arthurian Who’s Who essay). Moiraine taught Nynaeve that she was a magic user also and could become one of the despised Aes Sedai, and Amyrlin Siuan goaded Nynaeve to openly channel “on screen” in a way that could not be passed off as something natural (The Great Hunt, The White Tower). Nynaeve wanted to use what Moiraine and the Aes Sedai had taught her against them (The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn). From this low point in her behaviour, Nynaeve eventually comes to understand and accept the necessity of Moiraine’s actions and to appreciate, even if reluctantly, what she was trying to accomplish in the War against the Shadow.

Nynaeve admired Moiraine’s self-sacrifice for Rand’s sake and publicly embraced her at Merrilor, to Moiraine’s surprise, when Moiraine “returned from the dead”. In Nynaeve’s mind, Rand’s care and protection was always paramount. And Nynaeve and Moiraine together enter the dark cavern of Shayol Ghul with Rand, leaving the Merlin figure Thom Merrilin to guard the entrance, and find a dark Merlin, Moridin/Myrddin already within.

Nimue intervenes to save Arthur from sorceresses on three different occasions. Nynaeve directly intervened on Rand’s behalf during his battle with Rahvin in Caemlyn, and her positive support helped save him from annihilating himself and everything when he became extremely dark after accidentally linking to Moridin, as Rand acknowledged. The third time was at Shayol Ghul, where Nynaeve kept Alanna alive to prevent Rand from going mad from Alanna’s death. Three times makes a charm.

Another parallel between Nynaeve and Nimue is an episode involving Nimue, the Lady Ettard, and Sir Pelleas.

Sir Pelleas, who later becomes a Knight of the Round Table, loves the Lady Ettard almost beyond reason, but the Lady Ettard does not return his feelings, and in fact actively dislikes him and treats him contemptibly, even though Sir Pelleas is a fine, honorable knight. When Nimue learns of Sir Pelleas’ plight, she throws an enchantment upon the Lady Ettard while she sleeps which causes her to awaken loving Sir Pelleas as deeply as he did her. She also throws an enchantment upon Sir Pelleas while he sleeps which causes him to awaken hating the Lady Ettard as much as she did him. In the end, the Lady Ettard gets a full taste of her own medicine and eventually dies of a broken heart, and Nimue takes Sir Pelleas as her knight champion/consort.

While this works for Nynaeve, Moiraine, and Lan only on a very superficial level as a parallel for Nimue and Nynaeve both winning a champion/consort from another woman, it more closely fits Myrelle as the Lady Ettard. Myrelle held Lan’s bond for a time, and wanted to keep him as her own, even though Lan had absolutely no interest in her whatsoever, and had not agreed to his bond being passed to Myrelle. Unlike the Lady Ettard, however, Myrelle had promised Moiraine not to keep her Sir Pelleas Lan, but to pass him on to an Aes Sedai in need of a Warder, and was thus able to reconcile herself to his loving another woman and to giving him up to her. Just as well, since the moment Nyaneve passed her test for the shawl she confronted Myrelle outside the Black Tower and insisted on having Lan’s bond passed to her (Towers of Midnight, A Choice).


Goddesses

As a major character who is one of the most powerful channellers, Nynaeve has parallels to important goddesses of healing and also of motherhood and dominion.


Healing Goddesses and Gods

Isis

Originally an obscure goddess who lacked her own dedicated temples, Isis became one of the most important deities of ancient Egypt. Her cult subsequently spread throughout the entire Roman Empire and she is still revered by pagans today. Isis's reputation as a compassionate deity, concerned to relieve human suffering, contributed greatly to her appeal. Nynaeve rose from obscurity to heal the world by helping to restore the seasons, cleanse saidin and seal the Dark One away. Rand commended her caring and compassionate nature and asked her to never suppress it.

Isis was married to her brother, the divine king Osiris, but he was captured and killed by his jealous brother Set and his corpse dismembered. Isis and her sister Nephthys searched for the pieces of their brother's body and reassembled it. Isis is the epitome of a mourning widow. Her and Nephthys's love and grief for their brother helped restore him to life, as did Isis's great skill with magic. Nynaeve’s care of Rand and of his supporters helped keep Rand sane after he was corrupted by his link with Moridin. She mourned at Rand’s bedside as his body lay dying. In a way, she was his chief mourner, since Elayne, Min and Aviendha knew he was not dead.

Isis was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped her husband Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was likened to her son Horus. She restored the living to health and the souls of the dead to wholeness as she had done for Osiris, and also acted as a mother in the living world and the afterlife/world of the dead, providing protection and nourishment. Isis's actions in protecting Osiris against Set became part of a larger, more warlike aspect of her character, and inspired Kings to call upon her powers of protection against human enemies. Nynaeve’s determination and skill to Heal almost anything and to fight to protect the Light is paramount but she was also the only person with the courage and protective instinct to call out Rand for committing the atrocity of large-scale balefire, thereby contributing to his epiphany and saving the world from annihilation. She was there with Rand at the entrance to the Dark One’s underworld and helped Rand do his task of saving the world even though he would die from it.

As mourner (see illustration right), she was a principal deity in rites connected with the dead; as magical healer, she cured the sick and brought the deceased to life; and as mother, she was a role model for all women. We have seen Nynaeve undertake all these roles

In Ptolemaic times Isis was believed to influence the entire cosmos. Over the series, Nynaeve grows to this level. Jordan split Isis between Nynaeve (powerful magic user who protects Osiris, a parallel of Rand and Heals all) and Tuon (divine Queen/Empress as well as mother of her people who has the potential to channel—perhaps even powerfully).

In many spells in the Pyramid Texts, Isis and Nephthys help the deceased king reach the afterlife. The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead describes Isis as protecting deceased souls as they face the dangers in the Duat, the realm of the dead. Likewise, Nynaeve and Min help Rand face the psychological danger of the taint and his link with Moridin; and Nynaeve and Moiraine help Rand face the dangers of the Dark One at the underworld of Shayol Ghul.

Using her magical powers, Isis was able to make Osiris whole, and neither living nor dead—a mummy. Nynaeve’s Healing skills were regarded as “almost miraculous” by other Aes Sedai, but she didn’t transmigrate Rand’s soul. Nor did any other channeller. Transmigration is an example of Wrongness in the Wheel of Time world unless both parties want it. (Rand and Moridin each desired their fates and the Creator personally undertook their mutual transmigration as a concession.) But Nynaeve protected and aided Rand in staying alive at Shayol Ghul, and in subjugating Moridin/Set. Rand/Osiris is also both alive and dead: his soul and mind are alive, but his body is dead.

Isis was the most powerful magic user of the Egyptian deities. Several narratives rate her magical powers as stronger than those of Osiris. She was frequently invoked to help the sick, and, with the goddesses Nephthys (Berelain in this context as she ran the field hospital in Mayene during the Last Battle) and Neith (this arrow-bearing goddess is a parallel of Birgitte, who helped Elayne and Nynaeve from the land of the dead Heroes) she protected the dead. Isis became known, like other fierce goddesses in Ancient Egypt, as the “Eye of Re” and was equated with the Dog Star, Sirius. Nynaeve’s surname also links her with Sirius (see below).


