This week in Reading The Wheel of Time, we’re tackling Chapters 13 and 14 of Lord of Chaos. We’re spending a lot of time in Tel’aran’rhiod this week, and we finally get to see how Egwene is doing. Also Tarna Feir is creepy, Nynaeve is stubborn (no surprise there) and Elayne makes plans for some ter’angreal.
Can I just say, it would be a lot easier if the collective group of channeling enhancers were just called angreal, with ter’angreal and sa’angreal as subcategories, so one didn’t have to type out all three every time you want to talk about the group. But that’s a minor complaint. Let’s get on to the recap.
Nynaeve is drying herself off after Theodrin tried to shock her into surrendering by dumping a bucket of water over her head. Nynaeve reacted by punching Theodrin—and got punched back. Theodrin points out that Nynaeve’s need to be angry to channel goes against everything that they are taught about saidar, to which one must surrender before one can guide it. But however hard Nynaeve tries to surrender, she still hangs on with her fingernails unless she’s angry enough to forget to. Nynaeve thinks she should leave and go take care of something she actually believes that she can do, but she really does want Theodrin to succeed in breaking her block. They heal each other’s bruises before Nynaeve leaves, with instructions not to sleep that night.
Nynaeve finds Elayne, and tells her that she thinks Moghedien is right, and they should run away to Caemlyn. She also tells Elayne what she overheard about the Hall asking for more time. Elayne points out that this means the Hall could still decide either way, and is confident they can handle any questions or problems that might come up in the interim. Suddenly Tarna Feir uses saidar to slam the door open.
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Tarna tells Elayne that the Amyrlin has a special place in her heart for Elayne, and for Andor, and urges her to return with Tarna to the Tower. Elayne responds that she will return when the rest do, and Tarna tells her to leave so that she can speak with “the wilder” alone. Once Elayne is gone, Tarna adopts a different manner, casual and friendly, but Nynaeve notices that none of it reaches Tarna’s eyes. She tells Nynaeve not to be offended, that Tarna is a wilder too and it took her forever to get over her block as well.
Galina Casban beat my block out of me herself. She knew my Ajah long before I did, and took a personal interest in me. She always does in those she thinks will choose Red.” She shook her head, laughing, eyes like frozen knives.
She tells Nynaeve that she is even more important than Elayne because of her connection to Rand. She also asks about Egwene, and insists that “the Amyrlin” intends to give Rand the honor he deserves. She tells Nynaeve to come back to the White Tower with her, and demands Nynaeve spend the night considering rather than refusing right away.
When Elayne doesn’t return after Tarna leaves, Nynaeve goes looking for her. She finds her having just borrowed the ter’angreal rings from Siuan. Elayne proposes that they go to Tel’aran’rhiod and use their need to find something that will help them convince the Hall to choose Rand over making the Tower whole. She eventually convinces Nynaeve to agree to stay in Salidar if they find something useful. It’s not until she’s settled in bed with the ring on a cord around her neck that Nynaeve remembers Theodrin’s instructions not to sleep.
In the dream, Nynaeve and Elayne link hands, close their eyes, and feel the world shift. Opening them, they find themselves in Tar Valon, on a garbage-filled street that Nynaeve recognizes—she briefly glimpsed Leane in a window here, while chasing after her on Sheriam’s orders. They see a few people dreaming themselves in and out of Tel’aran’rhiod, and none of the dreams are pleasant. Elayne remarks that she doesn’t like this, before they close their eyes and shift again.
They were in the Tower, in one of the tapestry-hung curving hallways. A plump novice-clad girl popped into existence not three paces away, her big eyes going wider when she saw them. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please?” And was gone.
Suddenly Elayne exclaims that she sees Egwene, but she’s gone before Nynaeve can look. They shift again, and this time they find themselves in a storeroom in the Tower, surrounded by items they deduce to be ter’angreal, angreal, and sa’angreal whose purpose no one has figured out. Knowing that they could never reach whatever is in here, Nynaeve proposes they try again, this time fixing it in their minds that they need something that isn’t in Tar Valon.
