#cenn buie

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

So much of the Battle of Falme is just Perrin in a perpetually bewildered state as he keeps encountering everyone he knows. At one point he surely had to wonder if he'd see Cenn Buie next.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 23: The Testing

Welcome back to my reread! The way to see spoilers for the whole series, yes that's right not just this book but everything all the way to the end, will come but once. Be steadfast. Or just click wildly, whatever you like. But if you like not being spoiled, don't click below and just keep doomscrolling through tumblr with no hope of escape.

This chapter has the Flame icon because it concerns one of the initiation rites of the White Tower.

Centered under the dome was a thing made of three rounded, silver arches, each just tall enough to walk under, sitting on a thick silver ring with their ends touching each other. Arches and ring were all of one piece.

So what the heck is this thing, one wonders. I've seen people suggest it's a holodeck with the safeties off, though that seems frivolous even by AoL standards since it seems to be connected to genuine mirror worlds. It may be some device meant for observing and experiencing such worlds that has become damaged in some way, causing memory loss. Maybe one of the forgotten Darkfriends of old built it as a bizarre punishment system.

All four Aes Sedai wore their shawls, as Sheriam did; blue-fringed for Sheriam, red for the swarthy woman by the table, green, white, and gray for the three around the arches.

We (a word which here means "the wiki") don't know who most of these ladies are, but apparently the "swarthy woman" is Silviana. Not too sure how we know this exactly (the Companion?) but hey! Hi Silviana! You're delightful.

“The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and when it wills. Patience is a virtue that must be learned, but we must all be ready for the change of an instant.”

Nynaeve was patient really, by waiting at all, and she's more than ready for change. The Tower's usual deliberate refusal to communicate is silly under these circumstances. They could have given her something to do.

Nynaeve shook her head. It sounded either like too much to swear or too little, and she said so.

She's exactly right. The First Oath is too little and easily sidestepped, the others give up far too much utility and helped hinder the institution.

Light, child, I am trying to teach you what any other woman standing where you are would have learned over the course of years.

Honestly Sheriam is pretty good as an undercover Black, giving a huge infodump that's legit and not misleading. And I suppose it's pretty appropriate we transition from Moiraine acknowledging the Black to a big spiel by one.

Once you begin, you must continue to the end. Refuse to go on, and no matter your potential, you will be very kindly put out of the Tower with enough silver to support you for a year, and you will never be allowed back.

Oh look it's another policy that only guarantees the Tower doesn't get the numbers it needs.

Some women have entered, and never come out.

And don't forget that this is a price of the ter'angreal they chose to use. They aren't selecting for great women this way, just the stubborn ones who get lucky.

You may turn back now, right now, and I will put your name in the novice book, and you will have only one mark against you.

Literally the only sensible winnowing process they have! If after three chances a woman still doesn't think she's ready, then unless it's the Tower's teachings itself that failed her (and we don't see evidence that such happens often), it's a good sign that she's not ever going to be ready.

I must make Moiraine pay for what she has done to us. I must.

I'm still sad she never quite gets to act on this. It's such a great motivation.

Nynaeve’s cheeks colored at forgetting already what Sheriam had told her on the way down from her room. Hastily she removed her clothes, her shoes and stockings.

Note that she's not at all ashamed to be naked in front of strangers.

And note that this is the first of many "all ladies must be naked" sequences. Yes there's some historical accuracy here, but you'll note that the Black Tower never picks up such a tradition even under Taim's messed up supervision.

Taking a deep breath, she went on straight, through more passages that all looked exactly alike.

It is the nature of video games, even magic post-apocalyptic ones, that sooner or later someone will reinvent Colossal Cave Adventure.

Dimly, she remembered playing mazes on paper as a child; there had been a trick to finding your way out, but she could not bring it to mind.

There are many tricks to exhausting mazes, though not every trick works for every maze. The simplest and most well known is to pick a wall and follow it. In a maze where both entry and exit are upon the outer perimeter, this is guaranteed to work eventually. On the other hand, if you start in the middle like Nynaeve (or if you want to reach the center from the outside), this might not work. The walls may not all be connected, so you loop around to where you started without ever reaching your destination.

She started to take the left fork . . . and spun around at another glimpse of movement. There was nothing there, but this time she was sure. There had been someone behind her. Was someone.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how pathetic is it that dream Aginor manages to be a more compelling threat than he was in book 1 or books 6 through 9?

“You are a pretty one, girl. I will enjoy you.” Suddenly Nynaeve remembered she wore not a stitch.

While obviously the main threat here is the implication of rape, let's step past that and get into the metaphorical. Nudity isn't the normal state of affairs in the arch worlds, only this one. This is Nynaeve beyond the Two Rivers, in a place where the authority she covers herself with is entirely absent. Aginor isn't just the Forsaken, he's also to a degree everyone she's had to deal with since she's left home - even the Aes Sedai who gleefully relish recruiting such a powerhouse.

“You dare? You dare!” He quivered, and spittle leaked down his chin.

This is honestly a pretty good prep for how scary we should actually think the Forsaken are: not at all.

“You cannot! It cannot be!”

Another reason I think Aginor is as much a stand-in for the Aes Sedai as he is for his allies in this sequence is that protests that Nynaeve can't have done awesome stuff and pointless hostility define their reactions to her.

And she could feel Aginor doing . . . something, as well. Dimly she felt it, and far distant, as if it were something she could never truly know, but around her she saw the effects and knew them for what they were.

Early installment weirdness? Or perhaps one of the tells that this isn't real; the arch isn't really drawing on saidin (or perhaps draws to a lesser extent on both), so Nynaeve has a dim awareness of it now that she's connected.

She looked back at Aginor, just in time to see him crawl out of sight over the mounded stone and disappear. She hissed in frustration.

Finally, and rather disappointingly in contradiction to what I've been saying, the last reason to view Aginor as a stand-in for the Aes Sedai is that to succeed in what she has to do, Nynaeve needs to give up her feud with Moiraine and not worry about what she's up to out of sight.

“You are washed clean of what sin you may have done,” the Aes Sedai intoned, “and of those done against you. You are washed clean of what crime you may have committed, and of those committed against you. You come to us washed clean and pure, in heart and soul.”

See what I mean? No reason to include this if not to say that the Moiraine feud is being wiped clean.

“That isn’t supposed to be possible. You should not even remember being able to channel.”

"Not possible! You dare channel in our sacred space?"

It's really rather a blatant parallel now that I'm seeing it.

She kept her memories, and she channeled the One Power when she was threatened. And she came out with her abilities burned to nothing, unable to channel, unable even to sense the True Source. The second to go in was also warded, and she, too, was destroyed in the same way.

To me it sounds like it's the wards plus channeling that cause problems, not the channeling itself. That's one hell of a vicious anti-cheating mechanism though.

There was more than an air of neglect about it, whitewash faded, a shutter hanging loose, the rotted end of a rafter showing at a gap in the roof tiles.

A final final reason (for real this time?) to consider Aginor a stand-in for the Aes Sedai as much as himself is that otherwise the past/present system doesn't line up. The Forsaken are real, present threats and the Two Rivers isn't exactly, but if Aginor is as much about Nynaeve's fear of the Power (oh shit it's that too) and the Aes Sedai then it makes sense that that's a trial she's already put behind her just by being in the Tower. Abandoning her notions of herself as a Two Rivers woman though, that's a harder struggle. It's not Bran neglecting his inn, it's Nynaeve neglecting the whole of her home.

“If Malena knows you’re here, there will be trouble. I just know Cenn went scurrying off to find her. He’s the Mayor, now.”

Malena's name of course comes from the Latin "malus", meaning "bad" or "evil".