Sekhmet

Another Egyptian goddess who was regarded as an “Eye of Ra”, a protector of the chief god’s realm and dispenser of vengeance, was Sekhmet, a warrior goddess as well as a goddess of healing. She is depicted as a lioness and protected the pharaohs and led his forces in warfare. After their death, Sekhmet continued to protect the pharaohs, bearing them to the afterlife.

When Lan professed his love for Nynaeve, he accurately described her as a lioness due to her fierce protective nature (The Eye of the World, The Blight).

Sekhmet was appealed to for protection against disease, but also had her dark side. She was blood-thirsty and was believed to cause plagues. In Nynaeve, the positive aspects of Sekhmet, the protection and healing, are uppermost, although she does have a tendency to bully others, whereas Semirhage embodies Sekhmet’s negative aspects, bringing pain and torture as a price for her healing.


Aesclepius

Asclepius is an Ancient Greek hero and god of medicine. The son of the sun god Apollo, he was educated in medicine by the centaur Chiron and become so proficient that he surpassed both his teacher Chiron and his father, Apollo. He was therefore able to evade death and to bring others back to life from the brink of death or beyond. Nynaeve is largely self-taught, and surpasses the Aes Sedai of the Yellow Ajah.

The daughters of Asclepius are Hygieia (the goddess of hygiene, cleanliness—Nynaeve insisted on cleaned hands when attending the injured after Winternight), Aegle (the goddess of good health—Nynaeve uses herbs as well as Healing), Panacea (the goddess of universal remedy—the One Power is like an elixir of life, especially its Healing weaves), Aceso (the goddess of the healing process—Nynaeve rediscovered and developed Healing with five powers), and Iaso (the goddess of recuperation from illness—Nynaeve’s five powers Healing requires less recuperation than regular Aes Sedai Healing).

In some myths Asclepius was among those who took part in the Hunt for the Calydonian Boar, a fierce animal that was ravaging Calydon in central Greece with lightning. The Hunt was remarkable in Greek myth because among the heroes was a woman, the huntress Atalanta, a proxy for the goddess Artemis. Artemis sent the boar in the first place to punish the Calydonians…playing both sides of the board, just like the Shadow (some of whom have parallels to Ancient Greek gods and goddesses). Some of the men in the Hunt were outraged a woman was among them, especially when she outperformed them; and refused to fight because she was present and then tried to take the prize from her after she earned it. It all degenerated into in-fighting. The division of male and female Aes Sedai over battle plans in the war against the Shadow carries over into the Third Age in the form of unproductive antagonism between male and female channellers and between rival groups of channellers and is actively promoted by the Shadow.

After telling Nynaeve she was a fool for trying to Heal beyond what standard Aes Sedai Healing and knowledge could do, the Yellows then criticised her technique after they manipulated her into demonstrating to them:

Finally Nynaeve understood. Finally everything came together. The Yellow sisters' presence. Sheriam and Myrelle believing, then not believing, threatening her, snapping at her. It was all apurpose, all to make her angry enough to work her Healing on Siuan and Leane, to prove herself to the Yellows. No. By their faces, they were here to see her fail, not succeed…
She had believed that nonsense, even the barrel! They had manipulated her like a puppet!...
The rest of the room was staring at Nynaeve. The shock shining through all that Aes Sedai serenity was quite satisfying, and the disgruntlement too. Shanelle's eyes, pale blue in a dark pretty face, seemed about to fall out of her head. Nisao's mouth hung open, until she saw Nynaeve looking at her and snapped it shut.
"What made you think of using Fire?" Dagdara asked in a strangled voice that sounded entirely too high for such a big woman. "And Earth? You used Earth. Healing is Spirit, Water and Air." That opened the floodgate, questions from every throat, but they were all the same question really, just phrased differently.
"I don't know why," Nynaeve replied when she found an opening. "It just seemed right. I've almost always used everything." Which produced a round of admonitions. Healing was Spirit, Water and Air. It was dangerous to experiment with Healing; a mistake could kill not only you but your patient. She said nothing in reply, but the warnings died off quickly in rueful glances and smoothed skirts; she had not killed anyone, and she had Healed what they said could not be Healed…
A murmur rose among the Yellows, and Nynaeve prepared to bask in their compliments. She would accept their apologies gracefully. Then she heard what they were saying.
"... used Fire and Earth as if she were trying to bore a hole through stone." That from Dagdara.
"A smoother touch would be better," Shanelle agreed.
"... see where Fire might be useful in problems with the heart," Therva said, tapping her long nose.
Beldemaine, a plump Arafellin with silver bells in her hair, nodded thoughtfully.
"... if the Earth were combined with Air just so, you see...."
"... Fire woven into Water...."
"... Earth blended with the Water..."
Nynaeve gaped. They had forgotten her completely. They thought they could do what she had just showed them better than she could!
Myrelle patted her arm. "You did very well," she murmured. "Don't worry; they will be all praises later. Right now, they are still a little taken aback."

- Lord of Chaos, To Heal Again

This situation is a blend of Asclepius and Atalanta.

The original Hippocratic Oath taken by medical practitioners began with the invocation "I swear by Apollo the Physician and by Asclepius and by Hygieia and Panacea and by all the gods ...".


Hippocrates

Hippocrates is the Greek physician of antiquity who is traditionally regarded as the father of medicine:

Throughout his life Hippocrates appears to have travelled widely in Greece and Asia Minor practicing his art and teaching his pupils, and he presumably taught at the medical school at Cosquite frequently. Undoubtedly Hippocrates was a historical figure, a great physician who exercised a permanent influence on the development of medicine and on the ideals and ethics of the physician.

- Encyclopaedia Britannica

Nynaeve moved around the nations, not waiting in the White Tower for people to come to her. She had a huge influence in redeveloping Aes Sedai Healing knowledge and skills, even surpassing Age of Legends Healers by restoring stilled channellers’ ability to channel—giving them back their lives, according to Siuan. She has taught her weaves to the current Aes Sedai and brought about a huge expansion of Aes Sedai healing knowledge and skill:

"This truly is Nynaeve's most remarkable discovery," Myrelle said. "The Yellows are taking what she has done and making their own marvels, but she began it."

- Lord of Chaos Journey to Salidar

In the Hippocratic Oath associated with his name, physicians pledge to prescribe only beneficial treatments to the best of their abilities and judgment; to refrain from causing harm or hurt; and to live a model personal and professional life. Nynaeve personifies the Hippocratic Oath, doing her utmost to Heal people and protect them, while her dark opposite, Semirhage represents those physicians who violate their Hippocratic Oaths that they should have followed.


Mother Goddesses


Nana

During her journey with Elayne to hunt the Black Ajah, Nynaeve used the alias of Nana. Nana was an ancient Mesopotamian and Central Asian mother-queen goddess who was conflated with the similarly named Inanna/Ishtar in some eras and also with the Greek goddess Artemis. She annually mourned the death of her divine lover, the vegetation god, who died a martyr. Her tears were instrumental in his rebirth. For the Assyrians, Nana was queen of the world and giver of life.

