#matlayne

[markantonys]

elayne: i guarantee you, 20 years from now, i'll be mat's second wife.

mat: what happened to my first wife?

elayne: nothing you can prove.

[butterflydm]

wot reread: towers of midnight (chap 14-19)

spoilers for towers of midnight

1. Egwene has gone into TAR to attend some important dream meetings; first up is meeting with the Wise Ones. She lets them know that Elaida was abducted by the Seanchan and Egwene has been raised as full Amrylin.

2. She asks them about how Rand is doing and they tell her that he’s doing better. Yeah, I feel like there would be so much more tension in this plotline if Rand hadn’t yet had his epiphany and we were still dealing with ruthless!Rand, and so the Wise Ones weren’t able to reassure Egwene here about his state of mind. It would be better if the audience were also unsure about the wisdom of his plan.

3. Egwene does make a tentative arrangement that they can send Accepted to train with the Wise Ones for a time, but Amys and Bair make it clear that the Wise Ones have no interest in becoming Aes Sedai (Egwene hopes that, in time, she can change their minds; I deem this possibility Extremely Unlikely).

4. Her next meeting, after the Wise Ones leave, is with Nynaeve. Egwene puts Nynaeve, Rand, and Gawyn all in the same category of people who frustrate her because she feels like they don’t trust her/show her loyalty. She thinks here on how she hasn’t seen Nynaeve for ‘months’ - I guess the last time they saw each other was pre-ACoS, because I remember Nynaeve asking Egwene about Lan, I think? But Nynaeve was deliberately avoiding meeting Egwene in the dream for months because of the way that Egwene had traumatized her (back in... TFoH?).

5. Nynaeve finds out here that the Seanchan attacked the White Tower! I wonder if she’ll tell Rand. I really am trying to keep track of Who Knows What when it comes to the various Seanchan-related crimes. Egwene notes how uncomfortable Nynaeve is while talking to her and decides that instead of berating or scolding Nynaeve for avoiding meeting with her, she will ask her advice on being a young leader. Also, just to note another Egwene & Rand similarity: she notes how it feels like she has to do everything herself because people will stop obeying her once she’s out of sight. This is the same thing Rand was lamenting back when he was trying to get grain handed out in Arad Doman.

6. Egwene then uses the advice that Nynaeve gives her as a way of leading into telling Nynaeve that she needs to begin truly treating her as Amrylin and to call her ‘Mother’ instead of ‘Egwene’. Then Elayne arrives, all sparkling and chipper over the White Tower’s reunification.

7.  They begin discussing Rand. Egwene wonders here (just in her head) if Elayne has bonded Rand, and if that’s the secret that she feels like Elayne is keeping from her. Much as the Wise Ones did, Elayne and Nynaeve both tell Egwene that Rand has changed recently and is doing much better than before.

8. Nynaeve notices that Elayne is pregnant here. Is she... is she going to tell Rand when she wakes up? There are now five things that Nynaeve could tell Rand:

a. the sul’dam secret (key to any war effort against the Seanchan)

b. that Mat was left behind in Ebou Dar during the Seanchan invasion (would explain to Rand why ~Fortuona~ knew who Mat was)

c. that it was the Wondergirls and not the Dark One who changed the weather (would ease his mind somewhat)

d. that Elayne is pregnant (important emotional news!)

e. that the Seanchan attacked the White Tower (key to knowing how far the Seanchan have been willing to go, and that they now likely have access to Traveling; while Rand would have seen that the White Tower was damaged, it would have been easy for him to assume it happened when the rebels took the Tower, since he has no idea of anything that was happening in Egwene’s plotline)

WILL she tell him any of these things? I guess we’ll find out. So far, the only time she’s been willing to tell him anything (what happened with Lan) was when he basically already knew that something had happened and hounded her about it until she gave in. At this point, I feel like we can safely say that Nynaeve is more secretive with Rand than Moiraine ever was.

9. Note that Nynaeve does realize instantly that Rand is the dad, so all her ~omg Rand and Min need to get married~ ~omg Min is THE ONE who shares Rand’s heart~ ~omg we should talk to CADSUANE, why would I think of trying to talk to Elayne about Rand~ is all in the context of her apparently NOT having taken a blow to the head off-screen and forgotten about the love confessions, and forgotten about RandxElayne in general. She just bafflingly hasn’t thought about Elayne at all when interacting with Min and Rand x Min for no discernible reason. And, here, Nynaeve doesn’t appear to think of Min at all. She’s just instantly “oh Rand is definitely the daddy, don’t be coy with me, Elayne”. So when Nynaeve is around Min, she’s 100% RandxMin but when she’s around Elayne, she’s 100% RandxElayne. I guess if she ever spent time around Aviendha, she would probably be 100% RandxAviendha, lol.

10. Both Elayne and Nynaeve are way more noncommittal than Egwene expected on the whole “Rand has lost it in thinking that he needs to break the seals” deal that Egwene is selling. She blames Nynaeve’s reaction on her being ~influenced~ by Rand being ta’veren. I really do think that everything about this Egwene plotline would make more sense if Rand were still ruthless!Rand tbh. Egwene tells Nynaeve and Elayne that they need to come to the Tower to swear the oaths, but Elayne wiggles out of it because “we don’t know what it might do to the babies!” lol, it’s funny that Egwene is so 100% that everyone MUST take the Oaths but she’s all “eeeh, idk if it matters” when it comes to the Testing for being Aes Sedai. Anyway, Nynaeve says that if she’s going to do it, then she’ll do it right and take the Testing. Egwene says it will happen the next day then, and Nynaeve is startled at how soon Egwene expects her to come.

