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neuxue · 4 years

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Wheel of Time liveblogging: Towers of Midnight ch 2

Perrin and Galad deal with leadership and its consequences, and I continue to not deal with the narrative conspiring to make me like Galadedrid Damodred.

Chapter 2: Questions of Leadership

With a title like that, this can only be a Perrin chapter.

Because average leader questions himself 10 times per book factoid actually just statistical error. Wolfbrother Perrin, who lives in a tent and questions himself 1000 times per book is an outlier and should not have been counted.

And that might be a new low for this liveblog, which is saying something.

A few days ago, the pervasive cloud cover had turned black, darkening like the advent of a horrible storm.

Luckily for you and the rest of existence, that particular meteorological phenomenon masquerading as a man decided against total annihilation of everything. *shakes head* Weather forecasts. Can’t trust ‘em.

(The science nerd in me now wants to write, like, a short story or something in the form of a journal article called Impact of localised heroic systems on global atmospheric chemistry and I think perhaps this is a tangent).

Anyway, we are indeed with Perrin, who’s been having a great time lately dealing with mud and plague. Yes, well, aren’t we all.

Both Asha’man had nearly died

Yeah well they’re used to that by now, surely. All in the job description.

Perrin you’ve had a month to work on that blacksmith’s puzzle in your pocket and you haven’t solved it? Just – give it to me. There. Solved.

(I used to love these puzzles. Haven’t come across one in ages though.)

Perrin’s taking in refugees because either he’s lying through his teeth or he’s ta’veren enough to slightly counteract Rand’s spoil-everything-edible influence, maybe.

He had bigger worries to bother him, not the least of which were his strange dreams. Haunting visions of working the forges and being unable to create anything of worth.

Is this the blacksmith equivalent of dreaming you’re suddenly sitting an exam you’ve not studied for, and also you’re naked?

Moving so many refugees was slow, even discounting the bubble of evil and the mud.

Hey at least you’re not also dealing with border walls and immigration control.

Everything took longer than he expected, including getting out of Malden.

Oh, TELL ME ABOUT IT. Me? Still bitter about the Malden plotline? Whatever made you think that?

All in all it seems like a pretty standard Tuesday for Perrin: slogging through mud, questioning his ability to be a great leader (not to be confused with the Great Leader), and trying to keep four nations’ worth of soldiers and refugees away from each other’s throats. Only one we’ve not ticked off the list yet is denying his wolfpowers, but there’s still time.

“Find out where they’re from, learn whether they did serve a lord, see if they can add anything to the maps.”

In which Perrin Aybara invents the census.

Oh hey! The road’s getting less muddy! Which is definitely not symbolic or anything.

“Where are the others?”

“They went on ahead, my Lord,” Fennel said, bowing from horseback. “I volunteered to stay behind, for when you caught up. We needed to explain, you see.”

I’m sorry, hold the phone, forward-thinking and communication – a plan specifically about communicating, even – all in one statement? Well. You know the apocalypse is coming when.

So everyone Perrin sent ahead has taken a detour because there’s mud up ahead, which may be the Pattern’s way of saying ‘we’re running out of time can you please just go where I need you for once’ or may just be bog-standard (see what I did there) geology and meteorology, but will, if the glimpses of Perrin through Rand’s special colour vision last book is anything to go by, result in a collision course for Perrin and Galad, which I’m… weirdly looking forward to.

“But from the look of things here, you decided to bring the entire town with you!”

Think bigger, Fennel. ‘Nation’ bigger, at the least. More likely plural.

Perrin does briefly consider splitting the party army nation(s) at his back, but the Shaido are conveniently in the way so instead I suppose they’ll all just make their way, amoeba-like, to wherever they can engulf Galad’s own group. Or be engulfed by. Alliance, phagocytosis; to-may-to, to-mah-to…

No I’m not sure where I was going with that either. Moving on…

He himself could Travel back to Rand, pretend to make up – most people would still think that he and Rand had parted ways angrily

This strikes me as being strangely sad, and I’m trying to figure out why. Maybe it’s because there’s a secondary reading of this which is that their ‘making up’ would be as much a pretence as their ‘fight’ because both of those have friendship as a prerequisite, and are they even friends anymore after all this time and all that has happened and all that lies between them?

