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butterflydm · 1 year

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wot reread: towers of midnight (chap 27-38)

spoilers for towers of midnight

This gritted teeth reluctance of Egwene's, where she knows that they can't afford to face the Seanchan now because the Last Battle is more important -- this is the vibe. This is the energy. We need more of this when talking about the Seanchan.

2. Anyway, Egwene is trying to reach out to Rand's allies to convince them that he needs to be convinced to stop his plan of breaking the seals. This section works better than the earlier ones imo because Darlin, etc. doesn't know about the big epiphany and Rand's shift in perspective, so instead of another person reassuring Egwene that Rand is ~much better now~, we get a more measured response that talks about loyalty, and the Seanchan to the west, and that they all knew that the Dragon Reborn would likely go mad before the Last Battle so this shouldn't really be a surprise and he's still the only horse in the race.

3. They receive word that the watchtowers of the Borderlands are beginning to go dark -- a sign that the Last Battle is truly beginning. Egwene learns that the Hall is meeting without her, and goes to the meeting. After some Aes Sedai political wrangling, Egwene manages to get them to trade authority over the armies with authority in dealing with monarchs and rulers, aka Rand, who rules Illian. She also does some important loophole closing to make it harder for another secretive group like the Black Ajah to depose an Amrylin as happened to Siuan.

4. There is a certain amount of hilarious irony in Faile being hurt over Morgase using a different name and hiding her noble identity given the way Faile entered into this story (though Faile does realize this herself after a moment). But then she admits to herself that her real worry is that Morgase, as a fair woman, might fairly decide that Perrin really is a murderer, and they would have to deal with the consequences of that decision.

5. While a bubble of evil attacks Perrin's camp, Morgase and Galad are talking off in the Whitecloak camp. Morgase thinks about how she wishes she'd done a better job teaching Galad about shades of gray, so perhaps he wouldn't have been drawn into the Children of Light, with their black and white philosophy. She does her best to impart some shades of gray teachings to him now: good people can make mistakes sometimes and that's as important as knowing if a crime itself happened (basically that intent does matter when judging for a crime). She does not quite convince him, because... idk we need to draw out Perrin's plot more I guess. And the bubble of evil means that Perrin is asking for more time on his side too.

6. Okay, so Tam hasn't left at this point. But Perrin has been casually talking about how Elayne is planning to marry Rand*, which means it should be buzzing around the camp as gossip, which means that Tam should already know about Elayne when he first meets Min in Tear. There was zero indication about this in the Tam scenes in TGS but since it seems obvious that Tam should already know, I'm going to imagine/pretend that he talked to either Min or zen!Rand (once he returned) about these rumors about the queen of Andor wanting to marry Rand.

Anyway, Tam tells Perrin that he needs to leave on special ~Aes Sedai business~ but that he's proud of him. I guess that's nice. And then he leaves, off to go be in the ending of TGS and nearly get killed by his son. So that's where Perrin is in the timeline.

*this really does illustrate how infrequently Perrin thinks of Rand and how quickly he manages to dispel his visions of Rand compared to Mat, since he apparently has NOT been watching Rand constantly having sex with Min in recent months -- or maybe the ~Pattern~ just knows that Mat is more interested in seeing Rand during those times than Perrin is? Because Perrin actually DOES know Min and Elayne both separately -- he spent that winter between TGH & TDR spending a lot of time with Min and she even confessed to him that she was fated to fall in love with Rand (though didn't know if he would love her back), and he was in Tear when Elayne and Rand were together as well -- so you'd think that he'd consider what it might mean for Elayne's marriage hopes that Min stole her boyfriend, since he doesn't know about the shared love confessions, yet the only thing he mentioned as a potential objection to the marriage is that Rand might be too busy ~conquering his next nation~. I mean, I guess he could have been making poly assumptions but that's really the sort of thing that maybe should have actually been in his thoughts at some point, lol.

7. Haha, Elayne finding a loophole in the "required bed rest for a week" rule laid down by her midwife. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 ilu Elayne. Anyway, she's here to see a demonstration of Aludra's dragons! It's interesting that Mat explained to Elayne that Aludra's main motivation is to get revenge against the Seanchan, which potentially means that he told her about the Seanchan destroying the Tanchico chapterhouse and murdering & enslaving the Illuminators there. But, yes, the first public demonstration of the 'dragons' (aka cannons) is a success. After agreeing to give her all the resources that she requires, Elayne makes Aludra swear that she will keep the creation of these a secret, but Birgitte feels anxious about the idea of them anyway. "The world just changed."

8. Perrin's crash course in How To Wolfbrother: Dream Edition continues. This time, he's learning how not to be afraid of himself as Young Bull and how to confidently control the wolf dream around him when he's inside it. Over a handful of days. This is the first time Perrin finds out that this is the dreamplace of 'everyone' and not just wolf-related people. Hopper brings Perrin to a city so that he can walk through the 'fear dreams' of the people living there, so that he can do an accelerated crash course in How To Wolfbrother. And I do find all this wolf-development good but... wow, it feels so belated. Mat got his war memories in TSR and struggled with them over the course of TFoH but had basically accepted them by LoC. Perrin found out he was a wolfbrother in EotW and is only now finishing up his coursework in How To Wolfbrother.

9. It's interesting that the wolves are waiting on Dragonmount for Rand to face his moment of decision between destruction and life. We've only had hints of how connected the wolves feel to the Light & to the Dragon Reborn. Kinda wish we'd gotten more. One of the downsides of how Jordan kept dividing up the storylines and separating everyone, I suppose, plus the general theme of Team Light having rotten communication skills and keeping secrets from each other.

I really do feel like Sanderson rushed Rand too much in TGS and then idled with him in ToM and I think it would have worked better to have the ruthless Rand arc paced out more with the other characters in ToM rather than climaxing at the end of TGS. I'm also kinda... eh on whether or not we needed Perrin there ~in spirit~ with Rand on Dragonmount? I'm not sure we needed an outside PoV of this scene when we had an internal one already? I like the descriptions well enough but I am tired of always seeing Rand from the outside in ToM. But, anyway, Rand chooses life and the wolves all celebrate. It's kinda funny that the wolves are so into Rand and he... barely has any clue that wolves are related to the Last Battle in any way? I don't think anyone (Perrin) has mentioned that he's a celebrity to the wolves.

10. I am more than halfway done with ToM and I feel like barely anything has happened yet, lol. "Let's all catch up to Rand's moment of being awesome" didn't work for CoT and I'm not sure why Sanderson decided to repeat that again for ToM. There are definitely some chapters and PoVs that I am enjoying but overall this book feels like filler half the time, which is a WILD choice, bro.

11. Mat is dicing, and it seems to partly be a vibe check to see if his luck is with him (see, this is what I meant earlier about how Elayne's supernatural guarantee is more guaranteed than Mat's is). Strike nine-point-three as Mat notices the wide smile of a "raven-haired beauty". He is now preemptively telling (some) women that he's married in hopes that they will do the work of not being flirty rather than him doing it. Strike ten-point-three, as Mat regretfully thinks about how the innkeeper's wife is very pretty but her husband would assault him if he looked at her for too long so he only glances at her briefly.

12. He's been walking around with his face uncovered all day, hoping to draw the gholam to him now that he has a plan on how to deal with it. It works after a while and the two of them fight (in streets that are being kept clear by the Band keeping other people away). The gholam is able to get his medallion away from him, but Mat has borrowed two of the copies from Elayne and discovers that they still work against the gholam. Ah, and the secret weapon is finding a way to trick it/back it into falling into the Gateway created by one of the Kin. This is a good chapter, for the most part, except for some minor things here and there, that are mostly annoyances that were pre-baked into Mat's new characterization from Jordan in CoT & KoD. The gholam thing unfortunately does feel like it turned more into a personal vendetta, which I think is a shame, but I'm glad that channeling was an essential part of defeating it. Mat has, since parting from his slaver wife, now worked extensively with free channelers -- Teslyn saved his life against the gholam before, and it's Elayne connecting him to the Kin (who had to escape Altara to avoid being enslaved by his wife's people) that saves him here and helps him defeat the gholam.

13. Strike eleven-point-three as Mat notes one of the Kinswomen who is plump and pretty and would "fit nicely on his knee".

14. Yikes on bikes that Mat wants to give a slaver, who is hostile to channelers and who wants to torture and enslave them, a medallion that would protect her against channeling (though this plan of his does make an asshole move that Tuon pulls later somewhat ironic). Though he isn't aware of the copies' flaws, it sounds like, and one of those flaws is that they protect against some weaves but not against the most powerful, so Elayne could, for example, still balefire Tuon's ass if she were wearing one of the copies.

Also, I bet that Mat did NOT tell Elayne that he was planning to give her hard work to a slaver who would be willing to torture, degrade, and mind-break her if given the chance. Honestly, once Elayne does find out who Mat is married to, she has every right to feel completely betrayed by him. He used her to aid someone who would be willing to torture her and the people under her protection. And he's so deeply in denial about Tuon (thinking of her ~as a person~ as completely separate from her position ~as a powerful enforcer of slavery in a slaver society~ and behaving as if 'protecting Tuon' doesn't support the Seanchan Empire in any way -- this is the bullshit that his "your empire is my enemy but you aren't" double-thinking allows to him to believe despite it being nonsense) that it doesn't even occur to him that what he's doing here is a complete betrayal of the trust that Elayne has placed in him. And after Elayne saved his ass here too -- both with the copies of the medallion, and also because she and Birgitte are the ones who came up with this plan for him.

...I wonder if the medallion copies would prevent a sul'dam from using an a'dam, since (unlike the original) they do not allow the wearer to channel while wearing them. It seems logical that they would block the link created by the a'dam.

15. Anyway, Mat is basically pulling the exact same "I am on both sides and neither at once" routine with Tuon & the Westlanders that Gawyn pulled with the loyalist Aes Sedai and Egwene, so I can only hope that this means that Mat will come to his senses post-canon the way that Gawyn came to his senses and picked the right side once he learned that Egwene was imprisoned by the White Tower. There are a few easy ways that a post-canon narrative could make that happen.

Honestly, it's more likely that Tuon will grossly violate Mat's sense of morality past the bounds of what he can take than that she won't, given what we've seen of her personality and beliefs. If they have multiple kids in the future and Tuon raises them in the Imperial Seanchan way, Mat will rebel against having his kids sabotage and undermine each other to attempts to appeal to empress dearest; if he sees someone in a collar that he recognizes than this may bring things home to him in a way that it seems like he's forcing himself to ignore when the slaves are all strangers; if they have a channeler kid who Tuon tries to collar, etc. Lots of things could cross the line, and all of those things seem perfectly in her character as has been shown thus far in the books.

The interesting thing to me here is that Mat gets to fence-straddle without getting the fandom hate that Gawyn got for it. Is it simply because the reader got to know Mat for much longer before he started his fence-straddling ways in CoT? Is it because Mat has a more amusing internal narration so people are willing to forgive him for more than they would other characters? Is it because of who gets hurt because of the fence-straddling?

Gawyn's fence-straddling meant that he didn't help Rand during/after Dumai's Wells and he also killed some number of Warders during the coup. Mat's fence-straddling means that so far he's been complicit in forty Aes Sedai getting enslaved by the Seanchan plus an unknown number of injuries and deaths, and he's currently plotting to give Tuon a tool that would help her enslave more Aes Sedai (even if he chooses to be in denial over the fact that she could use it that way).

16. General Bashere and his army finally arrive with Asha'man to give Ituralde some relief. Rand shows up too, a little bit later, and apologizes to Ituralde for how he has failed in making peace with the Seanchan and in giving him the support that he needed. Rand goes out alone to kill a massive wave of Shadowspawn by himself.

17. Rand processes that he was angry during the recent fight with the Shadowspawn... and that that's OKAY. He's allowed to be angry as long as he processes and controls that anger appropriately and doesn't lash out at his allies. Very important step!

lol we also get updated on Min's Old Tongue prophecy analysis project re: Callandor. It's... lol, whatever. I guess it gives Min something to do.

Once again, I wish so much that we were actually in Rand's head and not just getting him filtered through other people's PoVs.

18. So Nynaeve has given a full report of her time with Rand to the Amyrlin & Siuan (who is clearly still one of Egwene's main advisors at this point? She's the only person in the meeting with Egwene and Nynaeve). She is capable of communication, just not with Rand. *sigh*

Nynaeve defends Rand here against Egwene (she says that if the Asha'man's behavior is Rand's responsibility, then the Aes Sedai's behavior is Egwene's responsibility), but was never willing to tell him anything when she was with him. The rest of the scene is them sketching out their plan to take out Mesaana (using Egwene as bait again). Nynaeve suggests working with Rand, but Egwene shoots the idea down.