No wonder Nana was furious at having to attend to the ‘Lady Morelin’s’ needs! Nynaeve is the queen of Malkier, a prominent leader and Healer in the war against the Shadow, and one of the most powerful of the queenly Aes Sedai. She has given many their lives back. Nynaeve was unable to Heal Rand, the Creator’s champion who was one with the Land and sacrificed himself for the world. Nor was she aware that Rand’s soul was transmigrated into Moridin’s body and mourned his passing.

In the Pakistan-Afghanistan area in the second century CE, Nana was depicted as a seated martial goddess with a lion alongside, and was associated with fertility, wisdom and rivers. Nynaeve, a lioness among women, was Wisdom in the Two Rivers…

Nana became one of the venerated females of Zoroastrianism. In Zoroastrianism, a religion originating in Persia prior to 600 BC, the benign god of light, Ahura Mazda or Ohrmazd, and his angels contend throughout time with the god of darkness, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman (Ahura Mazda’s evil twin) and his demons. Ahura Mazda appears with three masculine archangels on his right, and three feminine archangels on his left, while he himself is both father and mother of creation (Omens of Millennium, Harold Bloom). The idea of the supporting angels and demons also occurs in the Wheel of Time’s theology: there were three masculine beings with extraordinary powers rallying the Light’s forces (Rand, Mat and Perrin). A trio of feminine ‘angels’ crucial in the Light’s victory at the Last Battle was Egwene, Nynaeve and Moiraine. Nynaeve and Moiraine helped the Creator’s champion seal the god of darkness away and restore the Pattern. Egwene patched over the most damaged areas of the Pattern.


Guanyin

Guanyin is the Buddhist mother goddess who is revered as the goddess of mercy, compassion and kindness. She has miraculous powers to aid others, as does Nynaeve. Guanyin is sometimes depicted standing atop a dragon. Egwene and many Tower Aes Sedai thought that Nynaeve had been with the Dragon too long, and was too influenced by him. However, her assertion that the Dragon had asked her to be with him when he faced the Dark One in Shayol Ghul made them realise that such honour would reflect on the White Tower also… and that if they failed Nynaeve and she then helped Rand sealed the Dark One away, they would not have that reflected honour.

Rand advised and encouraged Nynaeve to be true to her compassionate nature and not be detached like most Aes Sedai. It was good advice, unlike the Sitters’ criticism of Nynaeve’s lack of composure and calm when she exerted herself trying to save people during her test for the shawl. So while Nynaeve has done her best to support Rand, he has also given her confidence to gain the shawl as herself and not try to conform to White Tower stereotypes.


Battle and Hunt Mythic Figures

Maera

While Nynaeve’s surname al’Meara is a real-world surname, it also has a few mythological parallels:

In Greek mythology, Maera was the hound of Icarius, and was turned into the Dog Star, Sirius. Icarius was a follower of the wine god Dionysus and was killed by shepherds while on his travels. His daughter Erigone was worried about her father, and set off with Maera to find him. Maera led her to his grave, and both were so overcome with grief that they each killed themselves. Dionysus placed them in the sky as the constellations Virgo (Erigone), Boötes (Icarius), and Sirius (Maera). Nynaeve was one of Siuan’s three hounds hunting the Black Ajah. Min had a viewing of Nynaeve grieving over a corpse. This was Rand’s body in which Moridin’s soul had died.

Another Maera in Greek mythology was the daughter of Proetus and a companion of the virgin goddess of the Hunt Artemis. When Maera became Zeus’ lover, Artemis killed her because she was no longer a virgin. Nynaeve has excellent woods-craft skills, befitting a friend of the goddess of the hunt. (These skills are also consistent with the hound Maera). Zeus is a parallel of Rand and Artemis here represents the cloistered White Tower. Nynaeve was considered by Egwene and the White Tower to have spent too much time with Rand, who asked her to keep her strong, caring emotions when she re-joined the Aes Sedai, and she nearly failed her test for the shawl for showing these same emotions.

Many of Nynaeve’s mythological parallels are linked with Artemis, the Ancient Greek virgin goddess of the Hunt. Nynaeve never expected to marry:

"A Wisdom seldom weds." She paused to take a deep breath, as if steeling herself. "But if I go to Tar Valon, it may be that I will be something other than a Wisdom."
"Aes Sedai marry as seldom as Wisdoms. Few men can live with so much power in a wife, dimming them by her radiance whether she wishes to or not."

- The Eye of the World, The Blight

not because she was against marriage, but because she hadn’t met a man she loved and respected in the Two Rivers and who returned that love and respect. As Lan told her, Aes Sedai seldom marry also. Currently, only one Ajah actually permits marriage. Nynaeve ended up being one of the first, if not the first, Yellow sister to marry.

Maera was also an alternative spelling for Mara, the demon in Buddhist teachings who tempted Buddha with illusions. Mara personifies unskilfulness and distraction from the spiritual life. Nynaeve greatly objected to the way Aes Sedai scheme, manipulate and mislead others ( The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn) instead of using their skills to help people. Had the Sitters been stupid enough to fail her test for the shawl, as they nearly were, Nynaeve’s exclusion would have highlighted the Tower’s inadequacies. Egwene stepped in and subtly pointed this out.


Eir

With Rand having parallels to the Norse god Thor, some of the women characters battling the Shadow are like Valkyries ( Birgitte, Siuan, Faile and Berelain) or Norse goddesses (Tuon, Min, Elayne, Faile and Berelain). Eir is a Norse goddess or Valkyrie associated with medical skill. Her name means help, protection or mercy. The Valkyries are female supernatural figures who guide the souls of the deceased Nordic warriors either to Freya’s afterlife or to Odin’s Hall of Valhalla. They are brave and loyal and dedicated to helping, qualities that Nynaeve has. Most Valkyries chose who died in battle, but Eir chose who would live and return to health. Nynaeve hates people to die unless it is in their bed at the end of a long life. She is highly protective as well as dedicated to healing every ill that people suffer.


Religious Parallels


Mary

When Nynaeve was introduced to Masema in his role of the Prophet announcing the advent of the Dragon, he immediately proclaimed her blessed among women for her role:

“This is Nynaeve al’Meara,” Uno said quickly into the first pause for breath. “From Emond’s Field, in the Two Rivers, whence the Lord Dragon comes.” Masema’s head turned slowly to the one-eyed man, and she hastily took the opportunity to re-do the shawl as she had had it. “She was at Fal Dara with the Lord Dragon, and at Falme. The Lord Dragon rescued her at Falme. The Lord Dragon cares for her as for a mother.”
Another time, she would have given him a few choice words, and maybe a well-boxed ear. Rand had not rescued her—or not exactly, anyway—and she was only a handful of years older than he. A mother, indeed!
Masema turned back to her. The zealous light that had burned in his eyes before was nothing to what was there now. They almost glowed.
“Nynaeve. ‘Yes.” His voice quickened. “Yes! I remember your name, and your face. Blessed are you among women, Nynaeve al’Meara, none more so save the blessed mother of the Lord Dragon herself, for you watched the Lord Dragon grow. You attended the Lord Dragon as a child.” He seized her arms, hard fingers biting in painfully, but he seemed unaware of it. “You will speak to the crowds of the Lord Dragon’s boyhood, of his first words of wisdom, of the miracles that accompanied him. The Light has sent you here to serve the Lord Dragon.”