11. Oh, Egwene (very casually) mentions “before the Seanchan attack” here when Elayne is in the room, and she’s about to talk about the Black Ajah purge, when they get attacked by a two Black Ajah Sisters. Ah, that’s not really enough for Elayne to know what/when all that happened, especially since the attack happened so soon after. It’s Alviarin and... Talva? idk who Talva is, lol. I think this might be her first mention. After the attack, there’s a brief mention that Egwene tells about ~about what they missed~ but the narrative doesn’t go into detail, so we’ll only know how much she told Nynaeve and Elayne if they happen to think about it in their own narration. I wonder how much she told Elayne (and if any of that information will filter through to Mat).

My theory here is that Mat is going to be kept out of the loop of information about how much Tuon/the Seanchan have acted against his friends, to make it slightly less disgusting for the reader that Mat continues to fawn over an active danger to his loved ones who has, in the time since she left him, already assaulted his people once (meanwhile he’s been pushed into an emotional place where he felt guilty talking about standing up against her invasion -- another yikes pieces of characterization left to us by Jordan and another way the Mat x Tuon relationship is painfully lopsided; Tuon clearly feels no guilt about attacking MAT’S people).

12. Nynaeve has an Asha’man guard, Naeff, who... I think has not been mentioned before? He seems to be here as an illustration that though saidin is cleansed, any damage that the taint did to the men’s minds before it was cleansed remains intact (implying that the same is true for Rand). While she’s waiting for Rand to return (so she does plan to say goodbye before she leaves), she and Naeff are investigating a bubble of evil that turned a part of the city (people included) into dust. There’s no life left there. Things are getting Real Bad.

13. Feeling frustrated at her failure to help any of the people who were turned to dust, Nynaeve asks Naeff if she can take a look at him, and she attempts to heal the wounds that the taint left on his mind. She finds a darkness, with thorns poking into his mind. She pries the thorns free one-by-one and heals each small wound left behind. And it works, and his feeling that he is always being watched by Fades vanishes. This reminds Nynaeve not to give into despair and believe that the situation is hopeless.

14. Rand returns and he and Nynaeve talk. He thanks her for helping the Tairens and blames himself for things getting so bad, because of how he has delayed. He and Nynaeve talk a bit about Rand’s plan and it does seem pretty clear that Nynaeve sees his point about not waiting until the seals break by themselves. Better to break them and attack before the world gets worse. She tells him that she has to go back to the White Tower, and he asks her not to let them ‘ruin’ her. The most interesting thing to me here is that zen!Rand is WAY more like the Aes Sedai (in general) than ruthless!Rand, but Rand THINKS that how he previously was is like them -- forcing himself to be cold and uncaring to stay in control.

So... it is condescending for Rand to be saying this but it’s more interesting to me that he’s just flat-out WRONG (at the start of the book, when he arrived in the White Tower as zen!Rand, the people there were saying he was coming across as ‘Aes Sedai’ in vibe). But I think it makes sense (from Rand’s various Aes Sedai traumas) that he might think this -- the main Aes Sedai that he’s been around for the last several books has been Cadsuane, who is a bully and a hypocrite. Before that, he was literally tortured by a group of Aes Sedai, not all of whom were Black Ajah, some of whom were definitely using him to work out their anger issues. So I actually get why he might feel this way? But he’s incorrect. Aes Sedai are not constantly battling the taint the way that he was, so their need for control over saidar is profoundly different than Rand’s. That being said, idk if the text realizes that he’s incorrect, because Nynaeve agrees with him here (but otoh, there were the onlookers in the White Tower who straight-up said he was acting like an Aes Sedai). Rand does mention here that MOIRAINE always cared passionately but this was not something that he saw in her during the first four-ish books or so. It wasn’t until TFoH that he really began to see that in her.

I think the main thing is that Rand doesn’t have enough experience with “the average modern Aes Sedai” or “accepted White Tower training” in order to actually talk with authority.

15. Also, no. Nynaeve tells him none of the five big secrets that she is currently keeping from him, lol. She does not even CONSIDER telling him that he knocked up Elayne and she should know that he doesn’t know because they literally left Caemlyn TOGETHER back in Winter’s Heart. Being as communicative with Rand as she is with Elayne or Egwene isn’t even an option that she considers, even though she’s very fond of Rand.

16. On the plus side, she does examine his brain and we find out that his own taint-thorns are being held back by a coating of Light, which is interesting. Rand also says that he’d like it if she came back again once she’d able. Rand does mention here potentially having Elayne or Aviendha as the other woman in the circle with him if he uses Callandor with Nynaeve. We get no thoughts from Nynaeve re: the love confessions when Rand mentions Elayne and Aviendha. She also doesn’t think at all about how Elayne is pregnant when Elayne is brought up by Rand. I mean, at least she does plan to Heal Narishma and Flinn before she leaves but... jfc, she just Will Not Ever tell Rand anything, will she?