She beat Alsbet all around the Green with a stick, and none of us who saw had the nerve to try to stop it.

Nice try, silver arches! There's no possible Mirror World where the Two Rivers folk would watch the blacksmith's wife get beat up and not immediately tear the aggressor to shreds.

She said that was why they died; the Light abandoned them. She talks about sin all the time.

Sin doesn't really get brought up a whole bunch in this universe. Like obviously becoming a Darkfriend is sinning and the Whitecloaks claim all sorts of stuff is tantamount to being a Darkfriend, but it's not as if more mundane behavior gets this description usually. Yet in this chapter the Aes Sedai mention it without and Malena worries about it within. Is she yet another reflection of Nynaeve's fear of the Aes Sedai? Destroying families, marking men with the Dragon... It's not too far off from how Nynaeve sees Moiraine, is it?

If she can’t make you afraid of her, she makes you think you need her for the children.

Is this how Nynaeve internally views her discussion with Moiraine after Shadar Logoth? Moiraine couldn't make Nynaeve be afraid of her but she could make her worry about Egwene and the boys even though she was the reason Nynaeve worried about them at all.

The way back—No! These are my people!

Not anymore. :(

“We have to run. We have to hide. Nynaeve, come on. Cenn will have told her who you are. She hates anyone even to speak of you.”

Does Nynaeve think Moiraine doesn't much like Lan speaking of her, I wonder.

“You are washed clean of false pride. You are washed clean of false ambition. You come to us washed clean, in heart and soul.”

Nynaeve's not a Wisdom anymore. It wasn't her real path.

The third is the worst. “I’m afraid,” she whispered. What could be worse than what I just did?

Having to walk away from the happy ending already won for you.

The city had a thousand gardens, but she preferred this wild garden on the hilltop.

Because a garden growing by itself in what was so recently the Blight feels more wonderous than those maintained by human hands?

“Go back? Where? To Emond’s Field? If you wish it. I’ll send letters to Morgase, and command an escort.”

Morgase of course won't be queen at this point. I wonder what reason besides dramatic necessity causes the arches to get a few things wrong.

To her horror, she found herself remembering him as her husband, remembering laughter and tears, bitter arguments and sweet making up. They were dim memories, but she could feel them growing stronger, warmer.

Did some fools in the AoL think that the Dark One's reach was limited purely to their timeline? Did they build this device in the hopes of finding a place beyond his touch, that would let them forget the horrors of the Shadow and recall all the sweet memories in its place instead?

I could stay here. With Lan. Nothing has changed. Her thoughts turned. Nothing has changed. Egwene is alone in the White Tower. Rand will channel the Power and go mad. And what of Mat and Perrin? Can they take back any shred of their lives? And Moiraine, who tore all our lives apart, still walks free.

It says a great deal about Nynaeve's character that the thing that gets her out of this gilded cage is her love for the others.

And also, I do so love ironic echoes, even if they're only separated by a single sentence.

She tried to picture the arch in her mind, to shape it and form it to the last detail, curve of gleaming metal filled with a glow like snowy fire. It seemed to waver there, in front of her, first there between her and the trees, then not, then there.

Perhaps this is just an ordinary entertainment device. Perhaps you forget for the immersive experience and then the arch is meant to be a primer to remind you of what you're supposed to call back to you. It seems unlikely that only Nynaeve would have this capability, after all. Presumably others should have been able to call the archway back, if only they'd known how.

Child, almost every woman who does this says much the same thing. It is no small thing to be made to face your fears.

It's no wonder so many women go Black, with trauma being such a central part of their identities as sisters. And the arches were only found after the Trolloc Wars, when the corruption began in earnest...

A gift from Ishamael?

“There shouldn’t be any scarring. And how did you only get two, and both placed so precisely? If you tangled yourself in a blackthorn bush, you should be covered with scratches and thorns.”

If scarring yourself permanently is part of the exit conditions, I could definitely see this being something Ishamael specifically devised. Not from scratch of course, he's not an engineer, but a relic he deliberately tampered with, setting admin access at a high price. There is always a price.

The Amyrlin’s eyes seemed to hold a dark glow. Nynaeve’s shiver had nothing to do with being naked and wet.

Yeah, this really only cements the Aginor thing. Too late now to escape, Nynaeve! You've committed.

Next time: A whole bunch of characters from book 1 come back. Some of them plan on being important this book, and others are only flirting with importance for the next three or twelve.

[asha-mage]

         On the third day near the edge of a cliff they found what might have been a tower, though it was long since half collapsed and, to Jasin and Rand’s stunned realization, slightly melted in places. The steps had been intact enough for them to climb to the top, and there, among long weathered battlements, they built a bonfire and made camp. As night had fallen, Jasin had drawn out his hand-carved harp from the case he always kept it in, and sat on the crumbling wall to play, while the others danced, Mat and Egwene following, Perrin and Rand leading in their gentle sweeping turns around the circle of firelight.          Jasin had started with sad songs- things that had seemed to fit that strange mysterious place: The Wind that Shakes the Willow, The Man Who Can’t Forget, Whispers of Blaze. It would have felt wrong for him to play any of the songs he was more practiced at- to dishonor that place with Only One Bucket Of Water or Toss the Feathers, yet it wasn’t long before he found tears threatening the edges of his eyes, and he changed tact to some of the more dignified but still upbeat pieces he knew. Coming Home From Tarwin’s Gap, Weep for Manetheren, and finally Lament for Astrael.          “Beautiful Astrael, where the river meets the sea,          Sing, sing, of the winds bringing him home to me,          Winter’s gone and whispered far, and summer’s yet to bloom,          But he’ll return, on spring’s clean burn, my love, my love, my love to me…”          As the last few notes faded Jasin realized that the others had ceased their dancing. Egwene was curled up against the wall dozing, while Perrin was adjusting the fire with a long branch he had brought up for that purpose. Mat was leaning near the stairs, enjoying an illicit pipe that he was in no way yet old enough to be smoking while Rand…          Rand had wandered over and was staring at Jasin, his expression unreadable. No- not him, Jasin realized- his hands, his harp.          “That’s beautiful.” Rand said finally and Jasin felt himself lose focus and strike a sour note, cringing at the sound. He gave himself a shake, blinking his eyes to refocus his vision. He hadn't even realized that he began playing something else.          Rand didn't seem to mind the sour note as he sat down beside Jasin on the wall, shoulder to shoulder, turning his gaze up to the stars. “I’ve never heard anything like it. Did you learn it from one of your grandfather’s music books?”          Jasin shook his head and frowned, trying to recall the notes he had been playing.  “No.” He said slowly. “I didn’t. This is something else I-“ He peered down at his hands. Hesitantly, he laid a hand on the harp and plucked the strings he thought he had used in as close to the order as he could remember. It was...new. Unique. And yet familiar too, like a half-recalled memory. He wondered where he had picked it up- it wasn’t like wandering minstrel’s came through the Two Rivers all that often. “I like it.” Rand said with a smile, pressing their shoulders together. “Does it have a name?          “Conden Modero.” Jasin said, then shook himself in shock.          Rand blinked, clearly not understanding. But Jasin did, though he didn’t know how. He could not have named the language of those words, or where they had come from, but he knew they meant March of Death. Another sad song, but beautiful too.

-- Phantom Love

My (very very late I am incredibly sorry!) submission for the @feast-of-lights Not So Secret Santa event! My chosen giftee was @darkfeanix and I really hope this was worth the weight. He asked for Randmodean which is one of those pairings I have an incredible soft spot for and well....it uh. Got away from me a bit, to the tune of 18k words. A huge thanks as always to my amazing beta @highladyluck and her incredible patience with me on this one. It would not be nearly as a good a work without her input.