- Fires of Heaven, Encounters in Samara

Masema is a parallel of John the Baptist, although a very dark version, who preached about the Lord Dragon, a Messiah figure with some parallels to Christ. As much as Nynaeve hated to admit it at that stage, Rand did also return Nynaeve’s aid, and even gave her useful advice. Masema recognised that Nynaeve played a motherly or protective role to Rand. She very much does protect and support him as the series progresses.

Nynaeve is blessed with her channelling strength and skills, and heals others almost miraculously as even Aes Sedai concede.


Historic Parallels


Valerian

Moghedien’s threat to Nynaeve that she would use her as a live mounting block:

“Oh, I do mean to make you pay for that, Nynaeve al'Meara. This has been such a cozy hiding place, and those blind women have a number of very useful items in their possession even if they do not—" She shook her head, lips peeling back to bare her teeth in a snarl. "I think I will take you with me this time. I know. I shall keep you for a live mounting block. You will be brought out to kneel on all fours so I can step from your back to my saddle.”

- The Shadow Rising, Into The Palace

has an historical precedent. The Roman emperor Valerian (~195–260 or 264 CE) was captured by the Persian Emperor, Shapur I, the first Roman emperor to be made a prisoner of war, to the great shock of the Roman Empire. He was believed to have been in slavery for some years and was humiliatingly forced to kneel to provide a mounting block for Shapur to step on to mount his horse.

The Utopian Age of Legends has some parallels to the Ancient Roman Republic, which was regarded as a Golden Age up until modern times. Correspondingly, many enemies and notorious figures of Ancient Rome are parallels of the Forsaken (see Ancient Rome parallels for Forsaken) as Moghedien is here.


Symbol


Lioness

Lan described Nynaeve as a lioness:

“You are a remarkable woman, as beautiful as the sunrise, as fierce as a warrior. You are a lioness, Wisdom."

- The Eye of the World, The Blight

an animal regarded as fiercely protective of the young. Nynaeve’s motivation for leaving the Two Rivers was to protect the four young Emonds Fielders from Moiraine’s machinations. Lions were believed to sleep with their eyes open and thus symbolise vigilance. They also represent fortitude, dignity and courage, qualities admired in Nynaeve by her companions, although most characters were wary of Nynaeve’s fierce temper.

Negative qualities associated with the lion are pride, ferocity and tyranny. Nynaeve has a ferocious temper and is a bully at times, especially in the early books.


LAN

Lan was Rand’s mentor in the early books, and his abilities elevated him above the Emond’s Fielders and indeed above most people. This, plus his unfulfillable duty, made him remote and intimidating. The Uncrowned, who denies he is a king because his kingdom is dead, is the king of forlorn hope that fights on anyway. His situation is closest to that of Rand and illustrates best to Rand what to become and what not to become. The horror of the Shadow’s corruption of Rand is that in his darkest days, Rand abandoned his mentor.


Mythic Parallels


Arthurian Myth Parallels

Just as Rand’s closes parallel from the first draft of the first book was King Arthur, (indeed, the series was mainly Arthurian in plot outline well into the drafts of the first two books) so Lan is a parallel of Sir Lancelot du Lac.


Lancelot Du Lac

Sir Lancelot was the son of King Ban of Benwick and Queen Elaine but was raised by the Lady of the Lake from whom he obtained his epithet of du Lac (of the lake). He was the paramount Knight of the Round Table, the best fighter and swordsman there, yet willing to serve others, and he never failed in chivalry or courage.

Lan is also peerless in his fighting prowess. He is the best of the Warders and one of the top Blademasters:

If you must enter the Blight, and with only a few, there is no man better to take you there, nor to bring you safely out again. He is the best of the Warders, and that means the best of the best.

- The Eye of the World, More Tales of the Wheel

At the Last Battle, Lan’s forces and Lan himself, saw more fighting than anyone else. It is their fighting above all other abilities for which Lan and Lancelot are prized.

Many of Lan’s life events are similar to those of Lancelot:

• Both Lan and Lancelot are of royal birth; Lan the son of King al'Akir and Queen el'Leanna of Malkier, Lancelot the son of King Ban and Queen Elaine of Benoic, but were carried off to be fostered by others. Lancelot's father died of sorrow after his seneschal betrayed him to the King of the Wastelands, who usurped his kingdom and took his cousins hostage. Lan's parents and kingdom were betrayed by Darkfriends and lost to the Shadow. Malkier became part of the Blight, the Shadow’s wasteland, and its people were dispersed. Lan’s young cousin Isam was taken to the Town in the Blight.



• Lancelot was fostered and raised in Avalon by a sorceress, the Lady of the Lake, ignorant of his identity; he was known only as King’s Son. Lan was fostered and raised in Shienar in the royal palace and denied his royal title for many years. He was called the Uncrowned as a result. By binding himself to an Aes Sedai sorceress of Tar Valon as her Warder, Lan moved further away from being a king. Rather than being his foster-mother, Nynaeve, Lady of the Thousand Lakes, is his Aes Sedai, wife and queen. Lancelot gained his epithet from his foster-mother, whereas Nynaeve gained her title from marrying Lan.



• Lancelot was given a ring by the Lady of the Lake, his fairy foster-mother, which allowed him to remove any magic (Chretien de Troyes, Le Chevalier à la charrette). Lan gave Nynaeve his ring of kingship so that she could obtain aid if she needed it (The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn), and she used it to rally the Borderlands to Lan. When he went to fight Demandred, Lan took a medallion that negated direct magic weaves that Berelain sent to him to return to Mat Cauthon.



• Both Lan and Lancelot are associated with unrequited or illicit love: Lancelot had a long-term adulterous affair with his lady Queen Guinevere, the wife of his king and liege lord, no less, and was in turn loved hopelessly by Elaine the Fair Maid of Astolat who tended him when he was seriously wounded, and by Elaine of Corbenic, the daughter of the Fisher King, who tried everything she could think of to get Lancelot to love her and eventually deceived him into making love to her by disguising herself as Guinevere. Lancelot and Guinevere’s relationship was a major contributor to the fall of Arthur’s kingdom, and the death of many, which is why a deeply penitent Guinevere left Lancelot and joined a convent.
  
  Lan was loved and pursued by many women when younger, and was nearly sucked into marrying the daughter of his first lover in New Spring. He considered himself unworthy to marry Nynaeve because he was bonded to Moiraine and to his fight against the Blight and had nothing to offer Nynaeve except pain and grief. Myrelle nursed Lan through his mental illness after his Warder bond was broken by the destruction of the redstone doorway. The transfer of Lan’s bond from Moiraine to Myrelle was illicit, since his permission was not asked, although Moiraine did eventually inform him that it would happen if she were killed. Lan felt tricked and betrayed by Moiraine over this. Myrelle wanted to keep Lan as her Warder, but was bound by her promise to Moiraine to pass his bond on to another Aes Sedai in need of a Warder. Nynaeve determined she would be that Aes Sedai, since she had already married Lan, the only Yellow Sister to marry that we know of, and her husband Bonded as a Warder to another woman at the time. She turned up at Myrelle’s tent straight after she was raised to the shawl threatening her with violence (including with the One Power) if she did not pass his Bond over. The White Tower has parallels to 15‒16th century Catholic convents, despite Tar Valon having an Arthurian name.
  