17. Faile and Perrin are finally having that big talk in private. Faile tells Perrin that he’s a good leader, and Perrin says he’s worried about how callous he’s become and that sometimes he wishes that he hadn’t gone with Rand on that night back at the start of TEotW (of course, they didn’t know that Rand was TDR at that point, so Moiraine never would have let that happen anyway lol). After that, Faile and Perrin have a meal for their one-year anniversary, their shanna’har. So that tells us how long it’s been since the battle of the Two Rivers. We then spend nearly two whole pages on reassuring Perrin that he’s a Great Leader (TM).

18. So, the thing is... Perrin’s fear about what killing those two Whitecloaks means for him as a person... that it makes him a monster and a killer, we saw a similar reflection in Rand, when he went to Falme in the last book. He thought about how that was where he first killed someone, how that was where he learned he could be dangerous to those around him. But Rand seemed to have more perspective about the situation that it occurred in. The first person Rand killed happened to be a Seanchan Lord but that doesn’t lead Rand to believe that morally he should to prostrate himself in front of ~self-proclaimed empress Fortuona~ to ask her to judge him, because Rand is capable enough of self-reflection to see both that he dislikes that he is capable of killing but also that he was in a situation where the other person was fully capable of killing him back.

But the actual connection here between Faile and Perrin is sweet, even if Perrin continues to frustrate and annoy me.

19. It’s fascinating/heartbreaking how Mat and Aludra’s relationship has changed into her treating him as an “unruly messenger boy”. It’s yet another relationship that got destroyed by Mat hooking up with Tuon. That’s one of the parts of the Mat x Tuon relationship that make it so unpleasant for me to read -- the fact that it is so inherently destructive to so many of Mat’s other relationships, leaving him much more isolated and vulnerable. And it’s just so lopsided! Mat loses/gives up so much due to the Tuon relationship and Tuon gives up nothing at all. How unbalanced the relationship is between the two of them is definitely one of the major reasons that I personally can’t get into it at all. That is not my vibe, lol.

20. Juilin comes over to talk to Mat to tell him that he plans to leave with the Aes Sedai to go to the White Tower. Very interesting that Juilin frames things in terms of Mat “giving permission” to the Aes Sedai to leave (which makes Mat wince). Juilin also hesitates before shaking Mat’s hand goodbye (and he mentions that the reason he’s not going back to Tear is because of the Seanchan). So, yeah, yikes. Looks like that’s another relationship that Mat torched by marrying Tuon.

21. Seta and Bethamin ALSO see Mat as “allowing” the Aes Sedai to leave and are somewhat surprised that it’s happening. So it kinda seems like the anti-slavery crew was unsure whether or not Mat would betray them and throw them back into the collars of the Seanchan (or basically were considering him the unofficial ‘owner’ of the three Aes Sedai Sisters). Yikes either way. And Mat winces here at being called “Highness” but doesn’t realize the deeper issue at hand. When Seta talks about how she wonders if it might not be better to die rather than to live as proof of the Empire’s lies, Mat tells them... that maybe someday after they learn to channel, the two of them (Seta and Bethamin) can convince Tuon that she’s wrong. Bro, she would stick them in a collar in a heartbeat. You KNOW this. Mark another tally in the “Mat in Willful Denial” column. This is also where he says the line, “Help me find a way to fix this without causing the Empire to collapse” and the line isn’t as awful in context as it is in isolation, because he’s clearly trying to find a way to make Seta feel less suicidal (and Seta cares deeply about the Empire). And the implication is that he means “fix this” in terms of fixing how fucked-up the damane system is, because of who his audience is (an ex-sul’dam who is scared of what it means to be able to channel).

The problem is that Mat is in such willful denial about Tuon’s character, because he wants to believe he isn’t married to a horrible person (like there are some great evil4evil pairings out there but it seems clear that is not the situation here and Mat is entering into this relationship with an “I can Fix Her” mentality, which rarely goes well -- though it does make the show’s change in his background painfully appropriate). Also, it seems clear that Mat believes that convincing Tuon that she herself is a channeler is THE key element to her having a breakthrough that would make her lead the charge to fix the damane system but... again, he deeply underestimates her ability to be a hypocrite, imo. Mat really really wants to believe that he’s married to a person who is fundamentally good but is just mistaken in her beliefs. Like I said above, I think that the narrative is going to deliberately keep information from Mat in order to let him continue to choose to believe that (if he knew that Tuon had sent assassins after the Aes Sedai, who include Egwene and his sister Bode, one would hope that he would have second thoughts about forcing himself to believe that Tuon must be fundamentally good underneath her toxic cultural beliefs).

In general, going into a relationship with the goal of changing the other person is... not such a great idea. For me, Jordan really botched the execution of the 'courtship' in CoT & KoD but when I try to not think about that part and just take what Sanderson was given, I do understand why he took this approach -- if we take it as a given that Mat has given up fighting his fate, Mat needing to justify WHY he’s gotten stuck him with Tuon makes a lot of sense. "The Pattern must have forced me into this marriage to convince Tuon that she can channel and that this doesn't make her evil, thus leading to her realizing that the damane system is trash" is a rationalization that makes sense for him to decide to believe, if we've already accepted that Mat has given up fighting.