Especially because, in terms of timelines, right now-for-Perrin, Rand is… not really in a place to be anyone’s friend.

I wonder, though, because I’m a terrible person who finds opportunities for Suffering even in things that should be entirely free of it, whether Rand-after-Dragonmount is in a better place to be anyone’s friend. I think yes, because that was very much the point, but I feel like there’s a bittersweet potential to it where ascendance is just as bad as damnation for maintaining a normal social life.

Or, less flippantly, there’s a strange loneliness to the messiah’s role, to being a force of nature and a champion of fate as much as or more than a man. He is known to all and all look to him and he stands, surrounded, at the centre, and he has learned to see the hope and promise in that rather than just the despair but there is still the sense of being alone on a mountain, alone on a pedestal, existing alone on a level that is not quite human but not quite divinity, touching all but no longer, quite, as a peer. Forces of nature don’t have best friends, even if they turn towards benevolence.

I mean, I’m spitballing here, because I’ve seen exactly one chapter of Rand-after-Dragonmount, and in fairness he seemed at peace with himself and his role now, but I still can’t help but wonder. And by wonder I mean wish. Because see above re: Suffering.

I guess mostly what I’m looking for is something along the series-standard line of you can’t go back, you can only go forward. And even when forward is better, even when forward is healing, even when forward is hope, it’s not the same as what you had or who you were before, and sometimes there is a sadness to that.

Sorry, this is a Perrin chapter and here I am going on about Rand, but I just… like thinking about all the friendships and relationships between all these characters, and how they change over time, and how those ties can be so altered and sometimes strained and yet even then they can also be what saves them all.

(“My best friend turned into the world.” “That’s rough buddy.”)

Faile was back now, and it appeared that his truce with Berelain was over.

NO.

*throws book at wall*

WHY. Damn it I was so glad when that finally died and Perrin and Berelain got to just work together and appreciate each other’s competence! Why must we return to this? Don’t you know that you can’t go back; you can only go forwards? WHY THIS. WHY ME.

The Prophet was dead, killed by bandits. Well, perhaps that was a fitting end for him, but Perrin still felt he’d failed.

Probably just because he doesn’t know that Masema was Faile-d.

I’m sorry. I’ll see myself out.

(That’s a lie; you’re just going to have to put up with me and my bad puns for at least another book).

His duty was done, the Prophet seen to, Alliandre’s allegiance secure. Only, Perrin felt as if something were still very wrong. He fingered the blacksmith’s puzzle in his pocket. To understand something… you have to figure out its parts…

Because you’ve only done the middlegame part of your duty, Perrin! You still have to get ready for the ending! And that means… *dramatic hammerstroke* forging. But, you know, metaphorically.

Perrin feels awkward around Faile now because when you’ve focused your entire life and self and nation, waking and sleeping, on achieving a single goal, and rewritten your entire world around that goal, and then you do achieve it, it’s sometimes hard to know what to do with the reality of having achieved it, of having that person back at your side but an emptiness ahead of you where the idea of them once occupied everything. Or at least that’s my suspicion but Perrin when this is all over you may want to, I don’t know, talk to someone about it.

Seriously, a qualified therapist could make a killing setting up shop in this world.

“I should start turning them away.”

“I suspect they’d find their way back to our force anyway.”

“Why should they? I could leave orders.”

“You can’t give orders to the Pattern itself, my husband.”

Perrin: “WATCH ME.”

Maybe you could ask Rand to, as a favour? He seems to be on good terms with the Pattern these days. Er. These days in his timeline, I mean.

Yes, Perrin, this is you being ta’veren. Or have you been living under a rock for the last several books? Denial’s not going to last you much longer.

“And so coopers learn the sword,” Faile said, “and find they have a talent for it. Masons who never thought of fighting back against the Shaido now train with the quarterstaff.”