19. Gawyn is just... casually hanging out with Elayne in Caemlyn? We didn't actually get to see their reunion? Well, that's disappointing. Gawyn guesses that Rand is the father of Elayne's kids and she mentions that if he is, it would be smart not to tell anyone about it, as it would make them targets. Gawyn and Elayne talk some various things through re: Rand and Egwene and, in the end, Elayne helps Gawyn let go of his hate of Rand. She releases from his obligations in Caemlyn, so that he can fully devote himself to Egwene & the White Tower. It's a sweet scene, honestly. It gets quoted sometimes as Elayne doing a Take That at Gawyn over classism but that's not really the approach she's taking at all with him.

20. While he's here, he takes out the dagger that was dropped by the assassin and examines it, getting a started reaction from one of the nearby 'Kin', who is actually one of the ex-damane (Marille), who recognizes the dagger and what it means. He finds out that the Bloodknives are Seanchan assassins who are sent personally by the Empress. Suicide troops left behind to murder Aes Sedai, in this case. They've murdered several women already, and those deaths are also ones that Mat is complicit in. We get a reminder here that "the Seanchan treated their damane worse than animals" as Marille cowers and whimpers when Gawyn's voice raises.

(And Tuon would happily do this kind of emotional damage to Mat's sister Bode, or to Egwene, or Elayne, or Aviendha, or Nynaeve, or Moiraine, etc. -- though that does remind me of how it, in retrospect, it does seem like the composition of Mat's party that escaped Ebou Dar was another deliberate choice to shield Mat from the true horror of what the Seanchan do to these women -- he has never met an native Seanchan ex-damane, who has had to reconstruct herself from the ground up after having been taught since fifteen or sixteen years old that she is a subhuman monster. But having someone like that around during the circus journey would have been an even stronger indictment of Tuon as a person and of her society as a whole, so potentially that's why Jordan avoided it)

21. So GAWYN gets to hear the explanation here that all sul'dam are capable of learning to channel, something that no one has ever gotten around to telling Rand. Kaisea, the ex-sul'dam (who was also Low Blood, it sounds like) that Gawyn meets here, is insisting that she belongs in the collar now. If Elayne is so sure that it will undermine Seanchan culture for this news to spread, then it's baffling to me that she isn't spreading the news! This should be a major (deliberately planted) rumor, especially in cities and villages near or across the Seanchan border (it's entirely possible that this was originally part of Jordan's plan for the Seanchan, before he decided to slow-walk them starting in CoT, for the sake of the outriggers that will never happen).

Gaywn learns that the ter'angreal rings that the Bloodknives wear gives them the ability to blur near shadows but it comes at great cost -- once activated, death will come to them, usually in a couple of weeks and at a month at the longest. Around now is when he gets the message from Egwene to return to the Tower. Instead of doing so, he has the knife sent back, with the message that the assassin is Seanchan (and the details of how they work). Also, just as the Seanchan declare their army Ever Victorious (and their empress ~may she live forever~) they also say that the Bloodknives are impossible to survive if you're their target. You can always count on the Seanchan to declare that they are The Best and Most Perfect at everything, despite the evidence being against them. From what I've seen in the books, the only thing they're actually 'the best' at is propaganda (though both of those traits -- claiming to be superior and only really being superior at SAYING they're superior -- are pretty common for fascist-style governments, so I guess that's all true to form).

22. Perrin is STILL planning to disband the armies that he has gathered (after the trial, before he goes back to Rand). wtf dude! I don't care if you don't want to lead them; hand them over to Rand and HE can lead them. He has stopped complaining about leading them publicly, at least.

23. Perrin has figured out that there's a connection between the weird dome in the wolfdream and the inability of channelers to create Gateways in that same area in the waking world. Oops, there's a section here where Faile's PoV becomes Perrin's for a few paragraphs and then swaps back to Faile's, without the normal spacing markers that the books use for PoV swaps in the same chapter.

24. Conclusion of the trial: Perrin "killed unlawfully" but did not "murder" the Children of the Light, because the Children did not have authorization to act within Andor's borders, so Morgase is treating it as a clash between two mercenary bands. Then she throws the sentencing to Galad. Galad asks if Perrin will stand by the sentencing, Perrin says that he will... but only after the Last Battle. Galad agrees to those terms and says he will name the sentence itself later.

(in light of our Dain Bornhald casting news -- this is the culmination of his own series-long arc, where he learns and begins to believe that Perrin was not responsible for his father's death)

24. Tonight is the night that Egwene plans to face off with Mesaana in TAR. They have their trap set. Egwene also asks Silviana to send Gawyn another letter requesting his return but to make sure that she asks this time instead of telling. Egwene would probably have had more success if she'd written the letter herself, lol.

25. The frustrating thing about the Whitecloak trial being the trigger for Perrin's character arc climax here is how he has committed much worse deeds since then and not regretted them. I don't care about the results of his Whitecloak trial. I want him on trial for selling two hundred women into slavery! Anyway, he's heading into the wolfdream to try to kill Slayer, while Faile is in charge of handling the retreat through the Gateways in the waking world. He isn't able to kill Slayer, but he finds the dreamspike that was being used to prevent Traveling and starts traveling north with it, so that his people will be able to leave.

26. While Nynaeve keeps an eye on the fake location for the TAR meeting that is meant to draw out Mesaana, Egwene attends the real meeting, which is between Aes Sedai, Wise Ones, and (for the first time) a handful of Windfinders. We know that Egwene's big goal is that she would like all women who can channel to be 'tied' to the White Tower in some fashion, so I'm guessing this meeting is going to be an attempt at making that work. The Windfinders describe the White Tower taking people in a very poetic way: "The White Tower inhales but does not exhale -- that which is brought in is never allowed to leave." And the Wise Ones are feeling some solidarity with that vibe.

Egwene agrees with this point and says that they may have been wise to keep their abilities a secret, but then says that the White Tower does have some knowledge that they do not... and they begin to work out a potential bargain. Accepted being sent to learn from Wise Ones or Windfinders... and apprentices being sent to learn from Aes Sedai and then being allowed to return to their people instead of being required to stay with the White Tower. It feels like she's taking the lesson that she saw with Nynaeve in the Testing here and applying it to the Aiel & Atha'an Miere. She also agrees that the ter'angreal that belong to the Aiel and to the Atha'an Miere can be agreed to belong to them, without the White Tower trying to snatch them away because they've declared ~all ter'angreal~ to be theirs.

27. They also talk here about the other 'common foe' that they share -- the Seanchan. That an alliance between their three groups will make it easier for them to stand together against the Seanchan. The bargain still needs to be ratified by each of the individual parties' people but it's a pretty sound one, imo.

28. Mesaana attacks the decoy location and, by ta'veren coincidence, Perrin's journey north with the dreamspike has led him to Tar Valon. And Gawyn manages to return to Tar Valon via Gateway right before the dreamspike arrives and cuts off the city.

29. Carlinya is dead OFF-SCREEN. She was killed by Mesaana off the page? That's so rude. tbh, I actually do wonder if maybe she was supposed to have been one of the women abducted by the Seanchan (due to the viewing that Min had) but no specific notes were left about it? While ravens are somewhat associated with the Dark One, they've been a lot more strongly associated with the Seanchan. But I do wonder if maybe the reason that ELAIDA was the named one who was taken by the Seanchan was so that the readers would be like "oh she deserves it tho" and not hold the Seanchan as accountable for their slave raid as they deserved to be, and as they might be if a non-hostile Aes Sedai were the featured one being abducted.

30. So Egwene, the Aes Sedai, & the Wise Ones are fighting Mesaana and the Black Ajah, while Perrin fights Slayer and Gawyn races to try to protect Egwene's sleeping body from the Seanchan Bloodknife assassin(s).

Nothing about this climax is impossible to do if Rand is still ruthless!Rand imo. He's not really related to what's happening here at all. Dragonmount could have happened after this and it would have been fine, story-wise. I'm feeling pretty strongly overall that it was a mistake to pull the trigger on Rand's epiphany back in TGS.

31. Perrin and his less than a week's worth of Accelerated How To Wolfbrother coursework vs Egwene's year-plus of training (since she started her dreamwalker training in the same book where Perrin & Faile got married, and they just had their anniversary), yet we're supposed to buy that he's become Epic Good at it.

I mean, Sanderson really was caught in a Catch-22 with Perrin tbh, because of how Jordan had stalled Perrin's character arc out. He is SO FAR BEHIND the other characters at the start of TGS that he kinda has to do this accelerated sort of character arc, where he went from driving in reverse to jumping ahead so that he could be with the rest of the pack but... man, there's just Too Much Perrin in this book.

32. The big battle: Gawyn kills the Bloodknives (proving once again that the Seanchan talk of being The Most Superior is just talk) but almost dies in the process. Perrin moving the dreamspike here trapped Mesaana in place; Mesaana attempts to use the same trick on Egwene here that Nynaeve used on Moghedien, imagining an a'dam on here, but Egwene is able to force the thought away and the collar off again (using, in part, the hard-earned control of being Aes Sedai, but also her Dreamer abilities in TAR).

But again, here, we have the reminder of how fucking awful it is to be enslaved by the a'dam, as Egwene fights her panic about temporarily being collared. So again, the narrative has not forgotten how awful the Seanchan are... in the plotlines of the female characters. Egwene is able to take Perrin's "it's only a weave" thought about balefire and turn it into "it's only a piece of metal" about the a'dam. And she is able to turn her will against Mesaana and defeat her permanently. When Egwene wakes up, she finds the bloody scene with Gawyn and the dead Bloodknives, and she bonds Gawyn to save his life.

33. The nightmare that Perrin pulled Slayer into is someone dreaming in terror about the Last Battle. Perrin seems like he's potentially realizing here the full gravity of the Last Battle in this nightmare? Maybe when he wakes up, he'll stop trying to send away volunteers who want to fight in the Last Battle. He's able to use the nightmare to destroy the dreamspike but has to flee before he can kill Slayer; with Hopper's last dying thought to him to "seek Boundless".

That seems like a good place to stop, since there's a PoV change in the next chapter.

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #towers of midnight #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #perrin aybara #egwene al'vere #mat cauthon

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queenofmalkier · 2 months

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WOT Favorites

Inspired by various other games out there, the rules are simple: pick one favorite from each category and tag ten people to choose their favorites. Yes I could have had a lot more categories - Aiel, Seanchan, etc. - but the list got too long!

Emond's Field 5: Nynaeve al'Meara

Secondary Character: Moiraine Damodred*

EF5 Love Interest: Gawyn Trakand

Forsaken: Lanfear

Black Ajah: Alviarin Freidhen

Blue Ajah: Faolain Orande

Brown Ajah: Verin Mathwin

Green Ajah: Elayne Trakand

Gray Ajah: Yukiri Haruna

Red Ajah: Silviana Brehon

White Ajah: Sereille Bagand

Yellow Ajah: Samitsu Tamagowa

Asha'man: Jahar Narishma

Random Side Character: Almen Bunt

Darkfriend: Padan Fain

Weapon: Ashandarei

Location: The Blight

Culture: Ogier

*Secondary character defined as: those who play a significant role, and appear in multiple scenes, but who are not the main focus of the primary plot

Tagging @highladyluck @asha-mage @too-many-books-too-little-life @deathisthekitten @everybodyhatesrand @vdovaromanova @twicethedragon @clearancecreedwatersurvival @flame-of-tar-valon @witchytrina

Feel free to ignore if you don't want to play :)

#wheel of time #wheel of time book spoilers

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plethoraworldatlas · 2 months

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Blue Ajah Fourth Age

The Blue Ajah has fought for many diverse causes throughout its history, yet always it has stood for justice and bending the politicking of Mardhol's squabbling nations away from calamity and towards peace. Though it remains among the smallest Ajahs, it's impact throughout wider Tower politics is historic. Over time, it's sisters have gained the reputation of Seekers of righteous Causes who lose themselves in their endeavors that range from ending famine caused by abusive nobility in small villages to saving the very world at the Last Battle itself. Over the centuries of the Third Age, however, it's common mission grew muddled by the independence each of its sisters were given in their operations. At the dawn of the Fourth Age, the Blue has begun reorganizing to ensure some form of common justice stands for all peoples under the Dragon Peace.