Marry Winter Night to Darkfeanix and a huge happy new year to everyone! As a bonus, have the tags I threw up on A03 as a extra teaser to the fic's content.

[iviarellereads]

The Great Hunt, Chapter 23 - The Testing

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Flame icon) In which we read one of my favourite chapters together, how exciting.

PERSPECTIVE: Nynaeve is wary of this chamber, far below the Tower. Sheriam Sedai has dragged her to a domed room carved out of the bedrock of the island, and under the dome three arches, tall enough to walk under, sitting on a ring, all one single grand piece of silver. One Aes Sedai sits at each corner where the arches connect with the ring, and a fourth stands nearby at a table with three silver chalices full of clear water. All five are wearing their Ajah shawls, all five a different colour. Nynaeve is still wearing a dress from Fal Dara.

She asks Sheriam what this is, and she replies that it's a ter'angreal. That tells Nynaeve nothing, what does it do?(1)

“Ter’angreal do many things, child. Like angreal and sa’angreal, they are remnants of the Age of Legends that use the One Power, though they are not quite so rare as the other two. While some ter’angreal must be made to work by Aes Sedai, as this one must, others will do what they do simply with the presence of any woman who can channel. There are even supposed to be some that will function for anyone at all. Unlike angreal and sa’angreal, they were made to do specific things. One other we have in the Tower makes oaths binding. When you are raised to full sisterhood, you will take your final vows holding that ter’angreal. To speak no word that is not true. To make no weapon for one man to kill another. Never to use the One Power as a weapon except against Darkfriends or Shadowspawn, or in the last extreme of defending your own life, that of your Warder, or that of another sister.”(2) Nynaeve shook her head. It sounded either like too much to swear or too little, and she said so.

Once, Aes Sedai were trusted, and didn't have to swear the Oaths, but times have changed. Now, the Oaths allow nations to deal with them without fear of the One Power.(3) But, Nynaeve can't learn in a night what novices take years to learn before this point. This ter'angreal is safe enough, though some are not, and will make her face her greatest fears. She walks through one arch, then the next, then the third, and it's done, and she becomes Accepted. That's all you can know before the trial. Two more things, can she know now:

Firstly, that once it starts, she must see it through to the end. If at any point she refuses to go on, she will be put out of the Tower with enough money to last a year, and she will never be able to return. Second, to seek is to know danger. Some women have entered and never come back out. When the ter'angreal was allowed to grow quiet, they were not there, and they were never seen again. If you want to survive, you must be steadfast. Nynaeve is given one more chance to say no, and have her name marked in the Novice book. She can have two more chances, but a third refusal will have her put out of the Tower. Many do refuse, the first time. It's a lot to take in. Sheriam herself declined on the first attempt.

Nynaeve thinks about all she has to learn, particularly to make Moiraine pay for what she's done to Emond's Field. She is ready. Sheriam guides her into the chamber.

There's a short formal greeting, and then Sheriam reminds Nynaeve of something else she'd told her on the way down here. She must go through this all naked. She strips, placing her dress and stockings in a neat pile, with Lan's ring hidden inside it.

“The first time,” Sheriam said, “is for what was. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.” Nynaeve hesitated. Then she stepped forward, through the arch and into the glow. It surrounded her, as if the air itself were shining, as if she were drowning in light. The light was everywhere. The light was everything.

Nynaeve stands in a giant stone maze. She wonders how she got here, and a voice in her head repeats, “The way out will come but once.” She remembers playing mazes on paper as a child, there was a trick to them, but she can't bring it to mind. Her memory seems distant. She makes some turnings, sure there has to be a trick to the maze, but keeps getting lost in dead ends.

She finally uses a trick, going left at the first fork, right at the next, and makes it through a dozen turns before she starts seeing something in the corner of her eye. Eventually a man steps out in front of her, older than old. Aginor. He says she's a pretty one, he'll enjoy her. She realizes she's still naked, and flees, angry and embarrassed. Instinctively, she reaches for the Power, and manages to throw fireballs at him. He does something himself, and lightning leaps from a cloud, directly toward Nynaeve’s heart.

It seemed to her, just for a heartbeat, as if time had suddenly slowed, as though that heartbeat took forever. She felt the flow inside her—saidar, came a distant thought—felt the answering flow in the lightning. And she altered the direction of the flow. Time leaped forward. With a crash, the bolt shattered stone above Aginor’s head. The Forsaken’s sunken eyes widened, and he tottered back. “You cannot! It cannot be!” He leaped away as lightning struck where he had stood, stone erupting in a fountain of shards. Grimly Nynaeve started toward him. And Aginor fled.

The ground is rumbling under her feet, saidar racing through her, and she can feel Aginor doing something, too, though she can't understand it. Something gleams to her right, uncovered by the collapsing walls. She knows that if she lets Aginor go now, he'll chase after her stronger than before, believing she's too weak to defeat him after all. A silver arch radiates softly, where a wall had been. The way back will come but once. Aginor disappears behind a mound of stone. It will take time to find him again.

She turns back, and is relieved to see the arch still there. She considers how quickly she might find Aginor, but rushes toward the arch, and swears that whoever is responsible for putting her there, she'll make them wish they got what Aginor got from her. She steps through...

...and remembers what she's doing, back in the Tower sub-sub-basement room. Memory is like a physical bow, rushing back to her.

The Red sister raised one of the silver chalices high and poured a stream of cool, clear water over Nynaeve’s head. “You are washed clean of what sin you may have done,” the Aes Sedai intoned, “and of those done against you. You are washed clean of what crime you may have committed, and of those committed against you. You come to us washed clean and pure, in heart and soul.”(4) Nynaeve shivered as the water ran down her body, dripping on the floor.

Sheriam looks relieved, and leads her to another arch. Nynaeve asks if it was real, and Sheriam replies that no-one knows. Some bear the wounds taken inside when they come out, some are cut to the bone and show no injury when they step back out.

Nynaeve mentions remembering how to channel, and Sheriam is surprised. You shouldn't be able to remember how to channel inside. This ter'angreal was found during the Trolloc Wars. The first Aes Sedai to enter it was warded, and remembered how to channel, and her abilities burned to nothing, she couldn't even sense the True Source afterward.

Sheriam tells Nynaeve that she must not channel, if she can try to remember that, as they get to the second arch.

“The second time is for what is. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.” Nynaeve stared at the shining silver arch. What is in there this time? The others were waiting, watching. She stepped firmly through into the light.

Nynaeve is wearing a plain brown dress. The way back will come but once.

She's on the village green in Emond's Field, and she smiles until she sees the inn, which has fallen vastly into disrepair. Cenn Buie comes out of it, remarks that she's back, and tells her she should leave again, spitting at her feet. She enters the inn, and finds Marin al'Vere wiping a table, looking years older than Nyn remembers. When she sees Nyn, she asks if she's brought Egwene back. No, Nyn can hardly remember, but she hasn't brought her back, that much is sure.

Bran is dead. The new Wisdom, Malena, is a bully who’s been using poison to solve her problems. Cenn’s no doubt gone to find her to deal with Nyn, if he saw her. There's more to the terrible things Malena might be doing. The way back will come but once. Nynaeve tells Marin the Women's Circle should unite against her. Marin says maybe... maybe Corin Ayellin will help. Nynaeve manages to get Marin halfway to Corin's house, when they come across Malena, slashing the heads off weeds with a willow switch.

Nyn looks over her shoulder and sees the silver arch between two houses. The way back will come but once. Marin screams softly that Malena’s seen them. She’s walking toward them now, smiling cruelly. Marin tells Nyn they have to run, but Nyn remembers that the arch is important. She tells herself it’s not real, unclear if that’s about the village or the arch. Nyn tears her arm free of Marin’s grip, and abandons her to Malena’s cruelty as Nyn plunges into the arch.