  Try as they might—and they are mighty men—Lancelot and Lan cannot suppress their feelings, especially when their knightly code of chivalry requires them to submit to the wishes of their ladies. Guinevere gives Lancelot her ring, Lan gives Nynaeve his ring. In New Spring, we see that Malkieri social customs are similar to the high medieval chivalric code. (On the other hand, Shienar, where Lan was raised, follows bushido, the Japanese samurai code, below).



• Both men are held against their will by women. In Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Morgan le Fay was in love with Lancelot, and imprisoned him to try and force him to become her lover, but he refused and managed to escape. She and three other queens kidnapped Lancelot. Moiraine, a parallel of Morgan le Fay, bonded Lan as her Warder, but was not in love with him. She knew that Lan and Nynaeve loved each other, but would not release the bond until she had achieved her quest or died in the attempt. She altered Lan’s bond without his knowledge or consent so that it would automatically transfer to Myrelle upon her death. Myrelle would love to have kept Lan as a Warder but had promised Moiraine she would pass his bond on to a young Aes Sedai in need of a Warder and she was bound by the Three Oaths to keep that promise. Nynaeve pressured Myrelle to transfer Lan’s bond to her.



• Lancelot and Lan rescue their beloved from deadly situations. Lan pulls Nynaeve from the river after Moghedien balefired the boat carrying her, and Lancelot pulls Guinevere out of the fire when she is condemned to burn at the stake for committing adultery with him. Lancelot also rescues Guinevere from Meleagant, who abducted her, crossing the perilous Sword Bridge to Meleagant’s castle do so. The Wheel of Time’s Meleagant, Demandred, did not capture Nynaeve, Lan’s Guinevere, but he did order two other Guinevere figures, Egwene al’Vere and Elayne, to be killed. Lancelot fought Meleagant three separate times before killing him and this is paralleled by the three “Arthurian” knights who attempted to kill Demandred, with Lan the ultimate and successful duellist to face Demandred. For Lan, the Sword Bridge to Meleagant’s castle is represented by the ring of Shadowspawn surrounding Demandred’s command post—so many blades to dodge. Lan crashed through the gap in the Trolloc wall that the Two Rivers arrows of fire made to reach Demandred and kill him. Meleagant manipulated Lancelot into granting him an advantage: he would only fight their third and final duel if Lancelot removed his helmet and his left side body armour and had his left hand tied behind his back. Lan felt very disadvantaged against an almost immortal and strong channeller (even with his weave-breaking device) when he was so tired from fighting all day and had some strength drained by Healing. In contrast, Demandred had his fatigue eased by his Sharan channellers and by meditating at spare moments.


• Both win a duel with a ruthless Knight against extreme odds. Meleagant knew very well who he was fighting, but Demandred did not. This has its parallel in Lancelot’s quest to kill another villainous knight, the Copper Knight Brandin of Dolorous Gard, early in his career, when Lancelot did not know his own true identity. Brandin felt that he was invincible since any challengers had to singlehandedly defeat ten knights at the first wall and ten at the second before they duelled with Brandin. To counter such unfair tactics, the Lady of the Lake sent three shields, each of which gave increased strength, to Lancelot via a maiden. With these magic devices, Lancelot was able to defeat the knights at both walls and free Dolorous Gard from the Copper Knight. The castle was renamed Joyous Gard and claimed by Lancelot as his own. Lan was at a disadvantage to Demandred in having fought hard all day prior to their duel, although he had obtained a ter’angreal via Berelain that protected him from direct weaves, and his Warder Bond to Nynaeve, Lady of the Thousand Lakes, increased his strength and endurance. The immense losses inflicted at the Field of Merrilor and the Heights upon the Light’s armies by Demandred’s forces qualify the area as the Dolorous Gard, but the Blight is even more dolorous. Lan’s victory over Demandred gave Rand the heart to battle on against the Dark One, and, just as important, insight into the true nature of that fight. This had the immediate effect of easing the Blighting of the Land around Shayol Ghul.
  
  Lan’s own nation was consumed by the Blight when he was a baby, but after the Dark One was sealed away he could live joyously with Nynaeve in the restored Malkier, just as Lancelot changed the name of Dolorous Gard into Joyous Gard when he defeated its evil lord.



• Both men undergo a period of depressive mental illness brought on by women severing their relationship. After Guinevere sends Lancelot away from her when she learned of his relationship with Elaine (but not of Elaine’s deceit) Lancelot wanders the wilderness alone made with grief. Lancelot is healed by Elaine with the Holy Grail. When his bond to Moiraine was snapped, Lan wandered alone towards Myrelle in a severely depressed state, grieving for his former bond-holder. Myrelle helped Lan survive the madness from the breaking of his bond to Moiraine as Nynaeve acknowledges in Towers of Midnight, A Choice). Lan was also furious at Moirinae’s and Myrelle’s betrayal of him in arbitrarily passing his bond. He already had the heavy mental load of being bound as a baby to an oath he couldn’t fulfill, while Lancelot carried a lot of guilt towards Arthur, whose trust he betrayed, and anger at Elayne’s deceit, despite her help in healing him.


In order to show how myth and legend change over time, Jordan has altered the Arthurian myth: Lan is ugly whereas Lancelot was very handsome; Elaine loves Rand and not Lan; Lan loves Nynaeve, and not Egwene al’Vere, the main parallel of Guinevere (see Arthurian Who's Who and Character Names E article). Lancelot was found unworthy to achieve the quest of the San Greal, the Holy Grail, but Lan achieved the quest to kill the sa’angreal-wielding Demandred in a duel.


Fairy Tale Parallels

Nynaeve mentions a “very improper” story (Talia and the Sun King in A Crown of Swords, Swovan Night) where Talia is awakened from a year-long sleep by the Sun King’s kiss (and then presumably to his love-making) and that is appropriate for Nynaeve, who remained unmarried probably longer than most village women, but who also awakened Lan to love.


Battle Gods

Much of Lan’s life has revolved around battle and sword fighting, with the emphasis on the latter, since for most of his life he was reluctant to lead men into battle. He did not want to be responsible for leading soldiers to their deaths. However, pitting himself against other swordsmen was another matter. There was none compared to him for sword-fighting but, while well-versed in battle tactics and strategy, Lan was not the Light’s leading general. Yet Lan was an inspiring leader of troops when he did put aside his reluctance.

There are many gods of war, but few that are deified for their great prowess with sword-fighting.

Sword gods are associated with invasion—usually undertaking the invasion or at least subduing a populace. Lan’s country was lost to invasion and at the Last Battle the whole Wheel of Time world was under threat from another major incursion. Lan defended the Land against invaders and those who would betray nations to the Shadow. The country which reveres swordsmanship to the extent of deifying swordfighters is Japan.