They find themselves in a dawn-lit city full of canals, then on a dirty, claustrophobic street. Finally, they find themselves in a dusty storeroom. Elayne eliminates the dust with a thought, and they try one more shift, which brings them in front of a large, square chest. It’s full of apparent junk, so they try one more time, reaching into the chest with eyes closed. Their hands land on something large, covered in rotting cloth, which turns out to be a huge crystal bowl, shallow and carved with swirling clouds.
Nynaeve nearly drops the bowl when it starts to turn blue and the clouds start to move, but it is only Elayne channeling. She tells Nynaeve that the bowl is a ter’angreal that has something to do with the weather, but that she isn’t quite strong enough to work it by herself. Elayne thinks she also felt other angreal, possibly even sa’angreal, in the room.
They go back out to explore in the city, quickly becoming thoroughly lost in the streets, which have few identifying landmarks or even signs in windows. Elayne decides that it must be Ebou Dar, but they realize that they could never find their way back to the storeroom even if they were able to go to that city.
They step out of the dream, and Elayne tells Nynaeve that it is their duty to turn over such a cache of ter’angreal, angreal, and sa’angreal into the right hands, as well as the weather ter’angreal. And if that doesn’t make the Hall support Rand, she’ll keep hunting for something that will. Then she falls asleep, leaving Nynaeve alone to worry in the darkness.
Meanwhile, it turns out that Elayne really did see Egwene in the Dream. The moment Egwene caught sight of them she leaped back into the liminal space between Tel’aran’rhiod and the waking world. Some part of her had wanted to reach out to them, but she’s had nightmares of disaster resulting from such a connection. She wonders what the two were doing there in a part of the Tower that held nothing of interest, and wonders too if the Aes Sedai in Salidar know that two strange women are also wandering the World of Dreams.
She floats comfortably in the darkness, observing that there are dreams of people from worlds she does not know as well as the world she does. Egwene is frustrated knowing that she could learn so much more with a Wise One Dreamwalker guiding her instead of having to puzzle everything out on her own.
Besides teaching herself more about Tel’aran’rhiod, Egwene’s main purpose in the Dream has been to pick up scraps of information about what’s going on in the world, since the Wise Ones have been holding back, telling her she needs to rest. She reflects on the other two women she has seen in Tel’aran’rhiod, one who appears solid and able to touch the Dream on her own, while the other appears misty and must be using a ter’angreal. Egwene suspects that woman might be Black Ajah, but had decided following her wasn’t worth the risk, especially since she can’t tell anyone anything she finds out. Seeing so many new people in the Dream makes her nervous, and she’s caught glimpses of Rand, and Perrin, and even Lan in Tel’aran’rhiod as well.
As Egwene tries to decide what to do next, one particular point of light catches her attention. No matter where she looks it seems to return to the center of her vision, then it begins to draw her in, even when she wills it to go away. She finds herself in Gawyn’s dream, chained to a column. At first she thinks he is dreaming of holding her captive, then Rand appears, looking larger than life and bearing an evil look, and the two fight. Gawyn defeats Rand and kills him, then rescues Egwene from her bonds.
Egwene finds herself acting out her part in the dream, swooning gratefully into Gawyn’s arms. She tries to picture herself outside of the dream, tries to maintain her sense of identity as the true Egwene even as her body behaves as the dream dictates. The scene shifts to a hilltop picnic, where Gawyn lays Egwene down on a blanket and proceeds to profess his love to her in poetic language. Then the scene shifts and repeats, and Gawyn claims to have no right to speak to her since Galad is in love with her. It shifts and repeats again; this time he tells her he loves her hesitantly and in plain language.
“You sweet idiot,” she laughed softly. “I love you” I love you, echoed in the part of her that was really her. She felt the barrier vanishing, had a moment to realize she did not care, and then there was only one Egwene again, an Egwene who happily twined her arms around Gawyn’s neck.
Struggling to stay awake, Nynaeve decides to go out for a walk when suddenly a stool flings itself into her back. Outside there is screaming and crashing, as inside Elayne and Nynaeve’s beds begin to toss about. Nynaeve recognizes that this must be a bubble of evil, and briskly tells Elayne to go rouse anyone who is still asleep. She runs into the next room where she tries unsuccessfully to save two women who are being strangled by their bedclothes. She is unable to access saidar, but Elayne arrives just in time to pull the blankets back with the Power. She reports that no one else is badly hurt, and they help the dizzy women outside. Nynaeve finds a night watchman lying in the middle of the street, dead, and she wants to scream in anger at the waste of it. Anaiya arrives, noting that Nynaeve has managed to grasp saidar, and instructs her and Elayne to open themselves to linking.