The glow envelops her, and she staggers out of the arch, barely aware of the chamber or the Aes Sedai.

She did not flinch when cold water was suddenly poured over her head. “You are washed clean of false pride. You are washed clean of false ambition. You come to us washed clean, in heart and soul.” As the Red Aes Sedai stepped back, Sheriam came to take Nynaeve’s arm. Nynaeve gave a start, then realized who it was. She seized the collar of Sheriam’s dress in both hands. “Tell me it was not real. Tell me!” “Bad?” Sheriam pried her hands loose as if she were used to this reaction. “It is always worse, and the third is the worst of all.”

When Nyn says she left her people in danger to come back, Sheriam explains further. There is always some reason not to come back, something to prevent or distract. It weaves traps for your own mind. That is why it is used as a test. You have to want to be Aes Sedai more than anything else in the world, they cannot accept less.(5)

“The third time,” Sheriam intoned formally, “is for what will be. The way back will come but once. Be steadfast.” Nynaeve threw herself at the arch in a run.

Nynaeve laughs and frolics in a hilltop meadow. Below the hill, the Thousand Lakes spread through the city of Malkier. The city has a thousand gardens, but she prefers this hilltop. The way back will come but once.

She turns at hoofbeats, and Lan jumps off his horse and kisses her.

She gaped at him, taken by surprise when he gathered her into his arms and kissed her. For a moment she clung to him, lost, kissing him back. Her feet dangled a foot in the air, and she did not care. Suddenly she pushed at him, pulled her face back. “No.” She pushed harder. “Let me go. Put me down.” Puzzled, he lowered her until her feet touched ground; she backed away from him. “Not this,” she said. “I cannot face this. Anything but this.” Please, let me face Aginor again. Memory swirled. Aginor? She did not know where that thought had come from. Memory lurched and tilted, shifting fragments like broken ice on a flooding river. She clawed for the pieces, clawed for something to hang on to. “Are you well, my love?” Lan asked worriedly. “Do not call me that! I am not your love! I cannot marry you!” He startled her by throwing back his head and roaring with laughter. “Your implication that we are not married might upset our children, wife. And how are you not my love? I have no other, and will have no other.” “I must go back.” Desperately she looked for the arch, found only meadow and sky. Harder than steel and more deadly than poison. Lan. Lan’s babies. Light, help me! “I must go back now.”

Slowly, Nynaeve starts to fall into the temptation and the memory failure of the ter'angreal, then fights back out, looking for the arch. She sees it, behind him, but can’t make her feet move. Lan gives more details of the life they have here together. He says he doesn’t know what’s bothering her, but he will try to set it right. She says he’s the best of husbands, and remembers their life together. The joy and the tears, the arguments and the making up. They grow the more she lets herself think them. But the way back will come but once.

Lan says he feels he’s losing her lately, and he can’t bear it. He begs her to stay with him, always. She wants to… but when she opens her eyes again, the arch is gone. She yells that this isn’t real, startling Lan. Then, she realizes she could stay there, but nothing has changed. Egwene alone in the Tower, Rand will channel the Power and go mad, and Perrin and Mat... And Moiraine, who tore up their lives, walks free.

“I must go back,” she whispered. Unable to bear the pain on his face, she pulled free of him. Deliberately she formed a flower bud in her mind, a white bud on a blackthorn branch. She made the thorns sharp and cruel, wishing they could pierce her flesh, feeling as if she already hung in the blackthorn’s branches. Sheriam Sedai’s voice danced just out of hearing, telling her it was dangerous to attempt to channel the Power. The bud opened, and saidar filled her with light. “Nynaeve, tell me what is the matter.” Lan’s voice slid across her concentration; she refused to let herself hear it. There had to be a way back still. Staring at where the silver arch had been, she tried to find some trace of it. There was nothing. “Nynaeve . . .” She tried to picture the arch in her mind, to shape it and form it to the last detail, curve of gleaming metal filled with a glow like snowy fire. It seemed to waver there, in front of her, first there between her and the trees, then not, then there. “. . . I love you . . .” She drew at saidar, drinking in the flow of the One Power till she thought she would burst. The radiance filling her, shining around her, hurt her own eyes. The heat seemed to consume her. The flickering arch firmed, steadied, stood whole before her. Fire and pain seemed to fill her; her bones felt as if they were burning; her skull seemed a roaring furnace. “. . . with all my heart.” She ran toward the silver curve, not letting herself look back. She had been sure the bitterest thing she would ever hear was Marin al’Vere’s cry for help as Nynaeve abandoned her, but that was honey beside the sound of Lan’s anguished voice pursuing her. “Nynaeve, please don’t leave me.”(6) The white glow consumed her.

Nynaeve staggers through the arch, falling to her knees, crying as hard as she ever has in her life. She yells that she hates them, all Aes Sedai. Sheriam says that almost every woman who endures this says much the same.

Sheriam suddenly turns Nynaeve's hands over, and there are two great blackthorns stuck in her, one in each palm, centered.(7)

Sheriam frowned. “There shouldn’t be any scarring. And how did you only get two, and both placed so precisely? If you tangled yourself in a blackthorn bush, you should be covered with scratches and thorns.” “I should,” Nynaeve agreed bitterly. “Maybe I thought I had already paid enough.” “There is always a price,” the Aes Sedai agreed. “Come, now. You have paid the first price. Take what you have paid for.” She gave Nynaeve a slight push forward. Nynaeve realized there were more Aes Sedai in the chamber. The Amyrlin in her striped stole was there, with a shawled sister from each Ajah ranged to either side of her, all of them watching Nynaeve. Remembering Sheriam’s instruction, Nynaeve tottered forward and knelt before the Amyrlin. It was she who held the last chalice, and she tipped it slowly over Nynaeve’s head. “You are washed clean of Nynaeve al'Meara from Emond’s Field. You are washed clean of all ties that bind you to the world. You come to us washed clean, in heart and soul. You are Nynaeve al’Meara, Accepted of the White Tower.” Handing the chalice to one of the sisters, the Amyrlin drew Nynaeve to her feet. “You are sealed to us, now.” The Amyrlin’s eyes seemed to hold a dark glow. Nynaeve’s shiver had nothing to do with being naked and wet.(8)

=====

(1) This is the sort of thing she'd have learned, if she'd gone through the normal process of being a novice before raising, as Sheriam says in a few pages. Still, it's interesting to start the chapter with Nynaeve's ignorance about the world she's entering. (2) Finally, we get the Oaths in something approaching their proper phrasing. Humour me now, take a minute, and think about these. How many loopholes can you see? To speak no word that is not true? Well, unless you believe it to be true, or unless you don't purport it to be truth. "Here I am known as Alys, and Lan as Andra." All it takes is "You may call me Mistress Alys." That's not a lie, you can call her anything, her name isn't required. No wonder Tam and Thom went on about Aes Sedai's words not being the truth you think you hear. To make no weapon with which one man can kill another? That doesn't say anything about women's weapons or things to kill Darkspawn, unless you get each and every Aes Sedai firmly into the mindset that any weapon could be picked up by a man and could be used against another man. And use of the Power itself as a weapon? Well, you could put yourself into danger and open a pretty big loophole, or if you convince yourself the person you're using it against is a Darkfriend whether they are or not. Any others? (3) Which makes sense. Even if you can see loopholes in the phrasing, limits on the ability to lie and use the Power against others are some insurance against your fears that those with power will only seek to use it against you. (4) You can see the "high church" inspiration from RJ's life in the rituals like these. Formal greetings and purifications. Why does the first arch stand for what was, why does Nynaeve need to be purified of crimes committed against her before she can gain membership? Just because that's the way it's always been. But before we start ranting about the farcical shallowness of it… consider whether RJ is setting up to make a point in that direction, and whether I'd be 15 years deep in this fandom if it didn't do something more complex and interesting with each and every detail of its worldbuilding. (5) How odd that they have a ter'angreal from an entirely different age with different social mores, that nevertheless they've shaped into this ritual because it suits their needs so perfectly. (6) My poor girl. (7) My poor girl picked up STIGMATA WOUNDS for her trouble. Good gracious. (8) Yeah, that's not ominous at all. She's part of them now, for better or worse.