22. Huh. Okay, that’s interesting. Mat explicitly compares the ex-sul’dam to RAND here, in terms of how terrified they are by the idea of channeling. *tilts head* I’ve talk a little bit about how Tuon is essentially a ~funhouse mirror~ of the Dragon Reborn (basically all the bad parts, lol, but she gets rewarded for it) but now I’m wondering how much MAT is projecting his feelings about Rand onto Tuon? Because Rand forced himself to be cold and in control in order to survive his destiny; Rand chases after prophecy like Tuon chases omens. But while Tuon might have a lot in common with the shell of the Dragon Reborn, we haven’t seen any evidence that there’s a good person inside that shell. In her own PoVs, she seems to be a hollow suit of armor.

I hadn’t remembered that Mat directly compared sul’dam (and thus by implication, Tuon) to Rand in the actual text of the book. Because Mat’s train of thought here goes from sul’dam to Tuon back to sul’dam and then to Rand very quickly. I still dislike that Jordan decided to have Mat’s sympathies swap from the oppressed in WH to the oppressors in CoT, but this is a very interesting justification in the text for that characterization change (one that did not appear at all in CoT or KoD, lol, so this may be an example of Sanderson trying to make sense out of the characterization change). Mat knows that there’s a good person who is frightened of what they’re capable of becoming underneath Rand’s cold shell, so he’s projecting that onto Tuon.

23. Doman and Leilwin née Egeanin are leaving to go to the White Tower too. So the entire “disapproves of the Seanchan” crew is heading to the White Tower in what feels like a fairly direct refutation of Mat’s choices (except Aludra, who is staying in Caemlyn for War Effort reasons). Oh! What Leilwin née Egeanin says to Mat when she’s leaving! “I don’t envy the place you’ve put yourself in. In some ways, I think the winds that carry you may actually be rougher than the ones which have buffeted me, recently.” Leilwin née Egeanin speaks nothing but the truth.

And the only person who wants to stay with Mat is also the one who flipped the most soundly over to the pro-slaver side: Setalle Anan, who Tuon had trained to fetch and carry for her by the end of the circus journey, and who amused Tuon by being willing to ~civilly debate~ over other people’s rights without trying to make Tuon feel bad for thinking that some people are less than human. The person most willing to coddle Tuon, in other words. That’s the only person who actually wants to stick around Mat after he’s thrown in his lot with the slavers.

(and Thom, of course, who needs Mat if he wants to save Moiraine; and Noal who is basically just a plot device)

24. Mat’s goodbye prank to Joline is... very childish (though tbh I feel like she could probably fix that with some minor channeling? I feel like this might be an annoyance to her for a handful of minutes at most). But it’s interesting here that Mat compares the ~predatory look~ in Joline’s eyes to Tylin’s even as he is desperately thinking that he needs to find some way to keep Tuon from enslaving him as da’covale (he’s “half-convinced” that she plans to enslave him at some point, though he once again tries to dress it up as ‘servant’ and not ‘slave’, just like he constantly did with Selucia back during CoT/KoD, where he kept insisting on thinking of her as a ‘ladies’ maid’ even though he knew damn well that she was a slave).

So, in the text, Mat is still operating under the deep fear that his wife is going to enslave him. Hmm. One of the other weird things that I noted happening during the circus journey is that it often seemed like Mat sublimated the anger/fear that he felt he couldn’t express towards Tuon and redirected it towards the Aes Sedai instead. In some ways, Joline was almost used as Tuon’s whipping boy during the circus journey, though I don’t know if that was intentional on Jordan’s part. Joline was the person that Mat was “allowed” to be angry at, essentially, even as Tuon behaved much more poorly.

Mat feeling wary and disliking that Joline is reminding him of how predatory Tylin was towards him -- Very Interesting. I will note that for later.

Also #JolineDeservedBetter.

25. Mat is very aware here of the connection that was formed between Setalle Anan and Tuon, and thinks that he wishes Tuon was here to distract Setalle Anan from trying to be the manager of his camp’s cooks. Strike seven-point-one. Mat notes Setalle Anan’s “plunging neckline” and how it works particularly well on “buxom” women like Setalle Anan. Not that he noticed. (the ‘not that he noticed’ is literally in the text, lol) And, once again, it is full breasts that Mat is trying to convince himself that he’s not noticing here, once again bringing attention to the lie he told himself a few chapters ago about preferring women with flatter chests these days. That’s at least three different women where it’s been the breasts in particular that grabbed Mat’s attention and that he lied to himself about. Mat is full-on trying to gaslight himself about his preferences in women’s appearances to convince himself that he’s more attracted to Tuon now than he is to anyone else Because Wife.

26. We’re reminded here that Setalle Anan knows about Mat’s protective medallion ter’angreal. She does NOT tell Mat that she told Tuon about the medallion, just regrets that she asked to look at it because that life is lost to her now. The fact that she so completely betrayed Mat to Tuon is really the thing that sticks out to me the most, of course. Setalle Anan was the one person who actually heard Tuon’s pro-slavery arguments (the reader certainly didn’t get to) and yet she gave away personal secrets to Tuon anyway. She’s the one person who should have the least amount of illusions about how deeply buried in Empire propaganda Tuon is, and yet (but she’s operating under Mat’s same delusion belief that she can ~reasonably debate~ Tuon into wanting to end slavery).

Apart from Mat himself, Setalle Anan is the character who got screwed over the most by whatever changed in Jordan’s ideas about the Seanchan story arc between Winter’s Heart and Crossroads of Twilight, going from being gutsy enough to hide an Aes Sedai in her cellar even as there were Seanchan in her very own inn... into being Tuon’s willing lacky and betraying the secrets of her former comrades. And as a result of that, Setalle Anan does feel like the most obvious evidence that Tuon is likely ta’veren.