Rights of the Dragon and Courts

While the Gray Ajah concerns itself with diplomacy and the letter of the law, the Blue has always adhered more to the spirit of justice and honor. The Gray is split on whether the new direction of the Blue makes them a closer ally or a pompous rival who has involved themselves in their work without knowing the realities of what it entails. Even the sisters of the Blue are split on what the nature of their common missions should entail, or whether they should be so common as many chafe under stronger centralized control. Today, the mission of the Blue Ajah is to secure that all people under the Dragon Peace are protected from injustice, from both outside forces and domestically. For centuries during the Third Age the Blue fought to protect commoners from the violence of weak and feudal nations, to save as many from the darkness of lawlessness with the torch of order and civilization; Now, the sisters have determined that in this new Age, some of those "lights" are as twisted as that evil that once took Aridhol, and that it is not enough for some number of people measured in a mathematical formula to survive, but that all most be given equal right to truly live. When the Blue Sitters in the Hall announced their great mission, it caused uproar; Using the existing framework in the documents of the Dragon's Peace, they desired to form a common court of law amongst the nations of Mardhol. Even further, using the language the Dragon Reborn had included in the document's clauses, they sought to one day bring the leaders of the nations together once again, this time with representatives for their people to create a Charter granting all people, commoner and nobility, Rights under the Dragon. Styling themselves as the Ajah that mentored the Dragon Reborn, the Blue's newspapers and pamphlet campaigns have been leveraging their vast connections and intelligence network to grow support and tangible action done to forward their goals.The Tower is split on the issue; Many outright consider it foolish to unite separate nations under the law and consider radical movements for equality dangerous. More moderate sisters support some of the ideas, but consider the Blue doing so under the Dragon's Peace and wanting these Courts and Charter to exist outside the influence and political machinations of the Tower to be borderline treachery against the Hall itself.In the meantime, the common Blue sister has taken up the roles of Traveling Magistrates, pushing for nobility to face punishment for crimes equally as commoners, and for the end to cruel and excessive punishments. Others have styled themselves as investigators, reporters even, rooting out secrets and publishing stories of corruption and tyranny, calling people to support areas stricken by disaster or to rally against injustice.

Eyes and Ears and Printing Presses

The Blue has been one of Ajahs that has adapted to the press best. Alongside their reformists and muckraker investigative reporters, much of their presses are dedicated to use informing commoners of their existing rights and trying to rally support for expanding them. Pamphlet campaigns calling for commoner action against cruel and abusive factory bosses, posters and letters rallying communities to aid the poor as they fight for the governments to provide for their people, and educating people on the ideas of equality are merely some of their most famous escapades. Even with the world growing more tumultuous, their spy network keeps them informed and gives them ways to influence the choices of the ruling nobility toward their goals. Their new mission has cut off some of their direct influences, however, and the more progress they make towards their common goal, the more it seems they encounter pushback from those who do not desire their changes. While they have worked with the Aiel peacekeepers and Wise Ones in the name of protecting the Dragon's Peace and worked together for their missions, even the Aiel are uncertain of whether they would fully support a common court; Some Aiel feel it would weaken their role as peacekeepers to allow others to keep a Peace of law alongside them. The Blue Ajahs rivals and critics slander them as busybodies who have no right and no idea how to actually run governments; With their own presses printing propaganda to slander the Blue Ajah, and other Ajahs not always feeling obligated to stand against slandering the Tower by slandering the Blue, the Blue has gotten into serious conflicts in the presses. Losing grip on old political favors, some sisters of the Blue have turned towards gather favor from more radical movements such as reformers or Republicanists or even truly radical New Dragonsworn whose clubs advocate for the end of old nations and the beginning of a untied Dragon Empire. These relationships too stress the Blue's reputation and waning power amongst its older alliances.

Amyrlin

Unlike the other Ajahs, the Blue has formally withdrawn proposing any new Amyrlin candidate; The Blue Sitters have announced that they can no longer participate in worsening the chaos the Hall has created in the Tower and the World, and will not worsen it by suggesting new candidates. The Blue has sworn to support another Ajah's candidate should they present a worthy woman who has other Ajah's support. Before this, many older sisters and even newly raised sisters were proposed; Part of the reason the Blue has taken the stance it has is because of how many of these proceedings have placed the futures of many promising sisters in jeopardy over proceedings most did not even know were going on for years now. The Blue Sitter believed their announcement would turn the tide and get the other Ajahs to agree one another candidate with their built in support, but so far little had changed. The First Selector has had sisters come to her and request she and the Sitters propose new candidates to the Hall, hoping to curtail the current chaos; Most do not now of these meetings, but if they knew, many would be against breaking their word and potentially worsening the chaos.

Extra notes

Less from me here because the Blue is fairly more straightforward than most other Ajahs. Sorry for the Delays, I've been busy. Please ask anything you'd like to know about! And feel free to interact!!

#wheel of time spoilers #wheel of time fourth age #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot #Blue ajah #aes sedai

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apocalypticavolition · 6 months

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Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 13: From Stone to Stone

Yeah it's been awhile but I guess I should get back into the groove. As usual there's going to be nothing but spoilers until the end of the whole series, so people who are just starting reading the books because of the show probably should skip this.

And about the rim, the trees stood blackened and twisted as if a firestorm had roared through them. Everything seemed paler than it should be, just like the sun, more subdued, as if seen through mist. Only there was no mist. Just the three of them and the horses appeared truly solid.

And so we take our first step into a larger multiworld. Jordan's mirror worlds aren't quite the usual take on many worlds theory, and so right away we're confronted with the fact that everything in this "what if" is a lot less real than stuff from the prime reality. Though things get complicated when we add T'A'R to the mix, but thankfully I don't have to worry about that this book so let's not!

Something about the steps caught his eye, the different colors, seven rising from blue to red. “One for each Ajah,” he said.

This is by far the weirdest, most incongruous detail about the portal stones. They predate the modern Ajah system by a great deal, and yet "one for each Ajah"... I've seen two reasonable explanations for it:

In the early Third Age, the Tower channelers came and marked as many Portal Stones as they could with the Ajah colors as a way of saying, "This belongs to the Tower", since unlike the usual objects of Power the Stones can't be moved.

The seven colors don't actually match Ajah colors and are just a generic rainbow which Rand mistakenly conflates with Ajah colors because blue, green, yellow and red are present (and possibly orange seeming to be brown).

A third I'm realizing just now relates to color terms and languages. Basic color terms show up in human languages in a set order: every language distinguishes between white and black (well, warm-bright and cold-dark but still), then red is added, then green or yellow but definitely both if there's five basic terms, then blue (east Asian languages are well-known examples of those that stopped before blue).

After that you usually get brown added, and then other terms like gray. While you can easily end up with languages that have basic terms for purple and orange but not gray, it may well be that both portal stones and Ajahs were decorated for the seven non-Shadow color terms used in the Old Tongue and thus converged naturally.

“Yet even if Aes Sedai can use them, or could, we had no Aes Sedai with us to channel the Power, so I don’t see how it can be.”

Loial is very book smart but he's not exactly a detective, is he?

‘If a woman go left, or right, does Time’s flow divide? Does the Wheel then weave two Patterns? A thousand, for each of her turnings? As many as the stars? Is one real, the others merely shadows and reflections?’

He's also not very good at non-lecture material, since he's pretty baffled by this. I like to think that there were once very plain textbooks but that the only one that survived was "The Tao of World-Hopping" just to make sure that every Third Ager was as confused as possible.

“My Lord Rand, you’ll get us back, won’t you? Back where we belong? I’ve a wife, my Lord, and children. Melia’d take it bad enough, me dying, but if she doesn’t even have my body to give to the mother’s embrace, she’ll grieve to the end of her days. You understand, my Lord. I can’t leave her not knowing. You’ll get us back. And if I die, if you can’t take her my body, you’ll let her know, so she has that, at least.” He was no longer questioning at the end. A note of confidence had crept into his voice.

Poor Hurin. He really doesn't deserve to be tossed into Rand's drama. And he's very brainwashed by feudalism.

Suddenly he knew he could not tell the man again that he was not a lord. All that was holding the sniffer together was his belief in a lord, and he could not take that away, not now. Not here. “No bowing,” he finished awkwardly.“ As you say, Lord Rand.” Hurin’s grin was almost as wide as when Rand first met him.

Seriously, Hurin seems specifically designed by the Wheel to punish Rand and Perrin for their reluctance as much as possible. He should have stuck around Perrin to keep that boy on track.

He reached for it—he was not sure how he reached, but it was something, a movement, a stretching toward the light, toward saidin—and caught nothing, as if running his hands through water. It felt like a slimy pond, scum floating atop clean water below, but he could not scoop up any of the water. Time and again it trickled through his fingers, not even droplets of the water remaining, only the slick scum, making his skin crawl.

So Rand is having some typical Wilder difficulties with channeling and they expose exactly how dangerous the taint on saidin really is. Once the trained male Aes Sedai blew up, the Wilders had no resources to learn to channel effectively so many probably had a lot of experiences like Rand where they reached out and got a double dipping of taint with no actual Source to at least make up for it. There is no safe way for men to channel in this Age.

Loial had a different look, a slightly puzzled frown, but his eyes were on Rand, too. Rand wondered what he was thinking.

Loial is probably trying to come up with a theory that doesn't involve Rand being a channeler because that's just awkward for him.

If Fain and the Darkfriends were here—wherever here was—they might know how to get back. They had to, if they had reached here in the first place. And they had the Horn, and the dagger. Mat had to have that dagger. For that if for nothing else, he had to find them. What finally decided him, he was ashamed to realize, was that he was afraid to try again. Afraid to try channeling the Power. He was less afraid of confronting Darkfriends and Trollocs with only Hurin and Loial than he was of that.

This paragraph is absolutely devastating for Cauthor fans. But seriously, Fain and the dagger versus more Taint sucking is an absolutely horrible choice. Neither option is all that good.

“Rand, that fragment said the Stones came from an older Age than the Age of Legends, and even the Aes Sedai then did not understand them, though they used them, some of the truly powerful did. They used them with the One Power, Rand. How did you think to use this Stone to take us back? Or any other Stone we find?” For a moment Rand could only stare at the Ogier, thinking faster than he ever had in his life. “If they are older than the Age of Legends, maybe the people who built them didn’t use the Power...”

Honestly this detail about Portal Stones is even worse. We certainly aren't about to build Portal Stones in real life and yet we are apparently due to do so in the next couple years before we nuke each other into magic mutations. We can barely manage quantum computers and frankly even if we did they wouldn't last for the requisite thousands of years. Frankly as far as I'm concerned, the book Loial read is wrong and what with stuff like war and famine getting forgotten, people forgot that the Portal Stones were the result of early AoL projects with the power.

Worst of all, though, the land seemed to twist the eye. What was close at hand looked all right, and what was seen straight ahead in the distance. But whenever Rand turned his head, things that appeared distant when seen from the corner of his eye seemed to rush toward him, to be nearer when he stared straight at them. It made for dizziness; even the horses whickered nervously and rolled their eyes. He tried moving his head slowly; the apparent movement of things that should have been fixed was still there, but it seemed to help a little.

This Mirror World seems to be particularly hyperbolic in its geometry, which is confusing to think about (how do you even map the sphere that is the Earth to a hyperbolic geometry and why do I suspect that the best answer means "the north and/or south poles do not actually exist here"). We'll get more into why it's weird further on though, in a chapter or two. For now just hold onto the image of a hyperbolic infinity being overlaid on the closed geometries of T'A'R and the prime timeline and make sure you're picturing it in four dimensions so you have room for the Ways, Ogier-home, and Sindhol, all of which intersect the prime reality in tangential ways.

You can picture four dimensional non-Euclidean geometries, can't you?

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #rand al'thor #loial #hurin

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an-s-sedai · 2 years

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Gray Aes Sedai: Opening Sequence

#wheel of time #wot on prime #wheel of time gif #wot on prime gif #graysedai gif #the unreasonably attractive fandom #gray aes sedai #gray ajah #aes sedai #by request #graysedai

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markantonys · 2 years

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the gathering storm chapter 16-28

EGWENE!!!! EGWENE EGWENE EGWENE this chapter was a masterpiece from start to finish! if i wanted to quote my favorite parts i’d just be typing up the entire chapter. i will note some specific things but rest assured there were many more!

egwene has now been told (by sisters of each respective ajah) that she would be a good fit for yellow, brown, and white, and she herself would’ve wanted to be green. she truly is Of All Ajahs! i remember many books ago when i was thinking of which ajah would best fit her and elayne (regardless of their “i want to be green so i can fuck” motives lmao), i settled on either green or gray for elayne but had too many options for egwene. i do have a soft spot for blue!egwene tho, purely because before starting the books i was CONVINCED she would become blue since the show set her up as mini moiriaine.

egwene offers some wonderful descriptions of rand. first she says that were she in elaida’s shoes, she would’ve asked TDR’s friends and neighbors about him. “is he a man of temper, a man of passions? or is he a calm man, careful and cautious? was he the type to spend time alone in the fields, or did he make quick friends of the other youths? would you be more likely to find him in a tavern or a workshop?” and then she says that rand is all of these things. she adds that he is a rational person, “if somewhat bullheaded at times” and “a good man at heart.” ❤️❤️ this really is such a contrast to what a little shit rand was about egwene earlier in the book.

she says that her next step would be “to send sisters to him to offer guidance,” and if he rejected them, she would “send spies and watch to see if he has changed from the man i once knew.” it breaks my heart how bad the rand-aes sedai relationship is because it Could Have Been solid early on, if someone like egwene who knows and understands rand had been in charge of reaching out to him from the start and if elayne and nynaeve had been sent with the stupid caemlyn embassy as they should’ve been. but of course, from rand’s perspective the sisters egwene sent to offer guidance would come off as trying to control him and her spying on him to see if his character has changed would also feel invasive, so maybe it wouldn’t have ended up all that much better. elayne and nynaeve going with the stupid caemlyn embassy would definitely have fixed things though. but the narrative wanted fucking MIN to go instead of elayne (who was forbidden from going by the aes sedai by some ass backwards logic that tried and failed to convince me that the aes sedai would not want to send elayne to caemlyn asap so they could leverage both her claim to the throne and her favorable relationship with rand). and it DID have to be instead of and not in addition to because if rand had been reunited with elayne at that point in the story they would’ve resumed their stone of tear kisses and he would’ve been like “min who?” lmao

egwene argues that rand hasn’t wreaked havoc, but has “managed to restore order to cairhien, unite tear and illian beneath one ruler, and presumably has gained the favor of andor as well” and has “gained [the aiel’s] respect” (she gets offended when the sisters say the aiel have been subjugated, a sweet little reminder of egwene’s Aiel Heart). “rand al’thor is like a river. calm and placid when not agitated, but a furious and deadly current when squeezed too tightly. what elaida did to him was the equivalent of trying to force the manetherendrelle through a canyon only two feet wide.” again, egwene just Gets him and is willing to see the best in his actions! at least right now - when they were actually together back in tfoh/loc she WAS misjudging him a lot.