The Aes Sedai seem to believe that Sammael is attacking, and creating linked groups is part of the plan they have made for such an event. Nynaeve tries twice to open herself to the link and can’t quite manage it.
The third time was like being seized by the scruff of the neck. Saidar swept through Nynaeve to Anaiya, and when she attempted to pull back—it was her, she realized, not the flow itself—her flow was held, melting into a larger.
Nynaeve finds herself filled with a sense of awe, a feeling of being part of something greater than herself. She can’t tell which of the emotions she feels are hers and which belong to the other women in the link, but she feels close to all of them. She’s not angry anymore either, but saidar keeps flowing, even when she notices Nicola in the link and tries to pull back. Elayne joins the link as well, after carefully slipping the a’dam bracelet from her wrist, and they continue on, picking up other Accepted and novices as they go.
Suddenly Nicola spoke, sounding half-asleep. “The lion sword, the dedicated spear, she who sees beyond. Three on the boat, and he who is dead yet lives. The great battle done, but the world not done with battle. The land divided by the return, and the guardians balance the servants. The future teeters on the edge of a blade.”
Nicola doesn’t seem to register anything of what she said and Anaiya is more concerned with dealing with the problems at hand. They handle all the problems they find, stopping items from flying about and rescuing those who need it, but they find dead people too, and Nynaeve is frustrated and furious until eventually she loses herself in the feeling of the link.
She’s caught by surprise when Anaiya eventually releases the link, and even though it’s only been about an hour, Nynaeve feels exhausted. Again Nynaeve and Elayne try to explain that it wasn’t Sammael but a bubble of evil that caused all the mayhem, but Anaiya brushes that aside, as well as their attempts to tell her about the bowl. She starts sending the most exhausted girls back to bed and selecting others to help with Healing the injured, picking Elayne for the latter, and Nynaeve for the former. Although Nynaeve catches sight of Theodrin, she tells herself she will go to sleep anyway.
The theme of surrender is really strong in these two chapters. First, Nynaeve struggles with the fact that channeling saidar requires that one first surrender to the One Power. Then, Gawyn’s dream catches Egwene up, forcing her, despite her burgeoning skill as a dreamwalker, to surrender to the dream and be transmuted into the dream version of herself. Finally, Nynaeve experiences a different kind of surrender to the One Power by allowing herself to be open to linking.
And really, I think you could even argue that using need in Tel’aran’rhiod is a form of surrender—instead of directing your own travel, you give the Dream a sense of what you need and let it take you instead. The fact that you have to close your eyes to use this technique really drives home this point. While using need you could end up anywhere, including somewhere that might kill you, yet you have to take each step blindly.
I really liked that Theodrin named the contradiction with Nynaeve’s block, and it helped me figure out a little bit more of how opening to saidar actually works, and what anger is really doing for Nynaeve. Theodrin specifically says that she’s seen Nynaeve try to surrender, but that she always stops herself from fully letting go unless she’s angry enough to forget to hold on. So it isn’t that Nynaeve’s anger is overcoming her block—it’s that her anger is distracting her from the fear, which is actually what is keeping her blocked. This actually makes a lot of sense, and it’s consistent with the lesson that the narrative seems to be building for Nynaeve.
It’s interesting to see how Nynaeve views herself as a coward in so many unjustified ways, and yet is largely unaware of the areas in which she is most held back and ruled by her own fear. As I mentioned last week, she doesn’t give herself credit for any of the things that she has done in the face of her fear, nor does she recognize that other people also feel the kinds of terror that she experiences. She still thinks that Elayne and Birgitte are fearless, despite evidence to the contrary, even after Birgitte told Nynaeve outright that it was sensible to be afraid of Moghedien, and that she herself would run and hide if she ever thought Moghedien was looking for her. All our heroes have experienced moments of terror so far in the story, and some of them even have been frustrated by their fear, but no one is nearly as hard on themselves as Nynaeve is.