27. Elayne strolls the Sunrise Gardens (which are on the roof of a building) and thinks about meeting Rand for the first time down in the lower gardens. We learn that her pregnancy is just beginning to show. It sounds like Elayne is getting an echo effect of Rand’s ~anti-Dark One~ bubble? The flowers bloom more around her and the little stream in this garden only runs when Elayne visits (apparently Perrin is also creating an “anti-food rotting” field as well, in his own chapters; I haven’t mentioned it because I didn’t really care, lol).

28. Oh, the deal that Elayne sets up here with the Kinswomen. I love Elayne so much. Seeking to create a place in Caemlyn where anyone who is hurt or ill can travel to be Healed free of any cost, in a lower-stakes environment than going to the White Tower. Elayne has such a good heart. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

And, of course, there are political and military considerations as well, because our girl is SMART. Having the Kin stationed in Caemlyn gives her a firm base to hold firm against the Seanchan, especially now that she knows they likely know Traveling. It is... fascinating actually, the post-War setup we have here of how much Elayne clearly plans to prepare in case of a potential Seanchan invasion post-The Last Battle, because Elayne and Tuon are on a post-canon collision course and I’m not sure how much any potential temporary truce will hold. That is a powderkeg.

Tuon is also Elayne’s foil in a lot of ways (I was talking about this with @markantonys in the comments of my last post).

They have many things in common:

we meet them both as heirs to a throne (who literally have “daughter” in their official title)

watch them ascend to power due to the reported death of their mother

they’re both capable of channeling

both are involved in love-based prophecies with ta’veren

they both have roses in their imagery (rose crown of Andor vs the raven & roses)

that one AMoL Spoiler Thing that they will have in common in the future

But there are also some strong contrasts that show the differences between them:

Tuon married without loving her husband while Elayne loves Rand but is not married to him

Elayne embraces being a channeler while Tuon rejects the idea

Tuon is the main slaver while Elayne has been the main person helping the freed slaves in the narrative

Tuon plans to force Mat to be ~full Seanchan~ while Elayne is incredibly selfless as a lover and has never tried to force Rand into being something else for her sake

Tuon uses other women as slaves, while Elayne is probably the female character who has the most connections to other women as friends and allies in a wide variety of different groups

while they both ‘claim’ lands outside their homeland that belong to them because of their ancestors’ blood, Elayne’s waiting country (Cairhien) actually IS prepared to have her as their ruler and has literally been waiting for her, while the Seanchan’s claims on the Westlands were pure propaganda on the Empire’s part based on an extremely distant past

A minor AMoL spoiler on this side too. I’ll try to point out the two spoiler-based things when I get to them in AMoL.

idk it’s interesting.

Elayne also wonders here if laying claim to the Black Tower (which IS on Andoran soil) would give her the post-Last Battle edge against the Seanchan that she would need.

29. ...Sanderson points out a massive plot hole from the Faile kidnapping arc -- that Perrin never considered using the wolfdream to scout out Malden. Yeah, that was pretty foolish of you, Perrin. It’s almost like you’re not a good leader and you don’t know how to use the advantages that you’ve been given. Bad Leader Perrin is such a hilarious contrast to Good Leader Elayne that we literally just had last chapter. I mean. On a certain level, sure, Perrin has had no training. I can’t expect him to be as good as Elayne. But on the other hand -- people (in the story) keep trying to tell me that he IS a good leader, because he makes Tough Decisions. Oddly enough, when RAND makes scorched earth Tough Decisions, the narrative understands that this is maybe not such a good thing; and part of Egwene’s whole leadership plotline was her putting her own skin on the line to AVOID doing a scorched earth approach. But Perrin doing scorched earth Tough Decisions is a-okay. For some reason.

30. ...I feel like this is the third or fourth time that Perrin has told Hopper that he’s ready to learn since we opened TGS. I think he can stop saying it, lol. Anyway, Perrin gets a lesson in keeping himself in the wolfdream even when someone is trying to force him out of it. They also run across a violet wall of energy in the dream that they cannot cross. Then Sanderson rids us of the terrible Berelain love triangle nonsense in this scene with Berelain and Faile, where they come to terms and decide that they will pretend to be friends in order to convince everyone that Berelain didn’t sleep with Perrin. Thanks for finally killing that subplot.

31. The Band of the Red Hand has been bragging to all the mercenary groups that they are led by a personal friend of the Dragon Reborn. That does track with how Talmanes behaved when he caught up with Mat in KoD.

32. Mat hears about the rumors about him -- one of them is that he “never loses at dice or love and his spear never misses his target” and he says that he wishes the second two were true. So he, uh. Doesn’t feel like he won in love. He also wishes that he’d dressed a little more fancy to see Elayne.

33. Oh, wow. Before he goes in to see Elayne, his hands are shaking. And his description of her is SO glowing. “His eyes found Elayne immediately”; “Radiant in a gown of deep red and gold”; “Beautiful, full red lips that Mat would not have minded kissing”; “Her red-gold hair seemed to shimmer in the hearthlight and her cheeks were full of color”; “She was a pretty thing.” She’s distracting.