[highladyluck]

I can’t believe Perrin and Faile got their new fancy house thatched just to try and appease Cenn Buie. You will never appease Cenn Buie. Get tilework instead and let the local thatch industry die peacefully, and Cenn Buie die kicking and screaming. It’s how he wants to go out

[toastandjamie]

Been thinking about Mat Cauthon again, not an abnormal occurrence, but here’s an essay about him.

I have to cut this up because of the word limit, so here’s part 1

Part 1: How To Traumatize Your Comedic Relief

So like, Mat’s paranoia and trust issues stem entirely from the events of the first book regarding the Shadar Logoth dagger. But like- I wanna talk meta about Mat’s story and the concepts of loss of innocence, the evils of man, and fear of being powerless and how that relates to his character arc and relationships in the story. So let’s put aside the lore explanation of “evil dagger doing evil dagger things”

So when we first meet not just Mat, but all three Ta’veren boys there’s this element of childlike innocence to them. Despite the fact that all three are eighteen at the start of the series, Emmonds Field is so isolated, safe and peaceful that the boys are actively noted as being exceptionally naive to the outside world. They’re practically toddlers being left alone in a grocery store when they get separated from the actual experienced adults. This is a feature not a bug mind you, when it comes to having protagonists to introduce a world to an audience with. Not to mention that sets up all of the Emmonds Fields kids(this is specifically barring Nynaeve) to have a “Loss of Innocence” character arc, and they all do, but what’s interesting is how each character handles this loss and how long it takes for them to accept this reality. Mat is actually the first of them to really experience the effects of this loss of innocence, due to previously mentioned dagger problems, but let’s ignore the curse and talk about what exactly happened in Shadar Logoth that shook Mat’s worldview so badly. Mat does not start the story as the cynical and sarcastic character we all know and love, he’s introduced to us as being genuinely kindhearted and trusting, like I know it’s easy to forget given EVERYTHING Mat does in the later books, but of the three Ta’veren boys he’s the one who trusts Morraine the most in the beginning. He doesn’t question her motives nor does he seem to have any innate hostility towards her being Aes Sedai like Rand does(though his hostility stems from a place of jealousy and protectiveness of Egwene rather than genuine prejudice). The same goes for Thom as well, Mat doesn’t know anything about this person but he trusts these seemingly well intentioned adults intrinsically. The only person Mat seems to even have the slightest hesitation about is Lan and that’s solely because he’s aloof and doesn’t show much emotion, something that Mat finds extremely off-putting as the type of person who always has Big Feelings, and takes a lot of self esteem in his ability to make others laugh. This makes sense, because at this point they’ve not encountered any darkfriends(that they knew of) so currently the only Evil they encountered has been literal shadowspawn monsters. The Emmonds Field kids have never met a person who had genuinely bad intentions, I’ll-tempered like Cenn Buie, or a bit disreputable like the Coplins and Congars but even these people were at their cores Good People. So why WOULD they distrust these people who say they have their best interests at heart. That’s when we get to Shadar Logoth, and Mat as the ADHD icon he is, immediately gets bored and wants to explore the abandoned city. Rand and Perrin, as the two more mature ones both rightfully call this a bad idea since they were told NOT to go exploring by themselves, but Mat only heard “Trolloks can’t come in here so it’s safe” and nothing else so he decides to go anyways. Rand and Perrin tag along mostly to make sure Mat doesn’t get hurt. And who do they meet except the most suspicious man ever who lures them into his white van- I mean treasure room with the promise of candy-I mean treasure. These boys have never heard of stranger danger in there lives and automatically trust this random man who lurks in alleyways. And wouldn’t you know it, but this guy was not trustworthy at all and tries to kill them resulting in the group getting separated.

Here’s the thing, this is the first time in Mat’s life that he’s ever experienced true man made evil. This wasn’t the dark ones doing, Mordreth was just a guy who had genuinely malicious intentions and took advantage of Mat and his friends. This alone is enough to make him cautious but then throughout their entire road trip to Camlyn they are constantly ambushed by dark friends, in fact after Whitebridge they don’t get any direct encounters with Shadowspawn, they see a few myrrdraal hunting them but they avoid them pretty easily, it’s the People that consistently hurt them; and they are EVERYWHERE. Darkfriends are practically popping up at every street corner and they could be literally anyone. Mat tells Rand at one point that he feels like everyone is out to get them and Rand assures him that not everyone is a darkfriend, but at the same time, I can SEE why Mat would come to that conclusion. I mean is it really paranoia if they actually are out to get you? It wasn’t even just darkfriends, which makes it’s objectively worse, throughout their road-trip May and Rand are constantly met with people who are selfish, greedy, rude and sometimes even outright cruel and a lot of them weren’t darkfriends. They interact with Whitecloaks who are supposed to be righteous and good but are just bullies in shiny armor and carrying around swords. They interact with merchants on the road who take active pleasure in nearly taking out Rand’s eye with whip because the two of them walked a little too close to a cart. An innkeeper who purposefully locked them in a small storage closet so that he could rob them in the middle of the night. Rand remains optimistic but by the time they reach Camlyn Mat had become completely pessimistic and despondent. He didn’t trust anyone, he believed wholeheartedly that everyone wanted to hurt him, everyone except of course Rand.

[dream-of-ravens]

My favourite thing about the Rosamund Pike narrated Eye of the World is when she does different voices for the characters.

My personal faves are Cenn Buie and Perrin. Killing it.

[krastbannert]

Recently started reading The Wheel of Time again - all the way from the very beginning, The Eye of the World, just over ten years since I first read it - and there is, it turns out, a lot I forgot about. Just a few things I found from the prologue and the first 3 chapters:

The Rand/Egwene romance plot starts off with an argument.

Old men being annoying (more just one old man in particular - looking right at you, Cenn Buie)

The beginning is actually kinda creepy/eerie, with lots of strangers and the Emond's Field Idiots Trio seeing ravens staring at them and wolves everywhere and being stalked, it's very different than I remember.

Speaking of the Emond's Field Idiots, they really don't know jack shit

A lot more talking about food and alcohol than I remember. The beginning feels so small and homespun, it's crazy to think about where they end up.

Good Lord Nynaeve is angry, even right from the get go.

But the best thing I noticed?

The very last passage of the final book, A Memory of Light, book number fourteen, the very end of the greatest literary journey I've ever had the pleasure of going on, and one of the most poetic passages I've ever read, is an echo of the very beginning of The Eye of the World.

I love this series so damn much.

[iliiuan]

As the Wheel Turns

Episode 1

Open on Lews Therin's face

LTT: Ilyena my love! Where are you? We have company!

Zoom out to Ilyena unmoving on the floor

Ishy: You fool! Don't you remember what you did?

LTT: Continues calling for Ilyena

Ishy: Exasperated, channels some healing at LTT using the True Source

(True Source channeling is so black it sucks light from the surroundings.)

LTT: Calls for Ilyena again

Ishy: Look, you fool! (Points at Ilyena with his staff.)