“since when has the white tower been in the business of kidnapping and forcing people to our will? ...when in the past have we locked kings in boxes and beaten them for disobedience? why now - of all times under the light - have we forsaken our fine practice and become simple footpads instead?” Egwene Monologues That Made Me Cheer: 1

“rand al’thor is a good man, in his heart, but he needs guidance. these days are when we should have been at our most subtle. he should have been led to trust aes sedai above all others, to rely on our counsel. he should have been shown the wisdom in listening. instead, he has been shown that we will treat him like an unruly child.” Egwene Monologues That Made Me Cheer: 2. also damn if only cadsuane was here listening to this monologue smh!

egwene says that greens “can be very like reds in many ways” (in this case, stubbornness) which is interesting and something i love to see since usually those are portrayed as the 2 polar opposite ajahs, because one Loves Men and the other Hates Men and as we know opinions on men are the most important characteristic for an all-women group to organize itself around.

“had egwene given away too much? aes sedai were remarkably like rand al’thor; they did not like to know when they were being maneuvered.” lmao

laras tries to help egwene escape. what an mvp! but egwene refuses because she still has a duty to fix the tower from the inside.

“someone has to fight her. each day is a battle. each day i refuse to bend means something. even if elaida and her reds are the only ones who know it, that’s something. a small something, but more than i could do from the outside.” Egwene Monologues That Made Me Cheer: 3

“she could see [the sisters’] questions. egwene had spoken boldly to them when alone. but would she hold to her assertions now, faced by the most powerful woman in the world? a woman who held egwene’s life in her hands? was egwene the amyrlin? or was she just a girl who liked to pretend?” SHE’S THE FUCKIN AMYRLIN!! YEAAAAAAHHHH!!!

“i’ve held no oath road, but it isn’t the rod that makes my words true. i have spoken the words of the oaths in my heart, and to me they are more dear, for i have nothing forcing me to hold to them.” Egwene Monologues That Made Me Cheer: 4

okay i have to stop copying out Egwene Monologues That Made Me Cheer because there are too many in this elaida dinner scene! this scene is INCREDIBLE gotta be one of my favorites in the series to date!! the way egwene calmly backs elaida into a corner, keeping her cool the whole time and being so austere and worthy of respect, while elaida is losing her temper and getting hysterical and violent. egwene the 20-year-old with the wisdom and maturity of a much older adult vs. elaida the much older adult acting like a child. god i NEED the show to make it this far because seeing this scene onscreen would be stunning, i just know madeleine madden would absolutely own it!

also i LOVE egwene citing (from memory!) quotes from a long-ago amyrlin’s writings and from the karaethon cycle jkjfg she came prepared!!

and of course, the most iconic roast in the entirety of wheel of time to date: “you are a coward and a tyrant. i’d name you darkfriend as well, but i suspect that the dark one would perhaps be embarrassed to associate with you.” WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED!!!!! i had to pause the audiobook for a whole minute to recover! i don’t know how elaida didn’t just keel over dead on the spot! egwene did not come to fucking play!

“i am tower law!” palpatine has entered the chat

“i wish i weren’t needed here, elaida. i wish that the tower had a grand amyrlin in you. i wish i could step down and accept your rule. i wish you deserved it. i would willingly accept execution, if it would mean leaving a competent amyrlin. the white tower is more important than i am.” one last Egwene Monologue That Made Me Cheer for the road

and after that high, we are hurled into cadsuane pov. sigh. though i will say that, while i do not care for cadsuane and i do not care for all the spanking in this series, cadsuane spanking semirhage is pretty iconic lmao but that aside, whatever truthful info semirhage might be able to provide them (lost knowledge from the AOL, current info about the shadow’s plans) cannot POSSIBLY be worth the effort it would take to get her to spill it. i was about to be like “why don’t these idiots just kill her and have done with it?” but then i remembered that rand’s Don’t Hurt Women order covers killing her too, not just torturing her. RAND YOU ARE SO FUCKING STUPID (DEROGATORY NOT AFFECTIONATE!!!)

“rand pulled him northward. perrin had to march for the last battle. nothing else mattered. and yet, that very single-mindedness in him - ignoring everything but his objective - had been the source of much trouble during his hunt for faile.” like i see what you’re saying but “ignoring everything else for the sake of saving the world” is very much a different thing than “ignoring everything else for the sake of saving one person”

“he doubted the queen of andor would welcome him with open arms, after the rumors about him and that blasted red eagle banner.” ooh are we For Real setting up for a perrin-elayne conflict? that’ll be interesting since they’ve never once interacted before and may not have even met besides in passing (if they do meet up in the future, i’ll be interested to see if one or both of them mentions anything about having met at the stone back in TSR). if only mat had been given the raising manetheren plot (i mean he WAS the one initially given the connection with his red eagle battle cries in eotw), then he could’ve resolved it by pulling a political-marriage-to-real-love with elayne and combining their kingdoms 😌

tangent but this is related to something i was thinking just the day before i read this part: of all the main characters, perrin would be by far the easiest to remove from the story (well, bar min, whom i do not count as a main character because she contributes nothing). embarrassingly easy, in fact! push the two rivers plotline to LOC and send mat and the band off to there from caemlyn instead of to salidar, and that plotline’s covered. have the shaido fully dealt with at dumai’s wells, and that plotline’s covered. and perrin has not yet contributed anything else that major that i can think of lmao

and now perrin is finally deciding to figure out his wolf connection and The Wolf Dream once and for all. should this not have been your plotline and character arc all along jkdjfg what have you been DOING my guy? (also i’ve always adored how he calls it The Wolf Dream it’s so wholesome and i hope he never learns the word tel’aran’rhiod)

tuon’s horrible entitled worldview would be an interesting read if she were a) a villain, whom b) i knew would either be vanquished or would change her ways by the end. but since i know the narrative will continue to treat her as a relatively sympathetic character who will never be challenged or forced to change her outlook in any real way, it’s infuriating and frustrating. and like, the fact that she can have all these thoughts about channelers needing to be leashed and not ONCE even ALLUDE to any conscious or even repressed fear that she herself can channel. what even was the fucking point of making her able to channel if it changes NOTHING???

tuon wishes mat were here to meet with the dragon reborn with her. finally something we can agree on! can’t believe i still have to wait 2 books for my goddamn cauthor reunion!

me: TGS mat can’t possibly worse than COT-KOD mat me reading TGS mat’s very first scene, a 2 page misogynistic monologue: oh

lmao but in all seriousness, from this first mat chapter i agree with what some of you guys have said on my previous recaps - just a continuation and exaggeration of the downward trends that rj started with mat the past couple books. COT-KOD was the worst for softening his attitudes towards slavery, but i distinctly remember noticing a sudden big uptick in misogyny right off the bat in WH and a bit in ACOS as well. but after mat grew to have a Woman Friend in birgitte and to respect elayne in ACOS, it would’ve been the perfect launching point for him to grow out of his "women are so annoying and no fun” shit and his hatred of aes sedai, but no, instead, rj decided to make both things worse.

“did she love him?” seeing as you only spent like 3 weeks together and also she is evil and sees everybody as property you included, i’m guessing that’s a no

man, talmanes teasing newlywed mat for being husbandly with rand and/or elayne would spark so much joy! i need that au please

he’s like “nooo mat it’s okay, davram bashere is married but he’s still a boyboss!” as if bashere is not the biggest malewife (complimentary) in the whole series

“begin letting yourself think of aes sedai as pretty, and in two clicks of the tongue you’d find yourself wrapped around her finger and hopping at her command.” mat has openly and frequently thought of elayne as pretty, and elayne is aes sedai, ergo, mat is wrapped around elayne’s finger and hopping at her command 😌

they’re headed for caemlyn!! matlayne reunion next book pleeeeaaaaaase!!! i know it happens at some point!

polar opposite of egwene’s chapter in that if i wanted to quote all the moments that annoyed me i would just be typing up the whole chapter lmao so i’m gonna move on

“i didn’t sleep with berelain. no matter what rumors say.” “i know you didn’t.” “no, really. i didn’t, faile, please.” “i said i believed you.” “you sounded...i don’t know. burn it, woman, you sounded jealous.” this is exactly why i hate perrin’s emotion sniffing, faile genuinely does try SO HARD to control her jealousy most of the time, but he sniffs it out anyway and gets upset with her. except this scene is in faile’s pov and in her narration she really does seem to believe him and not be jealous at all, so idk what he’s going on about.

“she had been humiliated, beaten, and nearly killed. and that had given her a true understanding of what it was to be a liege lady. she actually felt a stab of guilt for the times she had lorded over perrin, trying to force him - or others - to bend to her will. being a noblewoman meant going first. it meant being beaten so others were not. it meant sacrificing, risking death, to protect those who depended upon you.” you know what that is? growth ❤️❤️

“blasted colors...i don’t want to watch you sleeping, rand. what happened to your hand? light-blinded fool, take better care of yourself...” 😭❤️ “min and nynaeve are the only ones who truly care about and support rand” FALSE his other loved ones are so concerned about him but are narratively forbidden from spending time with him!

semirhage is freed and given the male a’dam which HAS JUST BEEN SITTING AROUND THE HOUSE AND NOT BEEN DESTROYED YET FOR SOME GODFORSAKEN REASON!!!! IDIOTS ALL OF YOU IDIOTS!!!!!

i listened to eotw entirely on audiobook and assumed it was “mountains of doom” and when i opened tgh and saw on the map that it was actually “mountains of Dhoom” i laughed my fucking ass off. favorite wot place name for sure (aside from malden)

“min didn’t want him to be hard. he didn’t want to frighten her, of all people.” FRIGHTEN her, like she’s a delicate little baby deer, not “worry her” or “make her concerned for her partner” or something like that. min is SUUUUUUCH a damsel, that is her entire purpose in rand’s story, and we will see this VERY CLEARLY later in the chapter. prepare for my rage because it is coming.

lews therin says that they do indeed need to break the seals. he says that “something has to touch [the dark one], something to close the gap” but saidin alone didn’t work because he was able to taint it. rand wonders if saidin and saidar together might do the trick. HMMMM now that the last battle is finally imminent i’m very curious about HOW rand will defeat the dark one. how can you defeat some nebulous force that lives in a volcano??