It’s such a ploughshares-to-swords image, and I still just love the way this is how Perrin’s ta’veren-ness manifests specifically: the one who was so careful lest he hurt someone, the one who tries so hard to deny his capacity for anger and ferocity, the one drawn to the Way of the Leaf and a dream of peace, is the one to cause that rippling of peace into war, farmers into soldiers, a quiet nation into a waiting army.

Because on one level there’s the sadness of it, of the only one who returns home bringing that home back out into the world with him and leaving it forever changed, of the one who wants gentleness rousing a people to follow and fight… but even that then ties into the deeper issue of acceptance. Of realising that the potential has always been there – for a ploughshare to be a sword or a blacksmith to be a warrior, or a man to be a wolf or a town to be an army – and that drawing that potential out and allowing it to exist and be used doesn’t negate what was there before. That man and wolf can coexist, that anger does not preclude gentleness, that fighting a war for survival does not negate the hope, one day, of peace.

And so Perrin’s ta’veren power becomes almost another level in playing out what he will eventually need to accept about himself. Just as Rand’s darkness and then light spread out to touch the world around him, it’s as if Perrin’s lack of acceptance of aspects of himself keep these people from truly coming together (the dreams of forging things that don’t come out right), whereas if he can accept what he is, and accept all parts of himself, forge them into unity, then the part of the world he affects – the people who follow him – will be forged together as well.

At least he acknowledges to himself that Faile’s right about this one. That’s a good step.

“Once we have gateways again, I’ll send these people to their proper places. I’m not gathering an army.”

Sigh. Or not. Two steps forward, one step back.

Understand the metal and the tools and the puzzle in your hands, Perrin. Look at what you have. Not at what you wish you had, or think you should have. Look at what the pieces can and need to be made into, rather than forcing them into what you want them to be made into.

“A man’s got to see a thing for what it is. No sense in calling a buckle a hinge or calling a nail a horseshoe.”

The hilarious thing here is that he’s making my point, whilst thinking he’s disproving it. Because Perrin, seeing a thing for what it is means looking at all these people around you and realising you’re their leader and they’re following you and you’re headed for Tarmon Gai’don. No sense calling a buckle a hinge, or an army a random group of refugees. (Well, they are that, too. But if you try to return them home now, soon they will have no home at all).

I do appreciate that he sees and acknowledges some of his flaws from when Faile was gone. He’s a little too hard on himself in places, and misses out others, but it’s a kind of humility and self-awareness and ability to recognise where he could be better that I like.

“It’s not [Berelain’s] fault,” Perrin said. If I’d been able to think of it, I’d have stopped the rumours dead. But I didn’t. Now I’ve got to sleep in the bed I made for myself.”

Perhaps not quite the idiom I’d have chosen in this particular instance, Perrin, but…

When she’d been a captive, nothing had mattered to him but recovering her. Nothing. It didn’t matter who had needed his help, or what orders he’d been given. […]

He realised now how dangerous his actions had been. Trouble was, he’d take those same actions again. He didn’t regret what he’d done, not for a moment.

Well… partial credit for self-awareness, I suppose?

Frustrating as this is, though, it also feels quite realistic. And there’s a certain kind of maturity in the devastating honesty it takes to look at something you’ve done and say ‘I shouldn’t have done that, but in the same situation I’d make those same choices again’. Even if it’s a mistake, being able to acknowledge that about yourself is… impressive.

You couldn’t make a drawknife into a horseshoe by painting it, or by calling it something different.

Yeah, and you can’t make a ta’veren lord, leader, wolfbrother, and warrior back into a simple blacksmith’s apprentice boy by sheer force of denial, but don’t let that stop you.

“I’ve been thinking on this for the last few weeks, and – odd though it seems – I believe my captivity may have been precisely what we needed. Both of us.”

*throws book against wall and lets out an Elayne-like scream of pure rage*

ARGH.

WHY.

‘It’s fine, Perrin, you see I actually think it’s good that I was just used as a plot device to further your character development because I was tossed a bit of character development as a last-minute consolation prize, so really it’s all good!’