And yet, she doesn’t understand that fear is her true block. She knows she’s not good at surrendering, but I don’t think she’s connected her desire to run away from difficult, painful things as a refusal to surrender. She really feels like she’s trying in her sessions with Theodrin. But as long as she has that desire to flee in the back of her mind, as long as some part of her thinks that she should give up and just accept that her block will always be there, she isn’t fully surrendering.
She was understandably upset by Tarna’s story about having her block beaten out of her. Remembering how Elaida “helped” Moiraine and Siuan train for their Trials, I can imagine that this wasn’t considered an over-the-line way of breaking someone’s block (though it is perhaps telling that both instances were perpetrated by a member of the Red Ajah). The Aes Sedai set a lot of stock by corporal punishment, but I think such methods would be exactly the wrong way to engage with Nynaeve’s particular problem. The fear and pain of such an experience would just encourage her to hang on harder to the small amount of her situation she could control. Either that, or she’d be so furious at the indignation that she’d just find saidar through that protective anger, as she usually does. Not that I think shock is going to work either—we can see that anger is Nynaeve’s first impulse there as well.
Nynaeve just takes everything so personally. And everything is her responsibility, too. She often holds herself responsible for the suffering of others, even when she has no real reason to consider herself to blame, as when she finds the watchman dead in the street. For all she knows, he was killed at the same moment she was struck by the stool, but her first instinct upon finding him is to think that she might have been able to save his life, if only she’d been quicker. The only other person who experiences this level of distress and sense of being responsible for everything that happens, whether they were there or not, is Rand. But Rand is a literal instrument of the Light, a man upon whose shoulders rests the the fate of the entire world, and who is held by everyone around him as responsible for most of what happens, for good or ill. Nynaeve has arrived at this way of thinking entirely on her own.
In many ways it’s an admirable impulse, and one befitting an Aes Sedai. We’ve seen the ways in which the Aes Sedai view themselves as superior or more important than those around them, which is contrary to their stated mission of protectors and servants of the Light. Nynaeve’s sense of responsibility to others might be helpful to her, but right now it is ruling her in an unhelpful way, I think. She needs to learn the lessons Perrin and Rand have had to learn: You can’t save everyone, and the more responsibility you have, the more deaths will be tied to you in some way.
Perhaps that’s another fear that is holding Nynaeve back. If she breaks her block she’ll be ready to be raised to Aes Sedai, or at least to the not-quite Aes Sedai level that people like Theodrin and Faolain have reached. In addition to the fact that Nynaeve still isn’t quite sure how she feels about the Aes Sedai (she certainly doesn’t trust them), becoming a full sister will come with a lot of power, and a lot of responsibilities. She’s already vexed and being tied down—how much more will she be if she commits herself fully to the White Tower and the shawl?
But Nynaeve’s experience linked with Anaiya and the others provides some useful context as well. She has a sense of being a part of something greater than herself, and it’s more than just the expected feeling of awe that comes from channeling the One Power. Nynaeve is terrified of connecting with people—which is exactly what you would expect from a person whose self-esteem and confidence are largely just a front. We see how she reacts when she notices Nicola studying her. She can’t draw back because her connection to saidar is controlled by Anaiya now, not Nynaeve herself, but it still shows how Nynaeve handles channeling. When she feels threatened, when she even perceives the possibility of a threat, she pulls back into herself, shutting herself off from the person, or the situation, or from herself. And that is also what happens when she attempts to channel saidar.
All this isn’t to say that the key to Nynaeve wielding saidar is kicking this habit forever. Theodrin said that it only takes one time channeling past your block to break it forever. Nynaeve only has to completely surrender once to the True Source, after which she won’t bring that particular habit to bear while embracing saidar, but probably will still struggle with it in other areas of her life.
I think my favorite bit in these chapters is when Elayne is telling Nynaeve about Ebou Dar.
“You would like Ebou Dar, Nynaeve. Ebou Dari Wise Women know more about herbs than anybody. They can cure anything. They have to, because Ebou Dari fight duels over a sneeze, noble or common, men or women.” Elayne giggled. “Thom says there used to be leopards here, but they left because they found Ebou Dari too touchy to live with.”