LTT: Screams in agony and channels saidin

(Tainted saidin channeling is a jagged red line outlined with the color for the element, and surrounded by blackness.)

Flash of light

Big rumble

A volcano erupts out of the ground

A river forms to the East, flowing around an island to the southeast.

Time lapse video of Tar Valon being built by Ogier

<commercial break>

Weaver (woman with gray hair and thick body, strong and round and wrinkled)

at the loom, the shuttle flies, the beater presses

Zoom in to the weave, which is a flyover taking on pov of the wind

The wind flies by the characters doing their characteristic activities

The main theme plays

We land in Emmond's Field, where the village is busy preparing for Bel Tine

Cenn Buie complains about the weather

Mat Cauthon captures a badger and notices a creepy cloaked figure who seems to vanish into the shadows

Perrin finishes work at the smithy for the day and also notices a creepy cloaked figure

Moiraine and Lan arrive, with lots of looks and little speech, to check in at the inn

Nynaeve charges across their path

Moiraine: "Child, where's the Inn?"

Nynaeve: Stares daggers

Cenn Buie: "There's the Wisdom! Is this winter ever going to end?"

Lan: Raises an eyebrow and shifts his gaze from scanning the perimeter to studying Nynaeve because he feels Moiraine's shock through the bond

Tam and Rand set off with their load of brandy

Rand also sees a creepy cloaked figure following him

We get a snippet of conversation for each set of characters, with lots of ponderous poses and suspicious glances

Next time on As the Wheel Turns: a gleeman and a peddler arrive in Emmond's Field

(They should have made it a telenovela, is what I'm saying here.)

[readerbell]

I laughed along earlier at Cenn Buie talking about how Nynaeve needs to get married so she can calm down. I was all haha, dw Lan is standing right there. But actually I can totally see how comments like this made consistently can turn even the most unaggressive girl into Hurricane Nynaeve. She doesn’t need a husband. What she needs is for you to treat her like the Wisdom she is and not a girl!

Unfortunately, stuff like this gets thrown at women everywhere even today. It’s not only extremely unhelpful, it’s patronising. I can now understand why Nynaeve beat Cenn Buie with her stick for calling her child. Living with constant dismissal is enough to make anyone mad.

[ofthebrownajah]

I have one comment on these castings: who said Bran al'Vere was allowed to be handsome? I don't know how to process this

[theblacktower]

David Sterne joins the cast as Cenn Buie.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 2: Strangers

Hello and welcome back to the madness that is me. As usual (three times in a row totally counts), I am rereading The Eye of the World and I am spoiling the crap out of everything so you should run away if you're not into that. Thanks and have a good one!

To the rest of you, thanks for staying, let's get started. This chapter begins with the raven icon, which is often used to symbolize those allied with the Shadow or the Seanchan, which is really such a glowing review of them, isn't it? Here it's being used to refer to the evildoers Moiraine and-- Wait no that's Whitecloak talk. It's being used to refer to the dear, sweet, innocent raven whose only crime was watching Rand and refusing to be killed for it.

At that time of the busy day before Festival, Rand expected to find the common room empty except for Bran and his father and the cat, but four more members of the Village Council, including Cenn, sat in high-backed chairs in front of the fire, mugs in hand and blue-gray pipesmoke wreathing their heads.

I wonder now about how the Village Council gets chosen and how Cenn Buie keeps his seat if it's anything other than "life positions for certain families".

though who knew what Taren Ferry folk really thought about anything?

I'm glad Jordan put in so much effort to make Rand so incredibly provincial when in about ten chapters we'll be past Taren Ferry and he'll never get a chance to look back.

“It’s old Luhhan,” Mat said, peering past Rand’s shoulder into the common room. “I think he suspects I was the one who—”

Dammit Mat just confess to your crimes so I can laugh at you for them!

She was one of the few married women in the area who never tried to play matchmaker with Tam.

Yeah, if she gets him married, then when Tam dies of old age Rand and Egwene have to take care of the new widow al'Thor!

If she occasionally looked at him as if she wanted to do more, at least she took it no further than looks, for which he was deeply grateful.

Rand, you and Egwene are basically already promised to each other according to the retcons, of course she's not putting in effort. She thinks she's already won.

"Nothing, really. I told Adan al’Caar and some of his snot-nosed friends—Ewin Finngar and Dag Coplin—that some farmers had seen ghost hounds, breathing fire and running through the woods."

I guess this is the local name for Darkhounds, or Jordan was gonna straight up go with ghosts at the time. Were they supposed to be literal ghosts, or just the third age interpretation of whatever modifications Aginor made?

“I hear she chased old Luhhan and the dogs, all three, out of the house with a broom.”

Poor Luhhan, getting blamed for shit he had nothing to do with. I wonder if Perrin tries to model his marriage after this, where he assumes Faile is acting like Alsbet and gets to be hot-tempered and low-key violent but he is supposed to go with it. Really both of these couples should try and model their relationships off of some healthier couple, preferably in an entirely different story.

The years separating Rand and Mat from Ewin, only fourteen, were usually more than enough for them to give short shrift to anything he had to say.

Ah okay so the boys are definitely MEANT to be 16, probably more, but they really don't feel like they could be older than 16 so *shrug*.

Maybe southern boys are hella immature for their age or were in Jordan's childhood. *insert completely unfounded rant about the toxicity of 'boys will be boys' based entirely on this supposition without the slightest bit of research done because I'm an expert on everything by default*

“Of course I could see his face. And his cloak is green. Or maybe gray. It changes. It seems to fade into wherever he’s standing. Sometimes you don’t see him even when you look right at him, not unless he moves. And hers is blue, like the sky, and ten times fancier than any feastday clothes I ever saw. She’s ten times prettier than anybody I ever saw, too. She’s a high-born lady, like in the stories. She must be.”

Oh thank fuck, the grown-ups are here! Lan and Moiraine are not the perfect mentors that they sometimes get mistaken as, but they try twice as hard as most and that goes a long way. Shame about the whole "beauty equals nobility" thing going on, but since Ewin said it and not the narration I'll assume he's rightfully crushing on her.

“They arrived last evening,”

So they got here before Thom and were traveling at decent hours. Was he trying to follow them? Doesn't seem quite right, does it? Was he trying to AVOID them?

It was a good five years since the last time a real stranger appeared in Emond’s Field, and he had been trying to hide from some sort of trouble up in Baerlon that nobody in the village understood.

I wonder what the guy did. Or was he a channeler trying to hide from himself?

“She asked the Wisdom for directions this morning,” Ewin said, “and called her ‘child.’ ”

Poor Moiraine, sticking her foot right into it. Didn't even mean to, of course, but that's the problem with having a standard mode of address for unimportant young'ins: when they become important, there's no good way to tell, is there? Almost like you should treat everyone respectfully regardless of perceived differences, but what do I know?

When Cenn Buie called her a child last year, she thumped him on the head with her stick, and he’s on the Village Council, and old enough to be her grandfather, besides.

Yes but even hyper-violent Nynaeve knows you can't just beat the shit out of guests Rand. She's not axe-crazy; that's Perrin.

Then something led him to turn around, to raise his eyes. On the edge of the inn’s tile roof perched a large raven, swaying a little in the gusting wind from the mountains. Its head was cocked to one side, and one beady, black eye was focused . . . on him, he thought.

I don't think we see ravens pulling much crap after this book, do we? It's hard to view them as a serious threat when the protagonists are capable of doing more than missing with thrown stones and when even Trollocs rapidly become cannon fodder.

Fancier than any feastday clothes, Ewin had said, and he was right. No one ever dressed like that in the Two Rivers. Not ever.

Frankly I doubt the whole Two Rivers could combine their net worth for the clothes, let alone the jewelry.