“a home he would never see again, for a visit would only alert his enemies to his affection for it.” so why is min with you 24/7 then? “he had worked hard to make them think he was a man without affection.” so why is min with you 24/7 then? “mountains. mountains like duty. the duty of solitude in this case” so why is min with you 24/7 then? “at times, rand longed for tam’s voice, his wisdom. those were the times when rand knew he had to be the most hard, for a moment of weakness - a moment running to his father for succor - would destroy nearly everything he had worked for. and it would likely mean the end of tam’s life as well.” so why is min with you 24/7 then? “he was alone. he needed to be alone. relying on anyone would risk being weak when he reached shayol ghul.” so why is min with you 24/7 then?

like ugh. even my personal dislike of the ship aside, it is UTTER NONSENSE for rand to push everyone else away but let min stay! for him to think about how isolated and hard he is and then have loving sex and snuggles with his girlfriend every night! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!!! and it completely undercuts his self-isolation arc!

anyway, rand thinks a bit about the bubble of evil-induced fire and has NO thoughts about aviendha the whole time, when she’s the one who put it out and he saw her doing it. in fact, in this hugely emotionally pivotal chapter for him, he doesn’t have a single thought about her or elayne whatsoever, it’s just min min min min min (i mean yeah obvs min is the focus during the upcoming trauma, but in this early part of the chapter during his brooding about how Alone he has to be it would��ve been so easy to slip elayne and avi in there). what the fuck is even the point of giving him 3 girlfriends if the narrative is going to completely forget he’s dating 2 of them most of the time???

twice in this chapter rand thinks of min as the only person who never plays games with him and i have to laugh. remember when she spent half of LOC sitting on your lap and kissing you and sitting in on your baths and messing with your head to try and make you be into her all the while insisting she was only doing all these things as a game? he also thinks of her as the only one he can look to for honesty, when she CONSTANTLY lies and withholds info from him, or tries to. here he gets upset about cadsuane using min to get to him and min talking about him to cadsuane behind his back, and i’m like, oh, am i supposed to think this is rand being overly paranoid? because from my perspective that’s EXACTLY what’s been going on! i forget if cadsuane knows about min’s viewing that she’ll help rand and is deliberately taking advantage, but even if she isn’t, min IS the SOLE REASON rand has let cadsuane be around him at all, and she DOES talk to cadsuane about him behind his back (and reveals to her sensitive personal info that rand wouldn’t want her to know - his box trauma and the 3-way warder bond) and then doesn’t tell rand about those conversations.

semirhage comes in and puts the male a’dam on rand and forces him to hurt min. WHY THE FUCK IS MIN WITH YOU 24/7??????? AAAAARRRRRGHHHH THIS IS NOW THE THIRD (3RD) OF RAND’S MAJOR TRAUMAS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED IF MIN HADN’T BEEN THERE!!!! to recap 1) rand only got kidnapped by the tower because min misconstruing her fear that the caemlyn aes sedai were the ones who would harm him as a Viewing Fact made rand flee to cairhien, 2) rand only lost his hand because he couldn’t jump out of the way of the fireball because min was behind him, even though he’d asked her not to come to the meeting because it might be dangerous but she’d insisted on coming anyway, and now 3) rand almost kills min because she is plastered to his side 24/7, right fucking there alone in the bedroom with him perfectly positioned for semirhage to make him hurt her because HE PUSHES EVERYONE AWAY TO PROTECT THEM BUT KEEPS MAKING INEXPLICABLE EXCEPTIONS FOR MIN!!!! AND NOW LOOK WHAT HAS HAPPENED!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH okay i feel a little better now. a little.

to be clear i’m not victim blaming min for this incident #3 (though i do blame her at least in part for incidents 1 and 2), i am blaming rand’s/the narrative’s absurd Push Everyone Away Except Min double standard

i’m so mad about this absurd double standard that i can’t even appreciate the angst of this scene! man, if this had been elayne or avi i would have been completely losing my shit, but because it’s min i’m just annoyed! and elayne or avi would’ve been more impactful because they are so powerful and capable and always get themselves out of trouble, so seeing them unable to escape from rand/semirhage would’ve been shocking and really painful, but min? i’m just like “oh classic min being a helpless damsel AGAIN” congratulations min, you actually have TWO purposes in the story, not just one! to be rand’s emotional support animal AND the helpless damsel causing him manpain! even the description of her being choked is just about how beautiful and loving and martyr-like she is! i am pretty sure people do not look beautiful while being strangled!

okay, also, “he imagined [semirhage] using him to tear through the ranks of his own men, he imagined them afraid to attack, lest they harm him.” all this is going on and rand does not spare ONE THOUGHT for the fact that his other girlfriend is somewhere in the vicinity and semirhage might make him hurt her as well!!! i fucking HATE IT HERE!!!!

and do you really expect me to believe that avi wouldn’t sense through the bond that rand is in extreme danger and emotional distress and come running to see what’s going on??? i call bullshit!!

i mean honestly it would’ve taken a TINY tweak to make avi AND min BOTH be here during this scene!! it would’ve been double the angst!! and then maybe we could’ve had some much needed min and avi bonding afterwards since they’d shared a traumatic experience!! what a waste!!!

speaking of wastes and of ways to improve the polycule, reason #34858 why mat should replace min: can you IMAGINE the agonizing poetic cinema of rand saving mat from strangulation in rhuidean and then almost strangling him himself here? of the fresh ring of bruises layered over the old scar on mat’s neck? oh MY god

anyway. rand uses the true power to escape which is v interesting!! i’ve been wanting to know more about the true power for a long time and maybe we will soon! i wonder if the Power Combining necessary to defeat the dark one will be not saidin + saidar (or not ONLY saidin + saidar) but one power + true power?

also, please enjoy this knife of dreams Comment That Aged Terribly/Wonderfully that you guys were probably cackling your asses off about at the time jkfjg look at past me’s naive confidence that these stupid stupid idiots would actually destroy a very dangerous object as soon as it came into their possession

after the attack, maidens “swarmed outside [rand’s door] like wasps who had just discovered their nest was gone.” 😭❤️

“‘[balefire] is forbidden,’ cadsuane said. ‘i have decided that it is not,’ al’thor said calmly.” okay king 😳🥵

“if you call me a child, cadsuane, then what are those of you who are thousands of years my juniors?” 😳🥵

rand exiles cadsuane from his sight, and i’m supposed to be horrified, but i’m cheering!

“‘cadsuane,’ he said softly, ‘do you believe that i could kill you? right here, right now, without using a sword or the power? do you believe that if i simply willed it, the pattern would bend around me and stop your heart? by...coincidence?” 😳🥵

and so rand has gone from being the one thirsting after sexy evil men to being the sexy evil man others (me) thirst after. how the turn tables! congrats king! sorry about the mental breakdown tho

all gawyn wants is to gather all his loved ones together in one place (in this case, bringing egwene and bryne to live in andor with elayne). as someone who has been cranky and adrift for 8.5 books after the gang split up in tear, mood!

“his mother would have been outraged to hear him speaking with such anger. well, his mother was dead now, by al’thor’s hand.” i think gawyn should get to do an elayne-style Single Primal Scream Of Rage. as a treat. it would make him feel better.

gawyn: i need to speak to gareth bryne. soldier: no gawyn: fine [challenges him to a duel]

i love him jkfjg is this not what we all want to do when forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops?

“go and tell your general that a lone blademaster just felled a squad of his guards in under ten heartbeats. i’m an old student of his. he’ll want to see me.” 😳🥵

“gawyn sighed, wiping his brow, wishing for something cool to drink. his anger melted away, and he felt exhausted. ‘it has been a difficult year,’ he said.” literally the office “i’ve been in a bit of a rough patch. whole year actually.” jkfjghj that’s gawyn, that’s his whole arc. that’s every WOT character’s arc actually.

“thank the light, he thought, closing his eyes. elayne lived. elayne held the throne. he opened his eyes, and the overcast sky seemed a little more bright.” mood!!

bryne tells gawyn that morgase bungled things in andor and rand saved andor, and gawyn refuses to believe it. but that’s understandable in my eyes because bryne says some really painful things about morgase that would be so hard for her son to hear after her death, not to mention hard for him to believe because they sound so uncharacteristic of her. “if i do [believe the rumors that rand killed morgase], then perhaps he did andor a favor.” “your mother turned against andor by embracing gaebril. she needed to be removed. if al’thor did that for us, then we have need to thank him.” “she gave the kingdom to that snake. she sent her allies to be beaten and imprisoned. she wasn’t right in her mind. sometimes, when a soldier’s arm festers, it needs to be cut free to save the man’s life...[rand] wasn’t the problem. your mother was.” like MAN that all hurts so much! and is the complete opposite of the woman gawyn knew all his life! no wonder he refuses to believe it! and of course bryne has no idea that she was under a forsaken’s compulsion the whole time. my heart hurts that this is the legacy morgase left behind and this is the way people think of her. she deserves better!! if i don’t get my full trakand family reunion i’ll scream!!

oh shit sheriam is actually a darkfriend?? i thought she was just under halima’s thumb but not actually a darkfriend. man! i was always complaining that rj revealed darkfriends too soon too often but it doesn’t even matter because i never remember who’s a darkfriend anyway jkfjgh

min is wearing a scarf around her neck to cover her strangulation bruises AS IF THE CASE FOR MIN BEING LITERALLY JUST A FEMALE AND THUS RAND-DATEABLE VERSION OF MAT WAS NOT ALREADY STRONG ENOUGH!! GODDAMMIT she has mat’s ENTIRE aesthetic!!!! also, why tf didn’t nynaeve just Heal her?? min doesn’t have mat’s level of issues with the power, surely she would’ve asked for Healing.

okay, we DO get an explanation for why avi didn’t arrive to see what was going on with rand and semirhage: “she’d felt [his pain] during semirhage’s attack too, though at first she’d mistakenly thought it to be a nightmare. she’d quickly realized that she was wrong. no nightmare could be that terrible. she could still feel echoes of that incredible pain, those waves of agony, the frenzy inside of him. aviendha had raised the alarm, but not quickly enough. she had toh to him for her mistake” hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yeah i still call bullshit. i have dabbled in fiction writing, i recognize an “i need to cobble together an excuse for this character not to be present in a scene they would by all logic be present for because i don’t want them to be there” when i see one jdkfg

why does avi call min by first name alone in her narration but not rand??? it makes no sense! min is a stranger to her and rand is her boyfriend and warder! not that you would know it from this book.

“his fight had left him scarred in ways she did not yet understand” UGH avi never gets let in on ANYTHING that happens in rand’s life! min does come to her seemingly with the intention of talking to her about what happened, but gets put off by avi saying that rand’s problems are his own to deal with..........which she only says because she has no idea what those problems are and how bad they are, because no one ever bothers to tell her anything about them! if min had just been like “okay i get that, but he went through MAJOR trauma last night and was forced via male a’dam to almost kill me” then avi would CERTAINLY have changed her tune and wanted to help! ugh!!! just when it seems like avi might finally be allowed to be part of her own relationship, the narrative goes “sike” and takes that opportunity away again to ensure that it’s only rand and min!

“‘rand al’thor will deal with his problems,’ she said. ‘how can you say that?’ min asked, glancing at her. ‘can’t you feel his pain?’ ‘i feel each and every moment of it,’ aviendha said through gritted teeth.” this feels like such a moment of min believing herself to be/implying that she is The One Real Partner Who Truly Knows And Loves Rand and i’m glad avi set her down

rather than talking to avi about the shit that went down, min just goes “i still worry sometimes that we’ll...come to a confrontation” “i have to admit, i don’t much like the idea of sharing” girl your shared boyfriend has had a complete mental breakdown and was forced to almost kill you, and all you care to discuss with your co-girlfriend is the fact that you still don’t want her in the relationship??? PRIORITIES. LEARN SOME.

“i suppose that we could fight with knives, but it would hardly be a fair fight. what honor would there to be gained in fighting one with no skill?” LMAOOOOO FINISH HER AVIENDHA she is my idol for this. second best burn after egwene’s to elaida.

“‘i don’t know about that,’ min said, flipping a knife from her sleeve and spinning it across her knuckles. ‘i’m hardly defenseless.’ she made the knife vanish up her other sleeve. why was it that the wetlanders always showed off such flourishes with their knives? thom merrilin had been prone to that as well. didn’t min understand that aviendha could have slit the woman’s throat thrice over during the time it took to flash that knife like a street performer?” FINISH HER AVIENDHA

min’s like so if i don’t want to share rand, and if you don’t want to share rand (avi notes in her narration that she only doesn’t want to share him with someone she doesn’t know, ofc) then what do we do? and avi says “we continue as we have. you have what you wish, and i am occupied by other matters. when it becomes a different time, i will inform you.” rubbing salt in the wound that min has what she wishes, unlimited unshared Rand Time, and avi is having her time wasted by other things! the harem vibes are sooo strong in this convo and it really contrasts the avi-elayne dynamic, when they would talk about rand together and how much they both loved and missed him and what sorts of kissing techniques were their favorite, and all the times when they said or thought that having the other woman there to miss and love rand with them was such a comfort and blessing, vs. avi and min basically going “you get custody of rand for now, drop him off at my house next weekend for when it’s my turn”

i’m not even speaking just from my own personal opinions when i say that removing min from the polycule would make everything better. narratively, so many things would make so much more sense! elayne/rand/avi is a perfect dynamic where all 3 sides of the triangle have their own unique and meaningful relationship, even if we keep avilayne platonic (but why would we), whereas min constantly feels like an awkward, shoehorned-in outlier because her relationships with avi and elayne are so underdeveloped (basically nonexistent). and since elayne and avi both have plotlines and duties separate from rand, he can effectively push them away To Protect Them and self-isolate, whereas min also being his girlfriend and not having anything else to do but stick by his side causes double standards and logic issues and lessens the effectiveness of his self-isolation arc.

awww avi says that “amys had been a second mother to her in many ways” ❤️❤️❤️ fueling my vague headcanon that, since we’ve never heard a peep about her parents, she was orphaned young and raised by amys, lian, and rhuarc (since lian is her aunt). i remember that around tsr i kept thinking rhuarc was aviendha’s dad and then being like “no wait i’m just making that up” lmao

we get two (2) almost interactions between avi and rand this chapter: first rand sees her at a distance and waves, but she turns away from him and continues on her way, and second avi smiles at him from a distance but he’s looking in a different direction and doesn’t see her. AND THEN SHE FUCKING LEAVES FOR RHUIDEAN!!! THEY WERE IN THE SAME PLACE FOR MAYBE A MONTH AND 400 PAGES AND THEY LITERALLY NEVER INTERACTED!!!!!! I AM ENRAGED honestly what was even the POINT of sending avi to arad doman if her relationships with rand and min weren’t going to get any real development? why not just have her “doing useless tasks until she snaps at the wise ones and they welcome her as one of them” plotline take place in caemlyn? elayne could have easily been the one to push her to snap at the wise ones instead of min, and amys & co could’ve Traveled to caemlyn for any number of reasons so that they (instead of monaelle) could’ve then been there to oversee this final step of avi’s training. maybe rj would’ve intended to do more with avi being in the same location as rand and min, but i don’t know.

shemerin (de-shawled aes sedai who escaped the tower and went to bryne’s camp) mentions that she escaped via “a small watergate.” i hope this is foreshadowing a lil heist where gawyn and siuan sneak into the tower to rescue egwene!!!! since it mentions that siuan is the one who asked for details on how she got out of the tower, and ofc gawyn would not let an Egwene Rescue Heist leave without him. i need more heists! have we had any good heists since mat breaking into the stone? oh i guess mat’s escape from ebou dar was also heist-y, except most of it was just mentioned in a flashback and not actually shown onscreen. yes i’m still mad about that.