Sigh. Okay. I mean, in-story and in-character… I get it. It’s over now, it’s past, and they’re both trying to move on, and Faile has always been one to try to find a pragmatic angle – even an optimistic one – on a situation. And she’s strong enough to say this and make it sound (almost) believable. To look back on harsh lessons learned in harsher circumstances and appreciate the fires that forged her.

Which of course puts me in mind of Rand and his if a sword had memory, it might be grateful to the forge fire, but never fond of it ‘gratitude’ towards his imprisonment in Far Madding, but with Rand and that thought, we are given fairly obvious narrative cues that point to ‘yikes, Rand, that’s maybe not the healthiest of responses to trauma’, and we know full well that we’re not supposed to think ‘ah, yes, being locked in a cell with his worst nightmares was good for his character development so everything’s fine’. (Which is not to say we can’t enjoy it, because sometimes you just want to see your favourite character broken and bleeding and chained to a wall, but that’s uh. Neither here nor there).

But here, it’s as if we’re supposed to take Faile at face value. As if we’re supposed to nod and think ‘yeah, actually, that probably wasn’t fun but it was What She Needed’ (which… wow that is an entire pile of yikes, because yes, what a female character in this genre needs is to be held captive and sexually coerced and deprived of all agency… is maybe not a point you want to be making?). It feels like trying to hang a lampshade on that travesty of a plotline and say ‘but look! It brought them both character development! So it’s fine!’

Anyway I’m still just bitter about the way Faile has been used as a plot device for Perrin’s character development across the last few books, and this… while entirely understandable from a character and story perspective, from an external perspective feels like salt in the damn wound.

Moving on.

To Galad, apparently.

Galad who is bound and in pain after being tortured. I’m listening.

(Why am I like this)

All was dark around him, but pinprick lights shone in the sky. Stars? It had been overcast for so long.

Huh. There’s something almost sweet about how closely this echoes that chapter in TGS when Gawyn is wishing he could see the stars. I mean I’m certain it’s not actually intentional because it’s a spurious connection at best, but it’s just a kind of sweet-sad note of similarity between two brothers who haven’t seen each other since they both got lost trying to find their way, and are still trying and wishing, just for a moment, for the stars for guidance.

They’re not actually stars, just pinpricks in the tent, but that’s beside the point.

What’s not beside the point is the inventory of Galad’s wounds because honestly, it’s as if everything from then he did dance, all his grace turned in an instant to fluid death onwards has been a targeted attack on me as a person by going down a list of all the things I like to see in a character and going ‘do you like him now? What about now? What about now?’ and I’m mad about it.

Galad did not fear death or pain. He had made the right choices. It was unfortunate that he’d needed to leave the Questioners in charge; they were controlled by the Seanchan. However, there had been no other option, not after he’d walked into Asunawa’s hands.

I’m not sure why I find it so fitting that Galad’s experience at Asunawa’s hands is not unlike Morgase’s in the end, but something about it just works for me. There’s a whole set of connections here that this bookends, between the two of them and their fall from and rise to power, and choices, and Valda and Asunawa and the Seanchan, and for whatever reason it feels satisfying to have this coming to an end much like it began. Though Galad is spared Morgase’s…………… choice. But I suppose there’s almost an irony here in him avenging Morgase in one way but then sharing her fate in another.

Or maybe it’s just back to the classic ‘I like fictional characters in pain’.

Soon the Questioners would come for him, and then the true price for saving his men would be exacted with their hooks and knives. He had been aware of that price when he’d made his decision. In a way, he had won, for he had manipulated the situation best.

STOP. TRYING. TO. MAKE. ME. LIKE. GALAD. DAMODRED.

I just. Damn it. This is such a good look! And yet it’s Galad!

Standing, beaten but unflinching, determined and himself, ready to face whatever they do to him. Well. That’s how Morgase began, too.

Oh hey it’s his friends! Which means probably no more torturing of Galad, which is kind of a shame (I’m sorry), but is also not entirely unexpected.

Oh wow Asunawa’s dead. Okay. Can’t say he’ll be missed, though it’s just a shame Morgase didn’t get to kill either him or Valda herself. Ah well, can’t have everything.