Ewin leaped forward before either of the others could speak.

If it weren't for the fact that it isn't how it works, I'd assume she was trying to compel the boys and Ewin somehow got caught in the cross-fire. But again, the weave doesn't really work like that.

Then again, it's the first book, and the boys seem to "wake up" later like they're all being compelled... Guess she hit Ewin on purpose not to leave him out, and he was hit hardest.

Rand had been wondering if he should do something of the sort, the way men did in stories, but with Mat’s example, he merely spoke his name. At least he did not stumble over his own tongue this time.

The Wheel makes sure that the king of the world doesn't bow, I suppose.

“You cannot be expected to work for nothing. Consider this a token, and keep it with you, so you will remember that you have agreed to come to me when I ask it. There is a bond between us now.”

I feel like this is another early bookism, though an easily dismissed one - I think Jordan intended this wording and the boys' acceptance to be part of making the bond spell work, though going forward such things are much less necessary.

Her smile did fade then, slowly, as if something had been recalled to her. For a moment she merely looked at him. “I am a student of history,” she said at last, “a collector of old stories. This place you call the Two Rivers has always interested me. Sometimes I study the stories of what happened here long ago, here and at other places.”

This isn't Moiraine's first half-truth to dodge the lie restriction (telling Ewin "We'll see" after his invite is a half-truth so common even non-Aes Sedai use it), but it is a big one and an interesting one. She likely did have to study history both in Cairhien and the Tower, so that explains her student claim. Studying the DR means she's probably looked over the Karatheon Cycle and many similar documents, hence collector.

But has she always been interested in the Two Rivers? Obviously this can't be LITERALLY true (or can it? Did a very young Moiraine wonder about the place that all the grown-up men in her life said had the best tobacco?), so when did her eyes turn to it? When she learned about Manetheren? It's exactly the kind of story the Jedi would teach her.

Men wear many names, many faces. Different faces, but always the same man.

And here she almost outright tells them what's up! She's getting hit hard by Rand and Mat's combined ta'verening.

It was as if he were weighing them in his mind, and there was no sign on his face of what the scales told him.

Two minutes later:

Lan: So it's the Aiel kid.

Moiraine: Maybe.

Lan: It's obviously the Aiel kid. Explains why your list didn't find him twenty years ago: no one wrote down that some Aiel gal had a baby.

Moiraine: What if he's a decoy?

Lan: Why would there even be a decoy?

Moiraine: The Wheel weaves, Lan.

Lan: If you say that to me one more time I'm just gonna go kidnap the Aiel kid myself and take him to the Amyrlin.

Moiraine: The spring on the green is probably quite chilly in this unnatural winter. It would sure be awful if someone magically relocated it on top of you.

Lan: ...

Lan: It's still the Aiel kid. Think I'll teach him how to use swords. That would be funny to see.

Anyway, Warders have swords and armor covered in gold and jewels, and spend all their time up north, in the Great Blight, fighting evil and Trollocs and such.

Statistically, most Warders spend all their time down south, fighting lady bits and pubic hair and such. With their tongues.

If it weren't for the Yellows I'd call Greens the greatest failure of an Ajah since Mat very accurately describes what they SHOULD be doing. In fact, while with the text as written it's obviously one of those "truth becomes fiction in the retelling" things that pops up a lot, I suspect that it was intended to be an accurate description that fell by the wayside as Aes Sedai politics were defined.

He did not recognize the fat silver coin with the raised image of a woman balancing a single flame on her upturned hand

Y'all really are provincial hicks if you get coins that so obviously scream "The Official Currency of the Witch-Papal Queendom" and don't even speculate it might be from the region, if nothing else.

Strangers and a gleeman, fireworks and a peddler. It was going to be the best Bel Tine ever.

Spoiler alert: It was going to be the worst Bel Tine ever.

And that's another chapter! I would like to rewatch more of episode 1 and comment on the differences in the introductions of Lan and Moiraine, but my Fire Cube is having some hilarious technical difficulties where it's playing the episode at a rate of one frame a second right now, even though it plays the episode PREVIEW (and Futurama on Hulu) properly, so I can't go too in-depth, which means I only have one thought to give and it's sadly negative:

Nynaeve, you massive idiot (shhhh not you Zoë Robins, it's the script writers' fault and probably the Amazon execs for forcing so much cut time, you're doing great though, keep it up), inns are exactly where reputable strangers are supposed to show up! Be more like your book incarnation and have a tiny inclination against threatening out of towners!

Episode 1 is going to be rough to get through even if I do get it working at the proper frame rate.

[alectology-archive]

“Is that all?” Rand said. “You know Nynaeve’s temper. When Cenn Buie called her a child last year, she thumped him on the head with her stick, and he’s on the Village Council, and old enough to be her grandfather, besides. She flares up at anything, and never stays angry past turning around.”

[Thom] "One old grandfather starts ranting at me about the kind of stories I should or should not tell, then a girl-child shouts at me to get out, and threatens me with a great club when I don’t move quickly enough for her. Who ever heard of treating a gleeman so?”

Is it bad that I love when nynaeve antagonizes the senior citizens ajdhdhdhfh

[iviarellereads]

The Eye of the World, Earlier - Ravens

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Ravens icon) In which I rearrange the timeline to suit my whims.

(First written for From The Two Rivers, the first half of a YA reprint of The Eye of the World, and now seemingly available in front of the ebook edition (so you might be able to read it in the "preview now" on Amazon or your ebook retailer of choice, if you don't have it in your copy) as well as a few print editions, this was placed before the Dragonmount prologue. I feel that's too jarring for a first introduction, because it's 8-9 years ago, then 3000 years ago, then back to the present day. It doesn't work well in the other direction either, because it undercuts the tension (and the narrative connection) between the prologue and chapter 1. But, I really love this chapter, actually. It's a great insight into not just Egwene, but other characters we've been interacting with. So, I'm placing it after chapter 4, when we've met most of the relevant characters, or heard about them enough to recognize, and there's a bit of a lull in the story.)

We meet Egwene, who's with some of the other children in the Winespring Water river.

She was not here to play. At nine, she was carrying water for the first time, but she was going to be the best water-carrier ever.(1)

She wonders why she has to keep her hair long and wear it in a kerchief, when long hair is a sign of womanhood and she's years off from it yet.

Why did you have to keep doing something just because it had always been done that way?(2)

Downstream, the men are washing the sheep that will be sheared later. She's gathering water in her buckets when a raven lands nearby, watching some men washing sheep in the river nearby. Only, why would a raven watch the men when the sheep are the better targets? There are rumours that ravens and crows are the Dark One's eyes, but what would the Dark One need to see in the Two Rivers? That's silly talk.

An older boy, Kenley Ahan, tells her to get back to work. She gives him a level look she's seen older girls use, but it's not very effective. He gets back to his, pretending he's responsible about it, but she knows that won't last long. Still, she gets back to the water-carrying, because she really does want to be the best.

Farmers came from all around Emond’s Field for this, and village folk came out to help relatives. Everyone in the village had kith or kin of some sort on the farms. Shearing would be going on all across the Two Rivers, down at Deven Ride and up to Watch Hill. Not at Taren Ferry, of course. Many of the women wore shawls draped loosely over their arms and flowers in their hair, for the formality, and so did some of the older girls, though their hair was not in the long braid the women had. A few even wore dresses with embroidery around the neck, as if this really were a feastday. In contrast, most of the men and boys went coatless, and some even had their shirts unlaced. Egwene did not understand why they were allowed to do that. The women’s work was no cooler than the men’s.(3)

Egwene describes the jobs everyone does at shearing, from moving the sheep in and out of the pens, the shearing itself, sorting and baling, and preparing and serving food for everyone. Shearing is one of just five times a year when the whole community comes together, so the crowd is huge.