“why, mat could remember when he’d thought baerlon a large city” and min still does lmao

“if moiraine was still alive...light, what would that mean? how would rand react?” mat thinking of rand’s reaction first and foremost 🥺

“mat had little love for moiraine” show your mother some respect!

mat is going to caemlyn! where elayne is! and planning to stop on the way at four kings! where he once went with rand! oh my heart!!

mat and thom reminiscing about the Great Cauthor Roadtrip 😭😭 take me back!! and mat says that rand was good at the flute 🥺

“[rand] sat splay-legged in a richly embroidered shirt, a coat of black and red tossed aside and crumpled next to the log wall beside him.” mat providing us a nice sexy description of rand

“that arm ended in a stump. the first time mat had seen that - a few weeks back - it had shocked him. how had rand lost the hand? the man barely seemed alive, propped up like that, unmoving. though his lips did seem to be moving, mumbling or muttering. light! mat thought. burn you, what are you doing to yourself?” 😭😭😭😭😭😭 see: my point with perrin above. rand’s non-min-and-nynaeve loved ones DO care about him and ARE worried about him, it’s only many books of narrative-induced physical separation that prevent them from being there for him!

however, mat immediately follows this up with “well, at least mat wasn’t near him. count your fortunes in that, mat told himself. life hadn’t been so easy lately, but he could have been stuck near rand. sure, rand was a friend. but mat didn’t mean to be there when rand went insane and killed everyone he knew. there was friendship, and then there was stupidity.” i’m calling this a true sanderson-only Doing Dirty Of Mat occurrence, rather than one that rj started in the past couple books. this feels straight from the pages of the dragon reborn, mat hasn’t had nearly such harsh thoughts about rand in a LONG time. in fact, he implied in WH that he was planning to go back to rand (something along the lines of “if rand was in trouble, mat couldn’t do anything about it from here. first he had to get out of ebou dar.”) and again in..........either COT or KOD i forget (he was planning to bring aludra to rand because her dragons would help him). and him now suddenly declaring that he plans to stay away from rand for the foreseeable future is a major change from what we last heard! but mat does acknowledge that they will have to fight together at the last battle, at least.

“mat shook his head, dispelling the vision. burn you, rand. leave me alone.” once again mat is so much more fussed about and struggling with the rand visions than perrin has ever been. he’s soooo desperate to stop thinking about rand because he does it constantly!

“we’ll go back and pretend things are like they once were!” “i don’t know if that’s possible, lad.” “sure it is.” “oh? you’re going to go back to thinking that old thom merrilin is the wisest, most well traveled man you’ve ever known? you’ll play the gawking peasant again, clinging to my coat every time we pass a village with more than one inn in it?” 😭😭😭😭😭😭 MY HEART!!!! i consider WOT a “read the whole thing once and then never again in my life” type of series but i just might have to go back and reread the Great Cauthor Roadtrip someday for the nostalgia 😭 i’m thinking about rand and mat clapping their hands over their ears when they got to caemlyn because the big city noise was so overwhelming and am receiving physical damage!

“i don’t remember much. but i do recall that rand and i did right well for ourselves after we split up with you. we made it to caemlyn, at least. brought your flaming harp back to you unharmed, didn’t we?” “i noticed a few nicks in the frame...” “burn you, none of that! rand practically slept with that harp. wouldn’t think of selling it, even when we were so hungry we’d have gnawed on our own boots if we hadn’t needed them to get to the next town.” mat remembers that he and rand did well alone together! he’s so protective of rand when thom casts aspersions on rand’s harp-care skills! 😭😭 and so jealous of the harp for getting to be cuddled by rand every night jdkjfg mat if you hadn’t been so busy cuddling your dagger rand would have LOVED to cuddle you!

“mat hadn’t felt the pull of the ruby dagger in a very long time. he was nearly beginning to forget what it had been like to be tied to it, if it was possible to forget such a thing. but sometimes he remembered that ruby, red like his own blood. and the old lust, the old desire, would seep into him again...” oooooh is the dagger gonna make a comeback??? i never would’ve guessed that plotline might not be wrapped up fully, especially now that shadar logoth is gone hmmmmm i guess fain is still around, but i assumed he would be rand’s to deal with. we shall see!

“i feel old these days, mat, like a faded rug, hung out to dry in the wind, hinting of the colors it once showed so vibrantly. sometimes, i wonder if i’m any use to you anymore. you hardly seem to need me.” “what? of course i need you, thom!” 😭😭😭

i loved this whole chat between mat and thom! late series mat is at his best when he’s not interacting with, in the presence of, or thinking about any women lmfao (with the problem always being mat, not the women. except when the woman is tuon, then the problem is 60% her 40% mat.)

i do feel a difference in writing style more strongly in mat’s povs, especially in dialogue - mat’s dialogue and narration was always the most informal in rj’s books too, but sanderson’s version of that feels even more informal still. and a lot of mat’s and talmanes’s banter in this book feels............more bro-y is the only adjective i can come up with to describe the sense i’m getting jkfghj

“‘burn me, but it would be nice to know where rand is, if only to know where not to go.’ the colors spun, showing him rand - but the man was standing in a room with no view of the outside, giving mat no clue as to where he might be.” please mat, you’re so desperate to find out where rand is so you can go running straight into his arms 😌

spooky groundhog day town where everyone goes crazy murdering each other at night and then wakes up fine the next morning with only nightmares of what happened. wondering what the purpose of this incident is. only as a one-off episode to illustrate the dark one’s growing touch on the world, or will mat and/or the rest of his party experience long-term consequences? the mayor says that all other travelers who’ve been there at night end up getting pulled into it too and stuck there, but mat and co SEEM to have escaped unscathed........i’m coming down on the side of “one-off episode to illustrate dark one’s growing touch” because it is FAR too late in the series to introduce a new plotline where mat and co are cursed to become groundhog day zombies lmao

“pips kicked out and knocked another [attacker] to the ground with a hoof to the head.” PIPS MY KING

when joline almost hits mat with a fireball: “bloody ashes! what do you think you’re doing?” “cauthon?” “who do you bloody think it is!” “i don’t know! you came around so quickly, weapons out. are you trying to get killed?” “we’re trying to rescue you!” “do we look like we need rescuing?” “well, you’re still here, aren’t you?” i’m mad because if you just took the misogyny and the spanking and the mat-almost-letting-tuon-keep-her-collared-because-he-thinks-she’s-annoying out of mat and joline’s dynamic, they would’ve had such fire enemies to lovers potential. honestly i would forgive so much if joline just got to spank mat in retaliation. i need that to happen. but, actually, continuing the trend of “rj booting main characters out of roles and creating new minor characters to fill them less effectively,” joline’s kinda just filling elayne’s role in mat’s life as the ~arrogant~ aes sedai he’s always bickering with and complaining about yet also can’t stop thinking about how pretty she is. and now i am also thinking about elayne spanking mat, which is another thing i need to happen.

talmanes WHISTLING at joline wearing only a bathrobe because she was attacked during her bath SMH TALMANES i thought you were better than this!

while a wounded band member is being Healed: “it made [mat] shiver as he imagined the one power leaking out of her and into the man. that was almost as bad as dying, bloody ashes but it was!” why under the light mat’s arc wasn’t him coming to terms with the power via his close connections with channeler loved ones, elayne and nynaeve and egwene and rand, i will never understand. just when that arc was getting off the ground in ACOS, it was cut off at the knees and sent veering back into the opposite direction! into a character regression of mat’s anti-channeler prejudices being enforced by his relationship with someone who enslaves channelers, rather than challenged by his relationships with channelers! deeply unsatisfying narratively speaking.

mat has a vision of rand asleep in bed with min curled up beside him. ARE YOU FUCKING TELLING ME THAT RAND IS STILL CARRYING OUT HIS “PUSH AWAY EVERYONE BUT MIN” DOUBLE STANDARD AFTER HE ALMOST KILLED HER BECAUSE SHE WAS NEAR HIM????? WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK WHY HAS THAT INCIDENT NOT CHANGED HIS MIN-RELATED BEHAVIOR IN ANY WAY???? WHY IS HE STILL LETTING HER SLEEP ALONE AND UNPROTECTED NEXT TO HIM??? WHY DID HE NOT TRY TO OPEN A GATEWAY TO CAEMLYN AND TOSS HER RIGHT THROUGH TO PROTECT HER FROM HIMSELF??? i don’t necessarily WANT rand to hate and blame himself to that extent, but given the way his entire character and personality is, you would think that this is how he would behave in the aftermath of almost killing a loved one!!

“burn me, i wish they’d all [the dark one and co] just go bother rand. he likes it.” “you really think that?” “i wish i did. it would make things easier.” is mat saying that it would be easier to believe that rand likes fighting the shadow, because knowing that he doesn’t makes mat worry about him??? 🥺

and next chapter begins with a map, so i’m thinking we’re about to switch gears and this is a good place to end this recap! truly so much harder a decision with all this plotline-hopping

#wot #wot book spoilers

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amemoryofwot · 2 years

Text

The Tower votes! Breaking down the Schism

Because I can’t stop thinking about this, let’s go deeper into the 11 votes cast against Siuan to see what kind of divide she actually had.

Some background: We know from the Vileness that the Black Ajah was working extensively through the Reds, even after Ishamael tried to curb their activities. Ishamael killed Jarna for her role in trying to kill the Dragon in NE 983, but Sierin Vayu was killed through Chesmal Emry’s influence over the Reds in NE 984, and it wasn’t until Marith Jean in NE 985 that the Vileness officially stopped.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that all 3 Red Sitters (Elaida, Pevara, and Teslyn) voted against Siuan, especially considering that the Highest Galina is also secretly Black Ajah and would exert considerable influence over the Ajah. The fact that Elaida is even on the Sitters list should be very suspicious: what are the odds Amira just happened to step down right around when Elaida returned from Caemlyn? Certainly Elaida would be a fitting choice given she’s one of the most powerful channellers, but the timing is impeccable and we can’t deny Galina would be involved in choosing a Sitter. Further, we know that it was Alviarin that first approached Elaida and got her to share her thoughts and plans regarding Siuan. Even when they meet here Alviarin makes a dig at the Reds saying they don’t have friends outside their Ajah. We also know one of the key signs of mistrust among the Ajahs is the tendency for them to move around in their own groups, not talk to others outside their own Ajah. So how would a Red like Elaida be able to test the waters and gain the support of other Ajahs’ Sitters, unless the Black was moving through them?

That leads us to the actual Black Ajah Sitters as follows: Evanellein (Gray), Talene (Green), Velina (White), and Sedore (Yellow), bringing us to seven of the requisite eleven votes needed for disposition. So where are we getting the other four votes?

To start, it’s interesting that Velina is the only one in that list without a supporting vote from another of that Ajah’s Sitters. Whites typically align with Blues despite some disagreement over the Altara Incident. It should be noted Saroiya is described as exceptionally patient and logical even among the Whites, and Seaine put forth Siuan for the Amyrlin in the first place: not easy votes to sway.