Sounds like our favorite former Wisdom would be right at home there! I can absolutely imagine Nynaeve being down to fight a duel whenever someone pisses her off. Well, if she wasn’t a healer, anyway.
I do have a lot of questions about Nynaeve and Elayne’s assumptions about what the Salidar Aes Sedai are planning. While it appears that the Hall is still undecided about whether to return to Elaida or not, I think their reply to Tarna is actually stalling for time. We know that Sheriam and co. are waiting for “the biddable child” who is very probably Egwene and who they are most likely planning to make their Amyrlin in exile. I do think that Logain’s story about being recruited by Elaida and the reds, as well as the general sense that Elaida will not be merciful to those she deems her enemies (i.e. most everybody, especially the blues) will keep the Aes Sedai from reuniting with the White Tower. But I could be wrong, and there’s certainly enough at stake for Elayne and Nynaeve’s nervousness, their belief that the balance could tip either way, to make a lot of sense.
I’m really concerned about Tar Valon, though. This isn’t the first time that a character in Tel’aran’rhiod has noticed garbage in the streets, but this scene really shows that things are bad in city. It’s not just the physical state of the surroundings, either. Ever single person Nynaeve and Elayne see while they’re there seems to be having a horrific nightmare, from the man falling, to the woman in the torn dress, to the begging novice, sends a very serious signal that all is not well. Plus, there are the rats. We’ve known since The Eye of the World what a lot of rats in a city portends.
I’m not sure what to make of Egwene’s experience in Gawyn’s dreams. I’m not sure if the point is that she gets drawn in because some part of her wants to be, or if there’s some other power at work. If Egwene does really have feelings for Gawyn, perhaps she went to his dream subconsciously, even though her conscious mind was trying to stay away. The section ends with her telling Gawyn she loves him both as dream Egwene and as herself, but that could just be a sign that her true self had been subsumed by the dream version, just as it was when she got caught in Rhuarc’s dream and became a child. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see, but I do have a lot of questions if it turns out that Egwene has her own romantic feelings for Gawyn—once again we’ll have a character suddenly be in love with someone without any apparent buildup or character development.
I’m not surprised that Gawyn loves Egwene, though. That’s been pretty clear from the start, and since we’ve had a few POVs from him, I find his love more convincing and real than Galad’s. But then, Galad hardly comes off as a full person. And the way that Gawyn, Egwene, and Rand all seem different in Gawyn’s dream is really interesting. It makes sense that someone’s dreams would show their perception of things, rather than the objective truth of them. The people we love always look especially beautiful in our eyes, and many people see themselves as less good-looking than they are—especially people who have hot siblings.
And once again, Jordan’s dramatic irony is working overtime. Poor Egwene is frightened to see two strange women in Tel’aran’rhiod, unable to recognize Siuan and Leane. She is frustrated that she can’t warn the Salidar Aes Sedai, and unaware that she doesn’t need to. If she just talked to Elayne and Nynaeve, she would know all this, but for some indistinct reason she’s keeping her journeys into the World of Dreams a secret from them.
Okay, not exactly an indistinct reason. Egwene has apparently had one of her vaguely prophetic dreams that approaching the two will cause something bad to happen. But neither she nor the reader have much to go on there.
I can understand why Egwene feels impatient with the Wise One’s restrictions on her, and why she feels the need to practice going to Tel’aran’rhiod and to try to get news of the world. But if the Wise Ones are right about her need to rest and finish recovering—which I imagine they are—then Egwene is probably making things worse for herself in the long run. The longer it takes her to fully heal, the longer it will be until the Wise Ones let her get back to regular life. She herself is aware that she could learn much faster with one of them teaching her than she can exploring on her own, which means that the little she is gaining probably isn’t worth the cost. Better to heal as quickly as possible and get back to the real work.
But she probably feels the press of time as much as anyone, and Egwene is also someone who is desperately curious and unable to sit still. Many times she has reflected on her desire to learn everything, and not just as a means to an end. Just because she wants to learn. I loved the bit where she was vexed at not knowing how Rand seems to travel great distances and back again. I wonder if he’ll get to show her how, someday soon.