Futsunushi

In Japanese mythology, Futsunushi is the god of swords, martial arts, and conquest, while Takemikazuchi is a god of thunder and swords. Because they often worked together, they were conflated with each other in some accounts. The two gods were sent as emissaries to Japan to demand the earthly deities of the Japanese submit to the rule of the deities of High Heaven. They slew all who refused to submit.

Another account relates that Futsunushi and Takemikazuchi killed the malevolent star god Amatsumikaboshi in heaven first before they descended to the lands of Japan. In Japanese mythology, the god of stars is depicted as a rebellious god who should be brought to submission. Amatsumikaboshi’s name means “Dread Star of Heaven”, or “August Star of Heaven”, and he was also called Amenokagaseo meaning “Scarecrow Male of Heaven” or “Brilliant Male”—surely a good description of Demandred (see Demandred essay). Lan, the Wheel of Time’s sword god, slew Demandred, that brilliant but dread apostate war god.

Lan was intensively trained in martial arts as well as the sword, so he fits Futunushi very well. In fact, he learned martial arts first:



For himself, at eight he had been learning the ko'di and what he would face when he first entered the Blight. Beginning to learn how to kill with hands and feet. Let Diryk have a happier childhood before he had to think too closely on death.

- New Spring, Keeping Custom



before the sword.


Myōken

Myōken is a Buddhist deity revered as the deification of the North or Pole Star, a god of the north and of war. The Pole Star and also the Big Dipper are prominent constant constellations in the Northern Hemisphere around which the other stars appear to revolve. They were crucial to navigation and so much used by the military and merchant sectors, who therefore venerated them. In particular, the easternmost star of the Big Dipper, Alkaid, was regarded as a war star, and worshipped for success in battle. The veneration of Myōken as a war god is believed to derive from this practice. Alkaid is known in Chinese as the “Broken Army” or the “Destroyer of Armies”.



Myōken is sometimes portrayed as a youth, or as an armored, stern-faced figure gripping a sword above his head. He is variously shown standing or sitting on a cloud, a dragon or a tortoise (a tortoise symbolising the north in Chinese cosmology).

Lan is the revered blademaster king of the northernmost nation in the Wheel of Time world. He is the paramount representative of the North and northern nations in the Wheel of Time world—what the northern nations once were and what they are now, as they constantly fight to the utmost to hold back the Shadow’s Blight:



Neither food nor lodging entered Lan's thoughts, despite the distance they had traveled. His head kept swinging north. He remained aware of everyone around him, especially those who glanced his way more than once, aware of the jingle of harness and the creak of saddles, the clop of hooves, the snap of wagon-canvas loose on its hoops. Any sound out of place would shout at him. He remained aware, but the Blight lay north. Still miles away across the hills, yet he could feel it, feel the twisted corruption.

Just his imagination, but no less real for that. It had pulled at him in the south, in Cairhien and Andor, even in Tear, almost five hundred leagues distant. Two years away from the Borderlands, his personal war abandoned for another, and every day the tug grew stronger. He should never have let Bukama talk him into waiting, letting the south soften him.

- New Spring, Into Canluum



His geas and his training have made him cold and hard, as sharp as the northern winter represented by the god Xuanwu.


Xuanwu

The Taoist deity Xuanwu or Zhenwu (“true warrior”, “perfect warrior” or “true valiant”), has a similar role to Myoken and is also venerated as the god of the north. Also known as the Dark Warrior, he is the guardian of the north, and is associated with winter and the colour black, and is capable of great magic.

Xuanwe is depicted in various ways, although usually as an intertwined tortoise and snake. The tortoise symbolises north in Chinese thought. In the Wheel of Time world, the snake is the Shadow. The Shadow has literally Blighted the north, and Lan was, and is, dedicated to freeing the north from the Blight. In the Last Battle, he was the leader of the combined northern forces.

Xuanwe may be shown dressed in dark imperial robes and armour, seated on a throne with his right foot stepping on a snake and left foot on a tortoise. He grips his sword tightly, as though he is unable to release it.

Lan prefers dark or black coat and breeches:



He had one white silk shirt that did not show too much wear, a pair of tight black silk breeches that showed almost none, and a good black silk coat embroidered along the sleeves with golden bloodroses among their hooked thorns. Bloodroses for loss and remembrance. Fitting.

- New Spring, Keeping Custom



and he has cold, blue eyes that reflect his northern origins and his wintriness. Moiraine observes Lan’s coldness and austerity:



There certainly was no fire in those eyes. She wanted to step back. No fire, but death seared cold. That black coat suited him with its cruel thorns and stark gold blossoms.

- New Spring, When to Surrender



Xuanwe’s tight grip on his sword could apply to both Lan and Demandred. Neither man could let go of their quests.

The Buddhist goddess Guanyin, a parallel of Nynaeve (see above), helped Xuanwe cleanse himself of negative feelings of guilt and regret, just as Nynaeve helped Lan break his emotional block and dare to love and feel happy again. He, in turn, was there for Nynaeve when she finally broke her own block about channelling.

The Last Battle ended when Lan, the Light’s Sword God, killed the Shadow’s War God Demandred.


Historic Parallels


Samurai

Lan was raised in Shienar, a country with strong Japanese influences. Always at war with the Blight, Shienaran leaders are similar to samurai, the military officers and warrior nobles of medieval and early-modern Japan. Samurai were bound by a code of honour, bushido, just as European knights followed the code of chivalry. Both codes evolved to make their warriors more patient and responsible, and more likely to consider the consequences of violence, thus reducing the threat they posed to the general populace and encouraging them to aid those less powerful than themselves. Apart from mastery of martial arts and military strategy, a samurai was supposed to exhibit loyalty, honour and sincerity and live frugally. There was an emphasis on duty to the point of self-sacrifice.

All Lan’s actions show how closely he follows bushido to the utmost degree. His great honour highlights the lack of honour shown by the Aes Sedai, who are mandatorily bound by their Oaths to reduce the threat they pose to others but literally only pay lip service to them. His ultimate disillusionment came when, after twenty years of honourable service, his own Aes Sedai treated him with scant respect, even though his social standing and skills were as great and respected as her own. This alongside the obvious selfish politicking of the Aes Sedai during a global crisis. The man who was reluctant to lead men into battle to their deaths in the Aiel War was disgusted at the flagrant way Aes Sedai used people up to further their own ends:



“So you [Egwene] are the Amyrlin now. Myrelle told me they had raised one, but not who. It seems you and I have a good deal in common.” His smile was as cold as his voice, as cold as his eyes…
On the point of turning away, he paused, lifting his free hand as if to touch her stole. "I apologize for ever helping you leave the Two Rivers. You, or Nynaeve."

- A Crown of Swords, A Mourning of Victory



Lan believed that Egwene and Nynaeve did not have to leave the Two Rivers, but it was the duty of the three ta’veren to do so, so he did not regret helping them leave.

He also was prepared to sacrifice himself in Far Madding to help Rand and again in the Last Battle to kill Demandred.