Moving to the Gray, Yukiri votes against Siuan. Knowing how Aes Sedai hierarchy works, Yukiri being older and stronger in the Power than Evanellein means her vote was not likely to be influenced by her. We do know however that Gray historically tends to align with Red. Interestingly, Yukiri is noted to be exceptionally stubborn for a Gray. Not much to say about Varilin really. Out of the known Aes Sedai killed in the Vileness, the greatest proportion came from the Gray (4 of 10 known deaths).

Next is Rubinde from the Green, who is both weaker and younger than Talene, opening her up to her influence. As well, in the beginning of TGH when Moiraine and Siuan talk privately Siuan states that most of her problems with the Hall are due to her leniency with Moiraine and “even the Greens” are wondering why she doesn't call Moiraine back to discipline her. So the Greens are getting agitated over this, however not enough that they all vote against Siuan, as Faiselle does not vote in Elaida’s favour. This is also pretty much our only point against Siuan specifically, not pre-existing Ajah loyalties etc. Even so, most Greens leave the tower. Rubinde herself is described as “rebellious” - a pattern is starting to form here with the non-Black Ajah votes.

Our final pair of votes come from the Yellows, who also historically align with Reds. Sedore, while weaker in the Power than her fellow Sitter Doesine, was one of the longest serving Sitters, improving her influence. Doesine is also notable for running away three times as a novice, and having the Tower forgive/keep secret her third attempt, a possible leverage for her vote. Magla by contrast is described as “direct, forceful, and sometimes overpowering”.

Our singular vote from the Brown is the only one without a paired vote from a secretly Black Sitter. A bit of speculation here, but, Saerin Asnobar is our casting Sitter who was trained by the Tower runaways the Daughters of Silence before they were discovered and disbanded. Notably, she is the only initiate from their ranks to earn the shawl, despite every woman being registered as a novice at the Tower. Certainly she is an outsider in many respects which could lead to some animosity, especially in the unusually volatile Saerin. The Brown Ajah is typically neutral among the Blue/Green/White and Red/Yellow/Gray divides but here we have Janya as the most outrightly disgusted Sitter at Elaida’s actions. Not much to say about Takima besides maybe her being the most well versed in Tower history makes her not very likely to act on something so contrary to the Tower. So how could the Black have gotten to the Brown? Well, Mesaana was disguised as the Brown Danelle. While described as basically friendless in the Tower, Danelle was in a much better position to approach other Browns without suspicion versus another Ajah member - Mesaana’s powers aside.

Taking this all together, the only gains really made along Ajah divides were with the Greens getting two votes (one Black, one true Green) against Siuan. Again, the Greens were getting upset over Siuan’s treatment of Moiraine, however we do need to mention that the Black was targeting the Green as well, having killed Captain-General Karene in the Vileness. This feeling is also not shared among the majority of Greens who left the Tower after the disposition. In general, the Sitters casting votes AGAINST Siuan were all described as particularly volatile/emotional/rebellious, and the ones who did not are described as forceful, patient, knowledgable, and downright disgusted at Elaida.

Now, if it truly didn’t matter to the Black WHO was Amyrlin, it seems extremely unlikely that they would not only ALL vote to dispose Siuan but be able to recruit a vote from an impressionable non-Black Sitter. If we are to believe Ishamael wants them to keep a low profile, then staging a coup that failed would be a terrible way to out yourself, so something must be prompting the Black to act as a unit. Remember, Black Sisters keep their identities secret from even themselves outside of their Hearts. The only person who would have known all the Sitters who were secretly Black Ajah would be Alviarin. Considering that there would be significant preparation in whipping votes, identifying sympathizers, and establishing the time for them all to cast their votes without the other 10 Sitters, the ONLY person that could have pulled off that level of organization is Alviarin. The timeline is also extremely tight, Elaida having arrived in Tar Valon on the equivalent of March 10, and disposing Siuan on June 24 - a span of three months to raise her as Sitter AND do all the above. Additionally, there are no connections between the non Black Sitters beyond their rebellious and volatile nature, making them easier to manipulate. There were no political moves being made by any of them beyond grumbling in the Hall, and even if they came together out of distrust of Siuan they were still only four votes, enough to tip the scales but not enough to form their own movement. Even further, many of them came to regret their vote, cementing that they did not have their own convictions in this but were used as pawns.

IN CONCLUSION: The Black CREATED the political situation, not merely taking advantage of it.

#wot book spoilers #wheel of time spoilers #wheel of time #WoT references

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cannoli-reader · 2 years

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Brandon Sanderson saved WoT from Robert Jordan’s pointless clothing descriptions!

This is a thing the internet has been saying for nearly 13 years. I have been reminded of it lately, as I have been exposed to a number of posts criticizing Mr. Sanderson’s writing, and the inevitable defense of his handling of WoT have cropped up. Specifically that Jordan was bogging down his books with excessive descriptions and Sanderson dispensed with that extraneous crap in favor of getting to the point.

So let’s look at this sample of Robert Jordan’s egregious and overly verbose descriptions. Under a cut, because, after all, dress descriptions in Wheel of Time take up soooo much space...

“… each one wearing little more than a robe of diaphanous white cloth. A warm fire played in the hearth, illuminating a fine rug of blood red. That rug was woven in the design of young women and men entangled in ways that would have made even an experienced courtesan blush. The open windows let in afternoon light, the lofty position of her palace giving a view of pines and a shimmering lake below.

“She sipped sweetbristle juice, wearing a pale blue dress after the Domani cut – she was growing fond of their fashions, though her dress was far more filmy than the ones they wore…What an interestingly sour flavor it had. It was exotic during this Age, since the trees now grew only on distant islands.”

“…set aside her drink and walked through the gateway, her diaphanous pale blue gown shimmering with golden embroidery…”

“(Mesaana) had chin length dark hair and watery blue eyes. Her floor-length white dressbore no embroidery and she wore no jewelry. A scholar to the core.”

“Now, there was a handsome creature. Demandred looked like a knob-faced peasant compared with him (Moridin). Yes, this body was much better tha his previous one. He was almost pretty enough to be one of her pets, though that chin spoiled the face. Too prominent, too strong. Still, that stark black hair atop a tall, broad-shouldered body…”

“The building – a thick-logged structure of pine and cedar after a design favored by the Domani wealthy…The room he stood in was wide and long, thick logs making up the outer wall. Planks of pine – still smelling faintly of sap and stain – made up the other walls. The room was furnished sparsely: fur rug on the floor, a pair of aged crossed swords above the hearth, furniture of wood with the bark left on in patches. The entire place had been decorated in a way to say that this was an idyllic home in the woods, away from the bustle of larger cities. Not a cabin, of course – it was far too large and lavish for that. A retreat.”

“As always, (Min) had chosen to wear a coat and trousers. Today, they were of a deep green, much like the needles on the pines outside. Yet, as if to contradict her tailored choice, she had had the outfit made to accentuate her figure. Silver embroidery in the shape of bonabell flowers ran around the cuffs, and lace peeked out from the sleeves beneath… Why wear trousers only to trim herself up with lace?”

“Davram Bashere himself rode slowly through the camp, barking orders through that thick mustache of his. Beside him walked Lord Tellaen, a portly man in a long coat and wearing a thin Domani mustache. He was an acquaintance of Bashere’s.

“Like his men, Bashere went about unarmored in a short blue coat. He also wore a pair of the baggy trousers that he favored, the bottoms tucked into his knee-high boots.”

“(Cadsuane’s) dress was of a simple, thick wool, tied at the waist with a yellow belt, with more yellow embroidery across the collar. The dress itself was green, which was not uncommon, as that was her Ajah…”

“Today, (Nynaeve) wore a dress of gray with a yellow sash at the waist over her belt – a new Domani fashion, he had heard – and had the customary red dot on her forehead. She wore a long gold necklace and slim gold belt, with matching bracelets and finger rings, both studded with large red, green and blue gems. The jewelry was a ter’angreal – or rather, several of them, and an angreal, too – comparable to what Cadsuane wore. Rand had occasionally heard Nynaeve muttering that her ter’angreal, with the gaudy gems, were impossible to match to her clothing.”

“There were streaks of white in Alivia’s hair, and she was just a bit taller than Nynaeve. That white in her hair was telling – any white or gray on a woman who wielded the One Power meant age. A great deal of it. Alivia claimed to be four centuries old. Today, the former damane wore a strikingly red dress, as if in an attempt to be confrontational.”

Oh, wait, these were all Sanderson’s descriptions from one section of the prologue and the first chapter of The Gathering Storm.

So let’s contrast with the Robert Jordan’s first WoT book. Here are some of his first descriptions of characters, places and clothing:

In the prologue:

“The edge of his pale gray cloak trailed through blood as he stepped...”

“His clothes had been regal once, in gray and scarlet and gold; now the finely woven cloth, brought by merchants from across the World Sea, was torn and dirty, thick with the same dust that covered his hair and skin...the symbol on his cloak, a circle half white and half black, the colors separated by a sinuous line.”

“...he was clothed all in black, save for the snow-white lace at his throat and the silverwork on the turned-down tops of his thigh-high boots.

And in the novel proper:

“Gusts plastered Rand al’Thor’s cloak to his back, whipped the earth-colored wool around his legs...he wished his coat were heavier or that he had worn an extra shirt.”

“Tam...ignoring the wind that made his brown cloak flap like a banner...”

Somehow the following characters are introduced without a word of what they are wearing: Wit Congar, Daise Congar, Bran al’Vere, Cenn Buie, Mat Cauthon, Jon Thane. All but Thane have dialogue, too. Although there is a description of the Congars’ house.

The thatch looked as if it badly needed…attention

And the inn:

The first floor of the inn was river rock though the foundation was of older stone some said came from the mountains. The whitewashed second story – where Brandelwyn al’Vere, the innkeeper and Mayor of Emond’s Field for the past twenty years lived with his wife and daughters – jutted out over the lower floor all the way around. Red roof tile, the only such roof in the village, glittered in the weak sunlight and smoke drifted from three of the inn’s dozen tall chimneys.

Casks racked against one wall… polished canister on the plain stone mantel…The fireplace stretched half the length of the big, square room, with a lintel as high as a man’s shoulder…

A lamp hung over the cellar stairs, just beside the kitchen door, and another made a bright pool in the stone-walled room beneath the inn, banishing all but a little dimness in the furthest corners. Wooden racks along the walls and across the floor held casks of brandy and cider and larger barrels of ale and wine, some with taps driven in. Many of the wine barrels were marked with chalk in Bran al’Vere’s hand, giving the year they had been bought, what peddler had brought them, and in which city they had been made, but all of the ale and brandy was the make of Two Rivers farmers or of Bran himself.

Other clothing descriptions come when the characters meet or discuss outsiders:

“...’His cloak is like every gleeman’s cloak I’ve ever seen. More patches than cloak, and more colors than you can think of.’”

“The blacksmith...still wore his long leather apron as if he had hurried to the meeting straight from the forge.”

Then we get a whole conversation with Ewin Finngar, who may as well be naked for all the descriptions we get of his garb.

“‘...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...’”

“’Their horses, Rand. I never saw horses so tall, or so sleek. They look like they could run forever. I think he works for her.’”

Then Moiraine actually shows up.

“Her clothes were just as strange. Her cloak was sky-blue velvet, with thick silver embroidery, leaves and vines and flowers, all along the neck, while another gold chain, delicate and fastened in her hair, supported a small, sparkling blue stone in the middle of her forehead. A wide belt of woven gold encircled her waist, and on the second finger of her left hand was a gold ring in the shape of a serpent biting its own tail. He...recognized the Great Serpent, an even older symbol for eternity than the Wheel of Time.”

“...a tall man Rand had not noticed before ... one hand resting on the long hilt of a sword. His clothes were a dark grayish green that would have faded into leaf or shadow, and his cloak swirled through shades of gray and green and brown as it shifted in the wind. It almost seemed to disappear at times, that cloak, fading into whatever lay beyond it.”

Following that, Padan Fain, Perrin Aybarra, Nynaeve al’Meara, Egwene al’Vere all put in an appearance without any word of what they are wearing, besides a hood, when Egwene pushes hers back to reveal her braid.

“His cloak seemed a mass of patches, in odd shapes and sizes, fluttering with every breath of air, patches in a hundred colors. it was really quite thick, Rand saw, despite what Master al’Veren had said, with the patches merely sewn on like decorations.

... His long coat had odd, baggy sleeves and big pockets...a long-stemmed pipe, ornately carved, that trailed a wisp of smoke.”

That’s 3 quotes in the prologue and 15 quotes in four chapters. Compared to a dozen quotes in one chapter, by Sanderson. What’s more, each of those descriptions from Jordan comes as we are meeting characters for the very first time, while Sanderson mentions only one character who has not already appeared in multiple volumes (and Lord Tellaen will only be mentioned twice more in the rest of the book). Sanderson devoted 693 words to descriptions in that prologue section and chapter, and Jordan 771 words. I had to look through four chapters of Eye of the World to beat Sanderson’s word count.