Also, is anyone going to say anything about Nicola’s Foretelling? Did Anaiya miss it somehow? I have no idea what most of it means, but there are a few bits that I had some guesses about. Any reference to a lion makes me think of Elayne, so the lion sword could be that the sword references her, while “the dedicated spear” is Aviendha and “she who sees beyond” is Min. “He who is dead yet lives” might be a reference to Mat, and “the land divided by the return” is definitely a reference to the Seanchan. Not sure what the boat is about, or the guardians and the servants. I feel like the future “teeters on the edge of a blade” is pretty self-explanatory, though.
Next week we’ll tackle Chapter 15, which sums up the adventures of this week, and then we’ll catch up with Rand again in Chapter 16. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with something I noticed while I was looking up the Wise Ones’ lessons on need, back in Chapter 52 of The Shadow Rising. Nynaeve tells the Wise Ones to keep a close eye on Egwene, who has always tried to bite off more than she can chew. But Amys disagrees, saying that she finds Egwene a biddable student.
Of course, we know that part of the reason Amys says this is that she has recently disciplined Egwene for going into the Dream alone without permission. But Nynaeve still has this reflection;
These Wise Ones did not know [Egwene] well if they believed a Two Rivers woman would call herself biddable.
Coincidence? I think not. Foreshadowing? Absolutely.
Sylas K Barrett would like to know more about the giant weather bowl now, please and thank you.
I haven’t even read most of this yet, but someone needs to tell Sylas about using the term *angreal! Seems like a good catchall for the whole lot. XD
At least Nynaeve did not die, only to be resurrected by Egwene’s tears.
Oh shit, I’ve missed Nicola’s foretelling on several of my re-reads.
I think that pretty clearly refers to what Aviendha sees when she goes back to Rhuidean and sees the decline of the Aiel in the future. Wild that that was referenced here, it doesn’t come up again until the end of the series!
The Guardian and Servants is pretty clear to those of us that have finished the books as well of course.
Only thing I’m unsure of is what the boat means. Also that was some nice deciphering by Sylas. I didn’t get anything at all from that foretelling on my first read through 😂
None of us will ever understand what Eggy sees in Gawyn.
Eggy definitely feels an urgency about learning as much as she can as quickly as she can. Is this just a thirst for knowledge or does she sense her time is limited? Tarmon Gaidon is approaching and she needs to be prepared.
@Mods, “And the way that Gawyn, Egwene, and Rand all seem different in Galad’s dream is really interesting“. Shouldn’t this be Gawyn’s? :)
@6: Updated!
Wow. Y’all don’t recognize the reference to the boat? The boat references a moment at the end of the series. The three people mentioned references those present. The one dead yet alive mentions what happened just before and what happens after that “moment”. Of course all present to hear that prophecy wouldn’t know what it references and I doubt even as it happened they’d remember Nicola’s foretelling. As someone else mentioned, the Guardians balancing the Servants is quite obvious, but I thought the whole foretelling was obvious. At the time of first read though I knew what was happening, but the details. I thought the Guardians would be some secret society that appears at some point.
Great recap and analysis!
@@.-@: Can you remind me who the Guardians are? (I assume the Seanchan, but I can’t remember how that term would apply). It has been too long since I read the later books.
you think Tarna’s creepy now………
re: three on a boat…..this and other boat related viewings says to me that after the Last Battle the foursome goes on a romantic cruise (Avi was outvoted)…..a little sun, a little whale watching, maybe a Ricky Martin cover show after dinner (Rand’s all about La vida loca)…….just leave the kids with Granny Morgase and get some us time……Light knows they deserve a vacation
“Sylas K Barrett would like to know more about the giant weather bowl now, please and thank you.” – oh, don’t worry, hahaha.
Wasn’t the boat just some Arthurian symbolism or something like that?
In retrospect, this line is rather painful.
@9 Guardians = Ashaman
re: Eg+Ga………i’ve always felt she loves the “idea” of Gawyn (prince, tall, good looking, etc) but not him himself. She never treats him like someone whose feelings she cares about, whose opinions or desires are important………she treats him as an adjunct to herself, even privately, and that is not love
As Lisamarie said, the boat is an Arthurian reference. After Ar’thur was mortally wounded at the Battle of Camlann (sound like any place we know?) he was taken away on a boat to the Isle of (t)A(r)valon, with three women with whom he had been associated. Sometimes Morgan le Fay, sometimes including The Lady of the Lake(s) Nimue/Vivianne/Nyneve. Whether it’s a boat, or a bier/pyre, the symbolism is the same.