Strike strike strike! Mat forcibly interjects Tuon/his married status into his gushing thoughts over Elayne twice here which only makes the gushing stand out more.

lol, the comparison to how he reacts to seeing Birgitte again is so telling:

“She looked the same. Always did, with that golden braid and high boots, like the hero from the bloody stories." lol, amazing. go girl give us nothing. The contrast between his gushing over Elayne’s appearance vs Just The Facts about Birgitte is hilarious. Mat is so attuned to Elayne’s appearance that he’s picked up on her barely-showing pregnancy weight (though he doesn’t realize it’s due to pregnancy) and with Birgitte he’s just like “eh I guess she’s Birgitte-shaped idk”.

Strike seven-point-two (and the third time he’s had Thoughts about Elayne so far in this book).

And Mat is expecting her to be an asshole noble (like Tuon is) and he’s bracing himself against that... and is completely taken off guard when she is warm instead, thanking him for returning Thom to Andor. She tells him that he doesn’t have to call her “Your Majesty” in private! Of course not! But it would be good to do it in public for appearances’ sake, and Mat readily agrees. I do think Sanderson missed a beat here -- if Jordan were writing this, Mat definitely would have mentioned Elayne’s dimple. Jordan’s Mat was OBSESSED with Elayne’s dimple.

34. Thom mentions Elayne’s future children and Mat is just gobsmacked that Elayne is pregnant (and that it’s Rand’s kids -- I mean, Mat has been watching Rand bang Min against every available surface for the past few months in his rainbow visions so... can’t blame him for being somewhat confused since he DOESN’T know about the love confessions). Mat also thinks in some befuddlement that Elayne is agreeable now (...and then admits that she could be agreeable before too sometimes).

Interesting here -- Thom tells the story of their escape and “capture” of Tuon, and somehow manages to make Mat sound like a hero in the story (focusing on Mat saving the Aes Sedai and helping the Atha’an Miere escape, maybe? the WH stuff before CoT destroyed Mat’s character?). And then Mat cuts him off before he gets to Tuon saying the marriage words (or, for that matter, before he gets to Mat handing Tuon back to the Seanchan Empire to continue her invasion of their continent). Given... Elayne’s understandably strong feelings about the Seanchan, I am EXTREMELY CURIOUS about how Thom managed to relay this story in a way that was amusing rather than disturbing. Though I guess some of the worse bits were things that Thom didn’t see.

35. Okay, Mat deliberately trying to make sure that Elayne doesn’t know he’s married to Tuon is... hmm. Is it because he’s so attracted to Elayne and doesn’t want to have Thom remind her that he’s married or is it because something in his hindbrain is telling him not to let Elayne know that he’s married to someone who enslaves women like her? Given the uncertainty here, I won’t give this a strike point. But, yeah, he and Elayne are getting on so well right now, that even discounting his attraction to her, I can see why he wouldn’t want to mention that he’s now married to a slaver, specifically.

36. “[Elayne] laughed, the pretty sound ringing in the room. He felt himself blushing.” OKAY! Strike seven-point-three. Mat is so fucking gone over Elayne, wow. I am so deeply curious if anything about this was in Jordan’s notes or if Sanderson was just going off of his own vibes of Mat & Elayne from ACoS. Mat is coming across as having a massive MASSIVE crush on Elayne. And when Elayne realizes the gravity of the offer that Mat is bringing with Aludra and her dragons, she declares, “Mat, I could kiss you!” and Mat blue-screens for a moment.

If Elayne HAD kissed Mat here, he would have 100% kissed her back. Like, I have zero doubt in my mind. Wow, that crush can be seen from orbit.

37. Haha, after all that getting along, Elayne and Mat do run into some conflict when Mat realizes that Elayne is planning to have Aludra build the dragons for Andor and not for the Band. To make it so that they are one and the same, Elayne offers for the Band to be an official part of Andor. And Mat is tempted. But he’s stuck with Tuon so...

“He did not think Elayne would be happy to have him in her realm once she knew of his relationship with the Seanchan.” and “He had no intention of giving the Seanchan access to these dragons.” So Mat has maintained an awareness that the Seanchan are, in fact, hostile and also that he would likely not be able to maintain his friendship with Elayne once she knows that he’s married to a slaver. Sanderson also has Mat focus on how he wants to clear up the uncertainly over how Tuon views him -- everything with Mat & Tuon really is tainted by the prophecy, of course, because how much of Mat’s desire to ~find out the truth of Tuon’s feelings~ is a genuine desire, and how much of it is because he believes that he’s trapped with Tuon regardless?

They do come to terms -- the Band will sign a contract with Andor for now. Andor gets 3/4 of the dragons and the Band gets 1/4. And, in order to sweeten the deal, Mat offers to lend his medallion to Elayne for one day, to do whatever she wants with it. Man, the give-and-take and the general... equality of the relationship. My brain is currently constructing a fantasy of THIS being Mat’s noble romance instead of the trash ones that we got stuck with. *sigh*

They bargain some more, with Elayne getting the medallion for three days and Mat getting a new serving man (MAT’S suggestion, which is key). After we had Tylin forcing fancy clothes on Mat against his will, that Mat wants and trusts Elayne to pick out someone to help him care for his clothing just... wow, that really gets to me.

38. He learns that the reason that Elayne wants the medallion is to make copies -- he finds that worrisome for a moment, but then finds himself settling on being relieved and intrigued by her plans. He also tells Elayne about the gholam. Communication! Mat learns that Elayne wants to use the Band to secure Cairhien and he’s absolutely fine with it, just as long as the Band is free for the Last Battle, “however Rand wants”. The little exchange that Elayne and Mat have here:

Mat: “I’ll do what’s right.”