And this may be subjective, but to my strictly amateur eye, Jordan’s descriptions seem much more relevant (and coherent) than Sanderson’s. Lews Therin’s clothing is part of the image of an important or powerful man in contrast with the disaster and mess around him. Elan Morin’s garb makes him seem above and untouched by it all, as well as giving him a sinister aspect.

The only thing we get about clothing for the Two Rivers folk in the village is that the al’Thors have brown cloaks. We get descriptions of Moiraine, Lan and Thom, because they are new and unique to the villagers' experience. Lan’s cloak and Moiraine’s jewelry suggest to the readers preternatural aspects. Thom’s cloak and garments denote his entertainer profession, catching the eye of audience, the big sleeves and pockets clearly geared toward his sleight-of-hand tricks. And Jordan trusts the reader to understand that, and if the reader does not, it is not knowledge that will seriously impact their appreciation of the story.

What’s more, these details tell us that Rand is observant and notices the practicality of Thom’s garb beyond the superficial coloration. That rather than the ragged patchwork affair described by the mayor, it is a solid and useful garment. Almost like a foreshadowing of the character of Thom himself.

The description of the Winespring Inn might be a bit superfluous, but it sets the tone and mood. This is a place of hospitality and plenty, that is impressive to Rand, who has never seen better, but also somewhat parochial. The Two Rivers people only go outside their district for things they don’t make on their own, they prefer their own alcohol to any other. This might denote either pig-headed loyalties to their own kind, or a higher quality of production by the locals. Either works for the story, as we see Two Rivers characters demonstrate strong loyalties to their friends and neighbors, and also find the produce available in markets on their journey wanting.

The other building described is a brief note that the Congar house needs thatching, which contrasts with the resident’s indolence and preoccupation with the Wisdom and the weather, as opposed to the general pragmatic determination of the more sensible villagers, including Tam.

What purpose does Sanderson’s verbiage serve? What do we learn about Graendal that we did not already know? What do the descriptions of Min’s, Nynaeve’s, Cadsuane’s and Alivia’s clothing tell us? Do we need Rand’s ruminations about Nynaeve’s ter’angreal? We saw them in the four previous books. We’ve seen Nynaeve actually use them. Why do we have to have Rand mention Nynaeve uncharacteristically complain in his hearing that they are difficult to match to her clothes? If you want to convey that information, she is a major PoV character and it can come up in her own stream of consciousness, or in that of a woman in whom Nynaeve might actually confide that datum, who could more clearly articulate the contradiction between her professed preference for simplicity, and her sartorial behavior. Is there any reason at all to care about the country retreat of Lord Tellaen, or whose retreat it actually is? Could not “the retreat belonged to a Domani noble of Bashere’s acquaintance, and the simple rustic furnishings likely cost more than those of four farmhouses in the Two Rivers...” have sufficed in place of the 119 word paragraph we were privileged to read before any action or dialogue of our protagonist?

But this is not so much about his writing, as it is comparing him to Jordan. How does Jordan have Rand describe Min in their first encounter in each book?

“Not the usual plain brown coat and breeches, but pale red, and embroidered.”

- LoC Ch 41 (13 words)

“Her breeches of brocaded green silk fit her like a second skin, and her coat of matching silk hung open, a cream-colored blouse rising and falling with her breath.”

- aCoS Ch 33 (29 words)

“Her plain brown coat and breeches were very like what she had worn when he first saw her...”

- WH prologue (18 words)

But to be fair, let’s see her first description in her now-normal clothes:

“Her blue heeled boots stirred the dust...a lace-edged handkerchief ... Embroidered white flowers decorated the sleeves and lapels of her blue coat, and paler blue breeches molded her legs snugly. With yellow-embroidered bright blue riding gloves tucked behind her belt and a cloak edged with yellow scrollwork and held by a golden pin in the shape of a rose, she did look as if she had arrived by more normal means...”

- WH Ch 11 (71 words)

“Her short blue coat, embroidered with white flowers on the sleeves and lapels, was cut to fit snugly over her bosom, where her creamy silk blouse showed a touch of cleavage...”

- KoD ch 18 (31 words)

Rand does not really describe her clothes in tPoD or CoT, as he isn’t the PoV character when she first shows up. In the descriptions we get in Rand’s words, of sexy-clothes Min, Jordan uses an average of 32.4 words. Sanderson’s description is 74 words. More than twice the average of Jordan, and longer than any such description in Jordan’s books.

And again, Jordan’s descriptions are more useful. The LoC one is Rand suddenly noting the difference in her appearance, well into their first encounter in quite some time. This signals that Rand was initially seeing her as herself first, and as an attractive woman considerably after the fact, after his attention has been drawn to it. His next initial observation of her is their first encounter after they had sex, and he is more aware of the physical shape beneath the clothes.

The longest of Jordan’s description of her clothes is their arrival in Caemlyn, where Rand is noting her clothing in the context of their covert entrance to the Palace, and at the same time being drawn into admiring her beauty. This is a progression from LoC where he was barely aware of her attractiveness at first - now it draws him even when he is actively thinking of her look in a different context. Also note the pin. Where Rand is counting on Min to help him sneak through the Palace avoiding his other love interests to reach his hometown friends unobserved, Min is almost wearing Elayne’s sigil, although a rose is almost as appropriate considering her destined crown. This foreshadows that Min’s actions in those clothes will be more in line with her BFF’s wishes than her boyfriend’s.

Both the Winter’s Heart and Knife of Dreams descriptions are also in the midst of action. Min is entering a room and reacting to the dust, where the elaborate garments contrast with Rand’s and the dirty environment to highlight the absurdity of Rand’s efforts to avoid those he loves. In KoD, the focus is on her reaction to Rand’s issues and fears concerning women around him, and she’s reading, in support of a general theme of the scenario, where Loial is discussing his book, and his complaints about Rand’s reluctance to provide material fit in with Rand’s own mechanisms for coping with his trauma.

What does Sanderson’s account provide? We get that she’s wearing green that matches the pine needles in the area. Why? Perhaps for camouflage? Is she somehow connected to the environment? Nope. Sanderson just felt the need to specify the color and mention a correlation with another color. Rand also sees, for the first time, an apparent contradiction with ... something. The outfit is made to accentuate her figure. Because she has never done that before? Rand has noticed how snug her pants are, and her shirts have made him aware of her bosom in nearly every book since she started dressing up. What does it even mean “...to contradict her tailored choice...” On its own, I would assume her tailored choice IS to have the clothes made to fit her, instead of cut for a male shape, but accentuating her figure is in contradiction to the “tailored choice”. Rand wonders at the end “Why wear trousers only to trim herself up with lace?” as if this is new as well, when, again, since Lord of Chaos, he has been observing her pants are too tight to be practical. Is this foreshadowing of a problem he is going to have with her clothing? Will the practicality of her clothes be an issue in this book, or ever, for the rest of the series? Not in any way of which I am aware.

How about Graendal? In her first PoV we have...

... nothing. Not a word of what she looks like. This is right on the heels of Sammael’s PoV in the same chapter, where he describes her thus:

“Her thin blue Domani gown clung and more than hinted. As usual, she had a ring with different stones on every finger, four or five gem-encrusted bracelets on each wrist, and a wide collar of huge sapphires snugged around the gown’s high-neck...suspected hours had gone into arranging those sun-gold curls touching her shoulders, and the moondrops seemingly scattered through them; there was something about their casualness that hinted at precision.”

- LoC Ch 6

This is immediately followed by Sammael’s recounting her backstory and her personality, as he sees it. The “casualness that hinted at precision” fits with her depiction, how she affects carelessness, but does everything with a deliberate intention. In her PoV following his departure, we see this confirmed, as she reveals that the Sharans to whom she made casual references, were placed for psychological effect, but she still adhered to her habitual patterns in enslaving them.

It’s also worth comparing Sammael’s description of Graendal’s with Rahvin’s in the prior book, where she was similarly described as dressing provocatively, except Rahvin noted her beauty and compared her to Lanfear, the other woman present, and on a scale of women in general. Sammael makes no note of her attractiveness or sexual appeal. This is another difference between Jordan and Sanderson. When Jordan has a PoV man describe a woman as sexy, he wants you to know how the PoV man thinks of women, how he prioritizes sex and attraction in his mind. When Sanderson writes a PoV man describing a woman as sexy, he wants you to know she is sexy.

Anyway, back to Graendal, in a chapter where she is the main PoV, here is how she describes herself and her garments and accessories:

“...her streith gown went dead black before she could control herself and return it to mist.”

“Sipping her wine - and suppressing a sigh; it was from the here and now ... - she stroked her gown with beringed fingers”

“...though if her gown changed color, it was by a hair...”

“Her gown shifted to a pale rose, but she let it stay.”

“She kept her face smooth, but the streith had gone a deeper rose, losing some of its mistiness.”

“Her gown rippled through violet shades of red, echoing the anger and fear and shame that rippled through her uncontrollably.”

- LoC ch 23

What do we have in Graendal’s brain? Concerning her appearance? Not. One. Word. The only descriptions she gives are of the changing colors of her streith gown, where the purpose is to illustrate how much of her emotions she is revealing, and how calculated her choices to reveal those emotions is. We see that she has sufficient control over reactions that she can defeat even this high-tech sensitive fabric. And it makes a more striking contrast when she is badly shaken by Sammael’s presentation and has to show her real feelings and rationalize it as a strategy.

And just so we don’t write that off as a one-time fluke, in tPoD, Graendal also does not describe herself. Few characters do, unless they are doing in the context of a public appearance or a meeting in which their appearance might be a factor. Sanderson’s 37 words of Graendal describing her clothing (modern clothing, not her mind-relevant streith) are 37 more than Jordan does in three different PoV instances in two different books.

Also noteworthy is another error on Sanderson’s part, where he mentions the embroidery on Graendal’s Domani dress. The point of Domani dresses is that they are sheer, almost revealing the wearer’s body. They are never described as embroidered in Jordan’s books, though Sanderson also describes them so in Egwene’s PoV in the White Tower.

And what point is there to the description of her clothing? As noted above, Min’s clothing is often organically brought up in the context of her actions or Rand’s perception of her. Graendal’s clothing in Sanderson’s prologue is inserted into a description of the juice she is drinking. That juice, by the way, is something she finds interesting as a product of the current time, when in prior points of view, she scorns the comforts and products of the 3rd Age, being disappointed that among Sammael’s Age of Legends treasure trove, he is serving contemporary wine. Her rooms have open windows overlooking a scene of nature, when the last time we were in her head, she is oblivious to the changing weather because tells her guests she never goes outside, in her mind noting that she dislikes nature and rarely even uses rooms with windows. This is an important part of her obsession with control, as nature is beyond her power to subdue.

Jordan’s Graendal has a disciplined mind that sticks largely to important details, lacking in typical forms of vanity and is almost always in control of her reactions and submerses herself in an environment shaped as near to her pleasure and satisfaction as she can create. Sanderson’s Graendal's mind jumps to her clothing in the middle of thinking about the juice she is drinking, and leaves the windows wide open. Jordan’s Graendal thinks of Demandred’s Mesaana’s and Semirhage’s alliance as a public front, while Sanderson’s Graendal believes the trio thinks their alliance is a secret! When they were first together on the page, it was in Graendal’s presence, where Demandred openly demonstrated he knew the locations of other two, while Graendal did not, openly asking her. Later she reveals that she only learned of Mesaana’s location in a subsequent meeting where Semirhage was not present. So if Mesaana’s location was a secret to most, why would Demandred reveal that he knew it, if they were trying to keep their association secret? In Jordan’s last book, at the Garden Party, the trio are openly huddling together, again, under the eye of Graendal. How can anyone believe they are trying to keep this a secret? But that’s Brandon Sanderson’s idea of demonstrating how clever a character is - have them ferret out a secret that no one is actually hiding. Demandred, Mesaana and Semirhage might not have been trying to fool their fellow Chosen, but they did just fine with ol’ B-Sand.

This could go on for pages and pages, and frankly, “describe” and “description” no longer look like words to me. My point is, the contention that Jordan is somehow inferior to Sanderson by virtue of his excessive description, while Sanderson’s writing is streamlined and direct, cutting out the fat and getting right to the action, this notion is pure bullshit. You might not like them, you might not think what Jordan is telling you with his descriptions is necessary, you can prefer Sanderson’s writing as a matter of taste, but you absolutely cannot say that this is a fault unique to Jordan, or an area in which Sanderson is superior. The real problem with Jordan’s descriptions is that they did so much create a definitive setting and characters, that a reader who has become immersed in these aspects of the story is unable to sit through Sanderson’s lexiconic abuse and word salad and accept it as The Wheel of Time.

#sanderson critical #wheel of time #WoT clothing descriptions

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