And it wasn’t Galad’s men who killed him, so now he has won the Questioners to him as well. Questions of Leadership indeed. I see what you did there.

It is an interesting contrast in this chapter, to watch Perrin constantly second-guessing or trying to deny his leadership, set against Galad just… accepting his.

I will give Galad this: he has won his leadership by being entirely and unrelentingly himself, and true to his convictions, and standing, despite everything thrown at him, despite the corruption around him, as a determined and unassailable symbol of what the Children of the Light should be. What they can be. He doesn’t try to steal power, doesn’t outright challenge their ways; he just leads quite literally by sheer force of example.

Galad nodded. “You accept me as Lord Captain Commander?”

But also, I just have to remind everyone that he’s buck-ass naked throughout this entire scene, and some juvenile part of me finds that absolutely hilarious.

“We were forced to kill a third of those who wore the red shepherd’s crook of the Hand of the Light.”

What a pity. No, really. I’m weeping. How sad. Terrible.

None of them asked whether he needed rest, though Trom did look worried.

Again! Characters beaten and exhausted and hiding their pain in order to just move forward is a whole Thing, and putting that on Galad and throwing it at me is just unfair.

Galad didn’t feel wise or strong enough to bear the title he did. But the Children had made their decision.

The Light would protect them for it.

(The fact that ‘Galad’ means ‘light’ in Sindarin is just an added bonus here, really).

But I like the way his thinking about this runs: he doesn’t feel wise or strong enough, but that’s not the part that matters. The part that matters is that they chose him. As Galad sees it, what makes a leader isn’t what the leader thinks of himself, but merely the fact that others choose to follow.

He is their leader now, and whether he wants to be or not, whether he feels up to it or not, is irrelevant. There’s an interesting question here around choices, and the lack thereof – that he has no choice, in a way, but to lead. Because whether or not he wants to, people have decided to follow him, and so by definition he is their leader now. And so the only thing to do, because it’s the right thing to do, is to lead them as well as he can.

Next (ToM ch 3) Previous (ToM ch 1)

#forever annoyed with Galad #but torture is a good look on him #Wheel of Time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #Towers of Midnight

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astrometriia · 7 years

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Perrin and Faile’s first kiss, after popular demand. <3 It’s set shortly after he saved her from the hedgehog trap, in The Dragon Reborn.

Faile drew her hand back instantly when Perrin stirred beneath her, his eyes fluttering open. They shone like burnished gold in the low light from the nearby candle, making her throat tighten before she could help it. His eyes had mystified her from the first moment she’d glimpsed them, so human despite how utterly inhuman their shade was. Though she’d gotten used to them over time, they still unsettled her in the half-light.

“Faile?” he croaked, his voice weak. Her heart skipped a beat; she’d wanted him to call her by the name for so long, it was so wonderful to hear the way it rolled off his tongue. If only the circumstances were less grim. His gaze finally settled on her, and if her heart beat a little faster when they did, she attributed it to her worry. “What...?”

“Don’t speak,” she cautioned him, pressing her fingers against his lips briefly before she stooped over him again. As glad as she was to see him conscious, she still worried over his injuries. She dabbed carefully at his face with a damp cloth already stained red. “Loial’s gone to bring help. You are hurt very badly.”

Which was putting it mildly, in truth. Light, Perrin’s arms and face were littered with so many deep gouges, it was if as if an entire flock of birds had seen fit to shred him to pieces! A small voice in the back of her mind told her that it was not far from the truth at all, though she remembered very little of what had actually happened. It all still felt like a dream, and Loial had been unable to explain it before she’d sent him to fetch the Aes Sedai. Perrin desperately needed healing, especially when her ointments were nowhere near potent enough to tend to his wounds. Faile focused on wiping a fresh trail of blood from a slice along his jawline, wincing.