Samurai were expected to be cultured and literate and we saw Lan quoting poetry in the Shienaran fortress of Fal Dara:



"The rose petal floats on water," Lan recited softly. "The kingfisher flashes above the pond. Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death."
"Yes," Agelmar said. "Yes. That one has always symbolized the whole of it to me, too." The two men bowed their heads to one another.
Poetry out of Lan?

- The Eye of the World, Fal Dara



Lan has some similarities with Samurai swordmasters of legendary skill. Here are the main examples.


Miyamoto Musashi

Musashi (1584–1645) is foremost of these, fighting and winning his first of 61 duels at 13, eschewing settling in one place or marrying, he wandered Japan duelling any warrior who challenged him. Prior to being bonded by Moiraine, Lan preferred to wander the Blight rather than lead men into battle. Lan joined Moiraine on her long and relentless quest to find the Dragon Reborn. For years he sparred with other Warders, beating all competition.


Tsukahara Bokuden

Tsukahara Bokuden (~1489‒1571) is the archetypal wandering swordsman who left home at 17 to test himself against other warriors. He was the paramount swordsman of his era and is said to have killed some 200 men in single combat and in battle. In later years, his desire to test and prove himself waned and he realised that there is also honour in avoiding violence and killing—a novel idea in his time.

Lan was recognised as almost unbeatable in swordsmanship and, having nothing left to prove, stopped duelling other swordmasters:



Sleete carried a heron-mark blade and was near-legendary in the White Tower for his prowess. He was said to have bested even Lan Mandragoran twice out of seven bouts, back when Mandragoran had been known to spar with other Warders.

- The Gathering Storm, An Offer and a Departure




Minamoto Yoshitsune

Minamoto Yoshitsune (1159‒1189) was the son of the head of a powerful samurai clan. When his father was defeated and killed by the rival clan leader Taira Kiyomori in 1159, the infant Yoshitsune was placed in a monastery to be trained as a Buddhist priest. At the monastery he studied all he could, then ran away to join his half-brother Yorimoto fighting against the Taira. He proved to be a military genius and engineered many of the victories, including annihilating the Taira in a naval battle, that helped his half-brother Yoritomo gain control of Japan and establish the first shogunate.

Unsurprisingly, Yoshitsune was celebrated for this, and Yotimoto became very jealous. He accused Yoshitsune of being overbold to the point of insubordination, who raised a rebellion against him, but lost and fled. Yoshitsune wandered Japan for several years, often in the guise of a monk, before taking refuge with a powerful independent lord in northern Japan. When this lord died in 1187, his son sent soldiers to surround Yoshitsune and force his suicide, to curry favour with Yorimoto.

Lan’s life and kingdom were blighted by jealousy: Breyam’s jealousy that her husband, Lain was not as acclaimed as his brother Akir, who was elected king, and also Cowin Fairheart’s jealousy of Akir.



”On a dare, Lain Mandragoran, the King's brother, led his lances through the Blight to the Blasted Lands, perhaps to Shayol Ghul itself. Lain's wife, Breyan, made that dare for the envy that burned her heart that al'Akir had been raised to the throne instead of Lain. The King and Lain were as close as brothers could be, as close as twins even after the royal 'al' was added to Akir's name, but jealousy wracked Breyan…
Lain died in the Blasted Lands with most of those who followed him, men Malkier could ill afford to lose, and Breyan blamed the King, saying that Shayol Ghul itself would have fallen if al'Akir had led the rest of the Malkieri north with her husband. For revenge, she plotted with Cowin Gemallan, called Cowin Fairheart, to seize the throne for her son, Isam. Now Fairheart was a hero almost as well loved as al'Akir himself, and one of the Great Lords, but when the Great Lords had cast the rods for king, only two separated him from Akir, and he never forgot that two men laying a different color on the Crowning Stone would have set him on the throne instead. Between them, Cowin and Breyan moved soldiers back from the Blight to seize the Seven Towers, stripping the Borderforts to bare garrisons…But Cowin's jealousy ran deeper." Disgust tinged Agelmar's voice. "Fairheart the hero, whose exploits in the Blight were sung throughout the Borderlands, was a Darkfriend.

- The Eye of the World, More Tales of the Wheel



Jealousy and strife between brothers and sword-brothers destroyed Malkier and Lan’s family.

Lan learned all he could about warfare and the Blight in his childhood and youth in Shienar and as a young man wandered in the Blight and led troops in the Aiel War. He played an important role in the Last Battle in strategy as well as physically fighting. In his duel with Demandred he chose a suicidal move—to impale himself on Demandred’s sword—so that Demandred could not escape Lan’s killing blow.


Kamiizumi Nobutsuna

Kamiizumi Nobutsuna was a renowned samurai in 16th-century Japan. His fighting style was more defensive, with a low stance, protecting the body while looking to make the one blow that could finish the duel. Nobutsuna is credited with inventing a practice sword made from split-bamboo in a leather sleeve and with the innovation of taking into account and adapting to the opponent's weaponry, rather than imposing dominance without taking into account the opponent. "Move with the mind, in order to move with the body" is one of the school’s main teachings.

In Lan’s first lesson on the sword to Rand he told him:



"Moving the blade is not enough," Lan said, "though some think it is. The mind is part of it, most of it.”

- The Eye of the World, Choices



Lan is the first to use practise swords (bundles of thin staves) on screen in the books—in a scene where the Shadow tries to kill Rand by pushing him into Lan’s practise sword during Rand’s training session.

Lan’s ultimate duel was with Demandred. Lan took into account his opponent’s weaponry, and modified his fighting technique because Demandred was a channeller as well as less tired than he. He was at one with the terrain and also read Demandred’s intentions accurately.



He did not fight as he had trained Rand to fight. No careful testing, no judging the terrain, no careful evaluation. Demandred could channel, and despite the medallion, Lan couldn't give his enemy time to think, time to weave and hurl rocks at him or open the ground beneath him…
Deep within the void, Lan felt the stone coming. It was an understanding of the fight—one that ran deeply into him, to the very core of his soul. The way Demandred stepped, the direction his eyes flickered, told Lan exactly what was coming…
Lan burrowed deeply into the void, allowing instincts to guide him. He went beyond lack of emotions, burning away everything. He did not need to judge the terrain, for he felt the land as if it were part of him. He did not need to test Demandred's strength. One of the Forsaken, with many decades of experience, would be the most skilled swordsman Lan had ever faced.

- A Memory of Light, The Last Battle



He put Demandred off balance and fought off or dodged his attacks, waiting for that one chance to strike home and kill Demandred. This was his sole aim; he did not plan to survive the fight.



I've only time for one last lesson . . .

"I have you," Demandred finally growled, breathing heavily. "Whoever you are, I have you. You cannot win."
"You didn't listen to me," Lan whispered.
One last lesson. The hardest . . .

Demandred struck, and Lan saw his opening...

- A Memory of Light, The Last Battle



Demandred, in contrast, asserted dominance. He did want to know “who” Lan was—mostly to know whether he was fighting Lews Therin or not—but had no idea. More importantly he didn’t consider “what” he was and what he intended.