Elayne: “What you see as being right.”

Mat: “Every man should have that option.”

Elayne: “Few men use it wisely.”

That is probably a conversation that will ring in Elayne’s ears in the future, once she DOES find out what really happened at the end of Thom’s story, and learns that Mat considers “marrying a slaver” in the realm of “what’s right”.

Also, Elayne spits in her hand and shake Mat’s, to copy him. Another (much more minor) mirroring moment between Elayne x Mat and Tuon x Mat.

39. Elayne mentions that she wants the FULL story at dinner that night, including what Mat meant about being a “married man” and wow, the regret that Mat feels over putting that in his letter. He notes here that he dropped it in to hopefully make her curious enough to actually meet with him, which tracks with my speculation. Mat says here, to Thom on the way out, that he wonders if maybe Elayne can give him a pardon too (after finding out that Elayne has given Thom one). It’s interesting, again, in terms of what I was wondering about re: whether or not Thom actually still likes Mat, that Thom is finding the idea of Elayne learning that Mat is married to a Seanchan slaver to be amusing. That doesn’t seem like the reaction of a friend. And, of course, Mat feeling that he might need a pardon speaks to an interesting level of guilty awareness on Mat’s part that he doesn’t want to admit to.

40. I had so much to say about Mat! And about Mat and Elayne! But that was all fascinating, especially how flustered Mat was over talking with Elayne. And it’s also interesting that, even as attracted to Elayne as Mat was, he was capable of dealing with her as an equal when it came to his people. But Mat is also very very aware that all this warmth and trust that Elayne is currently extending to him could vanish in a heartbeat if she found about “his relationship with the Seanchan”.

I do wonder how much of Mat’s reactions to Elayne are based on a (subconscious and unintentional on Mat’s part) comparison to Tuon. That maybe Elayne’s behavior is a pleasant surprise partly because of how much better she’s treating him than Tuon does.

[theoldshadow]

crackship - mat cauthon & elayne trakand ( malayne ) - the wheel of time

[matcauth0n]

[daughter-heir-moved]

Add Mat to the polycule 2k22

[alectology-archive]

hmm the thing about mat’s arc is that I would’ve called bullshit on mat getting a happy ending, if that was even ever a possibility, because he primarily exists in the story to give commentary on the trauma of war (and it just doesn’t work otherwise in my head either - he’s Not a communicator, and I’m not even sure he can tolerate vulnerability/intimacy that doesn’t stick like a thorn in his side? and this is besides his otherwise manufactured daydreams of an ideal and happy life having very flawed foundations) so I actually thing pairing him off with tuon was the smartest narrative choice rj ever made, perhaps even more so than rand’s ending.

[toastandjamie]

So I wanted to elaborate on the Mat/Elayne Freyja/Odin parallel, so here’s that essay. For the sake of keeping this post semi coherent any off topic but vaguely relevant ramblings will be at the bottom of the post.

To start I was surprised to find out that while the obvious parallels between Mat/Odin and Perrin/Thor are often noted I haven’t seen anyone mention how Elayne is Freyja, so I’ll start by talking about those similarities. Freyja is a goddess of love and fertility as well as a goddess of death and war, and of course, of the magic practice of Seidhr which I covered in my precious Mat post. Freyja much like Elayne is a twin, having a twin brother(and masculine form) Freyr, the god of peace, fertility and prosperity. Freyr also has a horse cult, for some reason. Freyja of course is the second patron god of Seidhr sharing the role with Odin but she fulfills the more traditional and feminine aspects in a more socially conventional manner. Her husband, is often absent resulting in a particular myth of her crying ‘red-gold’ tears in his absence, her husband, Odr’s name actually means frenzied madness so shout out Rand. Freyja is also often depicted with having red-gold hair like everyone’s favorite Trakkand. She’s also associated with cats and she’s sometimes connected to the Phrygian goddess Cybele, who instead of a chariots drawn by cats has a chariot drawn by lions. Of course the Cybele/Freyja connection is debatable but I wanted to point it out for the lion connection.

Now onto the fun part, Freyja/Elayne and Mat/Odin, let’s talk about that dynamic. So if you didn’t notice Seidhr isn’t the only domain Freyja and Odin share, they’re both also gods of war and death, specifically they’re both gods of glorious death on the field of battle. Half of the slain are taken by Odin to Valahalla and the other half to Freyja’s realm Folkvangr. Now this might be a stretch but the sharing of the dead between Odin and Freyja reminds me of the sharing of The Band and the Dragons between Mat and Elayne in ToM and AMoL. Once again that’s a bit of a stretch but I wanted to point it out. Though I think the Band of The Red Hand is definitely a reference to Odin leading a procession of fallen warriors and the fact that Elayne gets shared custody is something I find very interesting in terms of this parallel.

Odin and Freyja are also both connected to the Valkyries for the above reasons. I think it’s safe to say that Brigitte is a Valkyrie, a spirit of a female warrior who comes to lead the dead to Valhalla and Folkvangr respectively. The fact that Brigitte bonded to both Mat and Elayne(through the horn and through the Warder bond respectively) is something I think proves this connection. Yada yada the Horn of Valere and the Heroes of the Horn are the Wild Hunt which in some stories is led by Odin with a Valkyrie at his side, Mat and Brigitte yada yada.