Perrin’s eyes drifted towards the ceiling. He appeared more lucid than before, which she hoped was a good sign. Faile had been unable to carry him to a bed herself, what with how heavy the blacksmith was, but luckily Loial had managed well enough. She hoped he came back soon with help, before Perrin got any fool notions into his head like—

She heard him suck in his breath with a sharp hiss, having just attempted to rise. Faile flung a hand out, splaying it against his chest. “What part of badly hurt did you not understand?” she whispered fiercely, her fingers digging into his shirt. “You hairy blacksmith, you’ll injure yourself worse if you try to get up!”

“But I need to—”

“All you need now is rest,” she said firmly, pushing him back against the bed. The fact that he went willingly alarmed her, but she ignored the uneasy feeling and resumed wiping more blood free from his face. “You’ve done more than enough for one night. The rest is up to the Aes Sedai and her stone-faced Warder, whatever it is they are doing at the Stone.”

Perrin was silent for a time, only the sounds of his labored breaths telling her that he yet lived. She tried not to let the thought of his life slipping away unnerve her, but it was no use. Her hand trembled as it wiped away more blood from his arms. His shirt was in tatters, making it difficult to properly clean his wounds, but there had been no time to ask Loial to help remove his clothes.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” he said then, staring at her intently with those strange eyes of his.

“Whatever possessed you to do such a fool thing as to come after me, I’ll never understand.” Her memories of the dream were vague, but she remembered her relief well enough whenever he’d found her. The way her hand trembled as it pressed the cloth against the small dip between his shoulder and neck had nothing to do with all the blood now, though she wouldn’t dare admit that out loud. “You could have died! I would have never been able to live with myself if that happened.”

She clamped her mouth shut quickly, feeling her face heat up. That had revealed more than she’d intended, but the damage was already done. It wasn’t that she did not appreciate that Perrin had saved her — it actually made her insides flutter wildly, like the frantic beatings of a bird’s wings — but the risk of him dying had been too great. Loial had explained some of it before leaving for the Stone, though Faile had the feeling that the blacksmith hadn’t weighed the risks properly before plunging headfirst into the dream after her. Her blacksmith was a stubborn one.

“Faile,” he said again, stirring once more. His face twisted into a grimace, and though she tried to push him back down onto the bed, he shoved her hands away until he managed to lift a hand, clasping her cheek. His breathing was ragged, his face a mask of pain, but there was a light in those eyes that captivated her.

She felt her free hand rise to cover his before she could think of doing otherwise, her heart fluttering at the warmth in his touch. His fingers bore callouses, she couldn’t help but notice, which felt pleasantly rough against her skin. She almost started babbling again, like she had when she’d first come round to and laid eyes on the sight of Perrin sprawled out on the ground next to her, blood flowing freely from countless wounds.

“I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I hadn’t tried to save you,” he whispered hoarsely. Grimacing, he braced his weight on his arm, but he did not let his other hand fall from her cheek. “Light, I’m so sorry for treating you so poorly...”

“Don’t apologize. What’s done is done.” Faile’s other hand rose, clasping his cheek in much the same way he was clasping hers. “As angry as I am at you for putting yourself in danger, I... I’m glad you did. You saved me.”

A smile made its way onto his face. “I’ll always save you, no matter what.”

She wasn’t sure who leaned forwards first, but in the end it didn’t matter. Their lips met and it was so much more than she’d hoped for. He kissed her with a desperation she hadn’t been expecting but she returned it in kind, her arms wrapping around his shoulders heedless of the bloodstains they’d leave on her. Oh, but he was a foolish man. And she was twice the fool for letting him creep into her heart so surely. They eventually pulled apart for air, but his thumb still stubbornly traced her cheek. Not that she really minded. His smile was even wider now, his eyes glowing with a warmth that made her insides curl.

She lifted her hands to his face, returning the smile with one just as wide. “You must rest now, my blacksmith,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead. The way his other arm trembled as it tried to support his weight was not lost on her. “Rest, and there will be time enough for us.”

#lit: wheel of time #ch: perrin aybara #ch: faile bashere #otp: perrin x faile #steel writes fanfic #my original headcanon was actually more simple #but when you're writing from faile's pov nothing is ever simple #i really enjoy writing faile #<333

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