Taking care not to run into any of her sisters, who often treat her as a baby, she tells herself she's not looking for anyone else. Of course, it's a bit protest too much. She sees Kenley try to steal a honeycake, and get punished for it, and feels satisfied that he won't be giving orders again soon.

On her way back to the river to refill her bucket, Egwene sees Perrin with his family talking to the local smith, who says he's a fine lad, he'll do a great job. Egwene watches Perrin playing with his youngest sister, and his other sister sneaks up on Egwene and asks why she's watching Perrin when everyone knows she's going to marry Rand someday. Egwene notices more ravens, insults the girl,(4) and gets back to the business of water carrying.

Egwene then nearly runs into one of her sisters, telling off a Coplin for trying to interfere with the wool sorting she's doing. This makes Egwene think of how all her sisters treat her like a child. One of them even takes books Egwene wants to read, calling them "too complex" for her. Egwene particularly loves reading The Travels of Jain Farstrider, dreaming about seeing all the places he did.

She notes Nynaeve, the Wisdom's apprentice, bandaging a cut someone acquired from wool shears. Nynaeve was orphaned a few years ago, and taken apprentice much earlier than is usual for a Wisdom, instead of being sent to live with other relatives. She finishes the bandage, but the Wisdom undoes it, and looks disappointed for some reason Egg can't fathom.(5) Nyn tugs at her braid, a nervous habit of hers, although she could be trying to draw attention to the fact that she's been considered a woman grown for almost a year, even if she's still an apprentice.

Nearby Egg sees yet more ravens, watching the men and the boys. Just as she's about to ask the Wisdom what it might mean, Nyn sneaks up on her and asks if Egg has work to be doing. Somehow since last fall, she's known where Egg is without looking, and Egg wishes she'd stop.

Egg curtsies, and as she leaves, finds herself face to face with another of her sisters, Elisa. She's folding fleece, badly, and Egg thinks it's because she's older than Nynaeve by a year, but the Women's Circle still hasn't let her braid her hair. Egg points out another girl, Calle Coplin, who's even older with her hair unbraided, and Elisa gets deeply embarrassed and tells her to leave the adults to their work.

Well, with that, Egg stalks away, refills her bucket, and goes in search of Perrin and Mat, Rand's friends, for no reason at all, nope, she just has a question she needs to ask them, that's why she sneaks up on their hiding place. And she finds them, all three plus some other boys about their age. Egg hides around the corner from them and thinks about marriage customs and adulthood, and how she really wants to journey before she settles down, even if Rand is a kind boy.

The lads start talking about how to get into some mischief, and then someone comes and summons them all on behalf of the mayor. Egwene follows casually, and it turns out he promised to tell them a story. Only, they ask for a story about a false Dragon, and he doesn't know any, so he asks Tam, Rand's father, if he does. Tam offers to tell a story about the real Dragon, from the Age of Legends, three thousand years ago. Cenn Buie says some stories shouldn't be told, shouldn't even be known, but Bran insists it's only a story, what harm can it do?

To paraphrase, three thousand years ago in the Age of Legends(6) there were great cities full of huge buildings, and vehicles powered by magic that could carry people faster than horses can run. They didn't even remember war, and had no sickness they couldn't cure. And then the Dark One touched the world, and war came that covered the whole world in shadow. So came trollocs and myrddraal, and human darkfriends and even some Aes Sedai who went over to the dark and became the Forsaken.

Egwene puzzles at this, because some of the Forsaken were men, and they couldn't have been Aes Sedai, could they?(7)

The story goes on that Lews Therin Telamon, the Dragon himself, gathered an army of 100 men who marched on the Dark One's stronghold, and enough of them fought through to seal the hole in the Dark One's prison. And again Egwene puzzles, because didn't the stories say that the Dragon had broken the world? How could he have saved it and broken it?(8)

The story wraps up there, and Perrin asks what a dragon is.(9) Tam admits he doesn't know, and he's not sure even the Aes Sedai know what a dragon is. Still, it's nothing to do with today, so the boys are told to get back to work. Egwene is startled to realize there are more ravens in the trees than she's ever seen before. Worse, one of them is staring straight at her. She stares at it until it flies off with the others, and then she gets back to being the best water-carrier ever.

Egwene had to carry water again the next year, which was a great disappointment to her, but once again she tried to be the best. If you were going to do a thing, you might as well do the best you could. It must have worked, because the year after that she was allowed to help with the food, a year early! She set herself a new goal, then: to be allowed to braid her hair younger than anybody ever. She did not really think the Women’s Circle would allow it, but a goal that was easy was no goal at all. She stopped wanting to hear stories from the grownups, though she would have liked to hear a gleeman, but she still liked to read of distant lands with strange ways, and dreamed of seeing them. The boys stopped wanting stories, too. She did not think they even read very much. They all grew older, thinking their world would never change, and many of those stories faded to fond memories while others were forgotten, or half so. And if they learned that some of those stories really had been more than stories, well . . . The War of the Shadow? The Breaking of the World? Lews Therin Telamon? How could it matter now? And what had really happened back then, anyway?

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(1) Egwene is going to be The Best at anything she tries to do, or else the universe will have to pay. (2) And, our Egg is not a traditionalist. (3) Because your author wanted to make a particular point about your hometown being very conservative-traditional-having deep roots in the location. We've seen that with how many times things have been repeated and how many times people have said that's just the way it's always been. You, Egwene, may have been born here, but I think you can already see that you don't really belong. (4) In case you don't follow the logic here, my best guess, as someone who was once a 9 year old girl, is that Egg's embarrassed as all get out. She does have a crush on Rand, and they have practically been promised since infancy, even though there are many suitable kids of the right ages. But, she also thinks in this chapter about wanting to see the places Jain Farstrider did. She might not be fully aware of it consciously, but while part of her loves her home and her role in it, part of her also wants to journey beyond, and not be held back by decisions made before she was able to get involved. You can want something and still resent being pressured into choosing it, and resent any of that being noticed by someone else who's ready to embarrass you as soon as say hello. (5) Now, how odd. Do you think Nynaeve's that bad a medic? Egg doesn't think in that direction when she watches it. (6) Well, it's nice to finally have a timeline to work from, so I don't have to pretend I don't know when the Dragonmount prologue took place anymore. Oh, there's debate about the EXACT duration and whether the Third Age began before or after the Breaking, or even if it began with the great war, but we don't need to address that here. Plenty of places to talk about it once you've finished the series and can go find the full spoiler communities. (7) If the BOH in the prologue was to be believed, it was men who could channel who did most of the breaking, since they went mad and unleashed their power without control, while the "sisters" were still safe. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to suggest that Aes Sedai used to mean all channelers, and still means all not insane channelers. So perhaps Aes Sedai did break the world, but that got interpreted through three thousand years of semantic drift where the meaning of the term changed dramatically. A lot can change in how we interpret the words and prophecies of an era over the course of thousands of years. (8) How, indeed? This is probably the main reason why this fits before Dragonmount in publication order, technically speaking. Because this story leads into learning a little bit of the detail and the nuance. Not a lot, because book one of fifteen, but enough to tantalize the senses. We know that he led the Hundred Companions against the Dark One, because one of the Dark One's servants reminded him so. (Do you think that means the BOH was a Forsaken?) And we know that the men who could channel lost their minds and their control and broke the world, the way LTT broke his wife and his home and made that mountain. (9) Passing along information without context can be dangerous for just this reason. You never know what will be lost or made up in the game of telephone.

[wheel-of-fashions]

Chapter 1

“walking staff ... near as tall as he was and just as gnarled”