Asha’man is Old Tongue for Guardians, Sedai for Servants.
@@.-@
I’m not sure I can say that it fully pays off when the series ends, but the three on the boat is a clear reference to the legend of King Arthur, who in at least some versions of the myth is taken away to Avalon by boat with 3 women when he is mortally wounded.
Yet another chapter in which opinion is bound to be divided on Egwene. If you like her, you ascribe the charitable motive of “she wants to learn because she wants to be ready for Tarmon Gaidon”. If you don’t like her (a.k.a. you read the text itself), then this is just another example of Egwene’s inherent hypocrisy and obnoxiousness. Here she is, once again lying to her instructors and teachers about what she’s doing. Making lots of assumptions she doesn’t bother to verify. Spying on the people she purports to love.
And as @13 points out very astutely, Egwene and Gawyn’s “romance” makes a lot more sense if you view Egwene as being essentially unconcerned with Gawyn or his feelings, and more interested in the idea of having someone like Gawyn be into her. Her interest is power, not a meaningful relationship. As we’ll see as the series progresses, Egwene routinely ignores or belittles Gawyn’s insights and information. Which isn’t to say Gawyn’s judgement gives her too much call to trust him, but still. Her big thing there is that he won’t acknowledge her as the Amyrlin and thereby lessens her authority, despite him having little reason to do so. Essentially, she wants a sycophant, preferably one whose prestige will add to her own. She wants a high profile Warder, not necessarily a husband, and her continued assurance to Gawyn that she wants the reverse of that causes a lot of their later interpersonal problems.
Re-reading that, Egwene would have made an awesome modern Forsaken. She’s basically teetering right on the brink of it – utterly convinced of the justice of her own position, utterly consumed with receiving the respect she thinks she deserves, powerful in her own right, disdainful of her nominal peers, determined to learn and gain more knowledge regardless of the safety of it, or whether it’s right – she’s like a melange of the traits that most of the Forsaken are said to have exhibited before turning to the Shadow. Aginor especially.
@Lisamarie: LOL, and yes on the Arthurian reference.
Sylas on Ebou Dar: Sounds like our favorite former Wisdom would be right at home there! I can absolutely imagine Nynaeve being down to fight a duel whenever someone pisses her off. Well, if she wasn’t a healer, anyway.
This observation surprised me a bit because if there is one thing that is deeply ingrained in Nynaeve’s personality it is that she does not accept idiotic behaviour from both men and women, especially when it involves stabbing each other…
EDIT: I think it was around here with Egwene knowing better than the Wise Ones that I started disliking her. It went downhil after this. Same will happen with Elayne starting the next book.
Personally, I find Egwene’s desire to “learn everything right now” very endearing and relatable if I imagine it coming from the personality she has always displayed, not some sense of urgency in advance of Tarmon Gai’don. Though now that a new-disease pandemic has given our world the first recent experience of urgently needing to learn everything about a new global peril, the latter motivation also feels increasingly relatable on a societal scale. But not as enjoyable to think about.
‘Tarna’s smile could have frozen a snowstorm.’ What does that mean? I know it means her smile was cold, though I can’t picture that because I’m too visually impaired to detect the finer nuances of facial expressions, but how does the metaphor fit the description? Snow is already frozen. Do you mean it would make the air so cold that all of the moisture would fall out of it at once, or something? (I’m not great at meteorology.)
Ouch…the foreshadowing and symbolism in those lines and observations about Tarna really are painful. Another indication her fate may well have been planned, or that Brandon, Harriet, et al. were really good at finding earlier bits that could be re-interpreted.
Re: the boat imagery, while the bier/pyre could be seen that way if you squint right, I more interpreted it as a symbol or metaphor of being on the border between life and death/the world of the living and the afterlife. After all, Avalon was usually depicted as being part of the Faeries’ world and therefore not the normal land of the living (see Rip Van Winkle for what happens when a mortal visits it), and the whole point of Arthur going there was to keep him from dying.