Tibet

Lan’s lost kingdom, Malkier, located on the frontier with the Shadow has similarities with Tibet in the 1950s as it resisted the encroaching People’s Republic of China. The country was weakened, then betrayed to the invaders, with the young ruler, the Dalai Lama, escaping with his bodyguards via an arduous and dangerous route and living in exile. The infant Lan was sent out of Malkier with 20 bodyguards to Shienar while his parents went to die fighting the Shadow after Darkfriends betrayed Malkier.


Literary Parallel

Due to the huge influence of The Lord of the Rings on fantasy novels in the nineteen eighties and nineties, Jordan deliberately made the first one to two hundred pages of The Eye of the World reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings to make readers feel at home.

Aragorn

Lan is a literary parallel of Aragorn, the Ranger and King of Gondor. Both men are hidden monarchs who work closely with the magic-wielding mentor of the world saviour. Lan is the Uncrowned King of Malkier, a Borderland dedicated to fighting the Shadow, and Aragorn is "the crownless again shall be king", of Gondor, which guards against and fights Mordor. In Towers of Midnight, Lan accepted his place and duty as a monarch and rallied the Borderlands to fight. He played a major role as a general and a soldier in the Last Battle. In The Lord of the Rings, the battles were a diversion to keep Sauron from noticing Frodo and the ring creeping through Mordor. In The Wheel of Time, the military battles and Rand’s psychological and theological battle were equally important, had one or the other been lost, the Shadow would not have been vanquished and the Land would not have been healed.

Aragorn and Lan are very good with a sword and help protect the main characters. Both also have issues regarding the one they love; Aragorn is forbidden to marry Arwen until he gains the thrones of Gondor and Arnor, Lan refused to marry Nynaeve on the grounds that he has nothing to offer her apart from his unwinnable fight with the Shadow. However, Arwen obeys her father and waits for Aragorn to become a king, while Nynaeve refused to wait for her king to be crowned.


Lan’s Surname

Mandragoran refers to Mandragora officinarum (mandrake), a very poisonous plant:



The mandrake has long been known for its poisonous properties. In ancient times it was used as a narcotic and an aphrodisiac, and it was also believed to have magical powers. Its forked root, seemingly resembling the human form, was thought to be in the power of dark earth spirits.

- Encyclopaedia Britannica



This plant is also likely to be the real-world plant on which forkroot was based and is one to be treated with respect. Lan is one of the most deadly fighters in the Wheel of Time world. Note that drake is another name for dragon and Lan has been intimately connected with finding and aiding the Dragon for twenty years.

The dried roots were also believed to be able to harbour a demonic spirit—the pre-scientific explanation for its powerful toxic effect. Dried mandragora roots were thought to be given to sorcerers by the Devil so that they could summon and consult the spirit in a time of need. Over time, a mandragora became the name for a familiar in the form of a little beardless man. Lan was linked to Moiraine, then Myrelle and now Nynaeve (as Aes Sedai, they are witches/sorceresses) by the Warder bond, and his Aes Sedai can locate him as she wishes and also Compel him to do her bidding. She can use his vitality at great need, even up to his death. In that sense, he could be described as her familiar. As far as Myrelle is concerned, very familiar.


Symbols


Golden Crane
The golden crane is the symbol of Malkier and thus of Lan, its king.

The crane is noted for its courtship dance. It generally mates for life and is a symbol of loyalty. Lan was wed to his duty to Malkier and then Bonded to Moiraine, and fully expected to die while fulfilling these duties in his exemplary manner. Instead, after a reluctant courtship, Lan married Nynaeve in a Sea Folk ceremony, which is remarkably different to mainland ceremonies, and is a devoted husband.< br />
In Western art the solitary crane personifies vigilance, diligence and patience, whereas in China, the crane is an auspicious symbol, representing happiness, honour and luck. Lan was the epitome of honour, vigilance and diligence, and with his virtues and luck has found happiness after long abandoning such hopes.



Christian tradition accords the crane with the status of a cleric or monk because it stands unmoving, and thus it represents the watchfulness, obedience and loyalty of a good monk.

- John and Caitlin Matthews, Element Encyclopaedia of Magical Creatures



It kills snakes and thus, in Christian symbolism, the envoys of Satan. All his life, Lan dedicated himself to his oaths to continue to fight the Shadow and avenge Malkier. Like most Borderlanders and Warders, he knew the watch against the Shadow was not done and furthermore said that he would only rest when he was dead. He would have fought his battle with the Shadow alone in the Blight if he could, as Moiraine was well aware and prevented. When he was Bonded to Moiraine, Lan gave an oath of obedience. Lan rode off by himself to fight the Shadow’s general, Demandred.

In Chinese mythology the crane flies between Heaven and Earth as a messenger of the gods. Its role is to carry the souls of the deceased to the Western Paradise and thus it represents immortality (John and Caitlin Matthews, Element Encyclopaedia of Magical Creatures). It has wisdom and knowledge to impart. Lan’s role has been to educate the three ta’veren (especially Rand) as well as protect them.

The migration and return cycle of the crane suggested regeneration. The crane is sacred to Apollo as the bird of Spring and is sometimes used as a resurrection symbolism in Christianity. It is believed to be a weather forecaster who tells farmers when to plant their fields. We saw the Blight near Malkier driven back and Spring finally come across the lands after the victory at the Eye of the World in which Lan participated. In New Spring, there were abortive attempts to revive Malkier. Thanks to Nynaeve, the Golden Crane banner flew again and the Malkieri flocked to join Lan under the banner for Tarmon Gai’don (Towers of Midnight, Epilogue). The flag of Malkier acted as a banner for all the Borderlands (A Memory of Light, The Last Battle). The land of Malkier will live again, just as its monarchy has been restored.


One

Lan’s name among the Aiel, “Aan’allein, ‘One Man,’ shows his close association with the number one. Aan'allein means “one alone” in the Old Tongue and is similar to those words.

In a political sense, One refers to monarchs, especially absolute monarchs. Lan denies being a monarch, but he is the sole remaining representative of Malkier’s nobility and thanks to Nynaeve and his own prowess, united the Borderlands to fight the Shadow’s armies in another example of One.

Rand was conscious of this symbolism:



That one you have tried to kill many times, Rand said, that one who lost his kingdom, that one from whom you took everything…

Lurching, bloodied from the sword strike to his side, the last king of the Malkieri stumbled to his feet. Lan thrust his hand into the air, holding by its hair the head of Demandred, general of the Shadow's armies.

That man, Rand shouted. That man still fights!

- A Memory of Light, Those Who Fight



Using the Oneness helped Lan stay alive as well as fight brilliantly. Aan’allein was the one to kill Demandred:



One rider burst from the ranks of their soldiers, galloping toward the Trolloc right flank. Mat would not be happy about that. One man, alone, would die. Loial was surprised that he could feel sorrow for that man's life lost, after all of the death he had seen.

That man looks familiar, Loial thought. Yes, it was the horse. He'd seen that horse before, many times. Lan, he thought, numb. Lan is the one riding out alone.

- A Memory of Light, The Last Battle



Alone, unique, and paramount are features of One that Lan exemplifies. The King as paramount and entire representative of his people.


_________________________________________

Written by Linda, July 2022