Also depending on who you ask Freyja is often conflated with Odin’s wife Frigg and Odin with Freyja’s husband Odr so uh- Matlayne

Now how do these connections inform Mat and Elayne’s dynamic. Well for one it explains why they are so heavily linked to eachother, from Mat’s vague connection to Manethran’s King Aemon and Elayne LITERALLY being the Rose of The Sun to Mat and Elayne sharing their weapons of mass destruction with eachother, the two spend a great deal of time with eachother and working together. Much like Odin and Freyja they compliment eachother and work together in their respective domains, whether that’s being a soldier and his Queen or two powerful people sharing battle earned death while accompanied by a woman warrior spirit and legendary procession of long dead heroes. They are complimentary halves and foils to eachother, they of course clash because they are forced to share space(share domains) but in the end they come to an understanding and make eachother stronger through their differences and similarities.

Okay okay tangent time, so I’m really insane about Mat/Elayne’s whole relationship and how Elayne is a thematic character foil to Tuon. Like Elayne is the Rose of the Sun and Tuon is the Daughter of the Nine Moons. The thematic relevance of Mat choosing to stay in Ebou Dar with Tuon vs. taking Elayne’s contract to become an Andoran general, choosing the Moon over the Sun. All I’m saying is that RJ robbed us of the potential Mat/Elayne/Tuon love triangle that would’ve shot and killed me. The Themes, The Character Foils, The DRAMA

Next tangent has nothing to do with Elayne really but was inspired by the previous tangent. So the Seanchen are represented by the night but they are also symbols of death right? Now one of Tuon’s names is Kore which is an epitaph of Persephone and with the death connection and the kidnapping that brings an obvious parallel to the myth of Hades and Persephone. But I’d argue that the story themes put Tuon in the role of Hades rather than Persephone while Mat takes Persephone’s role. I mean wed to Hades(Tuon) and brought into the underworld(Seanchen) only to become trapped there by eating a pomegranate(or accidentally starting a foreign marriage ceremony) able to return home to the land of the living(Andor) but only for short periods of time, all while becoming more than she once was as the Queen of the Underworld(Prince of Ravens). Anyways I have FEELINGS about Mat Cauthon.

[markantonys]

mat is elayne's trophy husband in this au and that's why he's dressed like this, i just know it

[markantonys]

“average wheel of time character mentions elayne’s dimple 5 times per book” factoid actualy just statistical error. average wheel of time character mentions elayne’s dimple 0 times per book. mat cauthon, who mentions elayne’s dimple over 10,000 times each chapter, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[markantonys]

the only reason the wondergirls didn't get to witness the mat vs. gawyn and galad fight is that robert jordan knew elayne would jump mat's bones on the spot if she saw him kick galad's ass

[markantonys]

mat: can i buy you a drink?

elayne: i have a boyfriend.

mat: [counting out coins on the table] he can only get something small then.

[markantonys]

most romantic wheel of time moments thus far, according to me:

rand leading blind mat by the hand and telling him, “i won’t leave you. i won’t leave you no matter what.” (eotw)

mat taking care of sick rand and when rand has a feverish identity crisis, telling him, “you’re rand al’thor, that’s who you are. with the ugliest face and the thickest head in the two rivers.” (eotw)

rand wanting to turn feathers into a flower for elayne but being unable to, and elayne keeping the feathers anyway because they’re beautiful to her because rand wanted them to be a flower (tsr)

rand saving mat’s life in rhuidean (tsr)

rand seeing aviendha being her old prickly self after they slept together and being relieved and glad that them sleeping together hasn’t changed who she is (tfoh)

“you can’t bloody have her”: mat risking his life to protect elayne both because he cares about her and because he’d promised rand to keep her safe (acos)

elayne and aviendha surviving an explosion, crawling to each other, touching each other’s faces with bloody hands, kissing each other’s cheeks in front of birgitte which is something an aiel wouldn’t do even with a lover (tpod)

[markantonys]

mat and elayne’s entire dynamic is “you should be addicted to shutting the fuck up” “you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid” and they both spend an equal amount of time playing both roles in that dynamic, and that’s why matlayne is so godtier

[markantonys]

mat to elayne: you know i’m a feminist. that’s why i let you pay for all my stuff.

[markantonys]

relationship: mat/rand/elayne rating: explicit length: 7.6k (1 of 5 chapters posted) summary: “I thought you liked Rand,” was the first thing Mat’s mouth could come up with. Because it was solely his mouth responsible for the words coming out of it; his brain had long since keeled over dead. Obviously, since nobody in possession of a functional brain would bring up another man when he had the most beautiful bloody woman in the world right there and interested in kissing him.

“I do,” Elayne said, blush deepening. “But I like you too. I like both of you. Does that…make sense?”

Mat thought about it for a moment, then nodded. There were so many pretty girls in the world, and he’d certainly liked more than one at the same time before. But how could Elayne think he was pretty enough to like at the same time as Rand? Rand had always been the prettiest boy in all of the Two Rivers, and maybe all of Andor, and maybe all of the Westlands, and maybe all of the world. He should’ve been able to easily eclipse Mat in Elayne’s eyes.

And yet, Elayne was fond of him. Of him, in addition to Rand.

[markantonys]