That said, I love the cruise idea post-TG!
@14 (and others) Thanks for the refresher on Arthurian mythology. Been too many decades since I read those obviously. Makes perfect sense now.
@9 as someone else said Aes Sedai means Servants of All in the Old Tongue and Asha’man means Guardians. They very literally balance each other in the last books.
@18
I just read it as a smile being so cold, that it would cool down (freeze) something, that is already considered very cold (snowstorm). Don’t know how it would actually work either.
Wow. That prophecy is extremely spoileriffic.
The prophecy is pretty easy if you break it apart.
Elayne, Aviendha, and Min, of course.
As pointed out above, this is clearly an allusion to the Arthur myth. “He who is dead yet lives” is referring to Rand “dying” but is still alive in another body.
The Last Battle is over, but the world is not done with battle just yet.
“The land divided by the return” is obviously referring to the Seanchan controlling half the continent. The guardians and servants are the Asha’man and Aes Sedai, of course. The future teeters on the edge of a blade is in reference to how the Seanchan are handled.
I always took this to mean that Eggy’s real self got influenced by Gawyn’s dream-self desire for her. Moggy always said that some things in the dream are even more real than in the waking world. It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to say that Egwene loves Gawyn because, while in his dream, her subconscious was altered by his perception of her. He saw her as his love interest and she in turn loved him in his dream, making some part of her love him in her real self. So the next time she sees him in the waking world, that part of her comes to the fore. Like TAR compulsion.
This also allows me to hate Gawyn even more, so there’s that bonus too.
mehndeke,
that’s an interesting interpretation but given the similarity between the development, or lack of it, in the Eggy/Gawyn relationship and other relationships in WoT I am inclined to take it at face value. I suppose being exposed to Gawyn’s emotions whilst snooping on him has kindled feeling in Egwene as well.
Hi I am 45years I’m very grateful to read this books.
I didn’t get a proper education and I learned how to
Read at age 26 give or take a year sitting well in jail.
I noticed that I had had only 3 options at the time,
( 1 ) was playing cards. ( except I had none even if it was my own, it was taken for? And if I had asked why I always got back the answers. ” for coffee money. ) the main reason I had none.
( 2 ) Right letters or drawing something. ( I sometimes was payed for my artwork. I was paid) canteen things like shampoo or chocolate est. )
Or
( 3 ) Reading books and letters. At around the age of 26 I had a burn out and I got a book for Ideals and I had that book a for a while and I was locked down and I started to look inside to see if I could see for any thing that looks furmiller and I learned how to read some small words and then sentences and if I couldn’t get the word I would look at the sentence to get the jist of it. or just make up something and now I’ve read all that books up to book 13. And I can read and all I have left to do is work on my spelling.
THANKS FOR INPROVING ME AND MY LIFE
ALBERT C. REID-JASZCZAK.
Thank you
yes, of course, the boat is an Arthurian image, in fact boats have been associated with the life-to-death transition in many cultures all the way back to Ancient Egypt…….i like my head canon better
Min keeps gushing to Tuon about how great the cruise was, so she convinces Mat to go on one too, but while she has a fine time doing Tai Chi on deck Mat spends all his time in the onboard casino and winds up owning the cruise line. Mat also insists on bringing Olver, who keeps going on deck and playing “Nearer my God to thee” on the Horn. When the heroes show up, Birgitte says “hey, remember that one cruise we took” and Gaidal starts running around yelling “i’m the king of the world”. Ishamael, grumbling “here we go AGAIN” starts trying to stuff jewelry in Gaidal’s pockets and get him arrested. Hardly the romantic getaway Tuon envisioned……..when she tells Aviendha about it later, Avi replies “now you know why i wanted to go skiing”
The prophecy was the hook for the sequel series we never got. Which makes me sad.
Obviously a lot is left unresolved after TG, chiefly AS and Asha’man relations and sorting out the Seanchan. Obviously the Queen of Andor and Cairhien, a leading Wise One of the Aiel and the Seanchan Empress’ reluctant Truthsayer would be in the thick of things. Which means their very much not dead joint husband will have to become part of the solution if he wants any time with his significant others. The boat may refer to the foursome travelling to Seanchan which was supposed to be the setting of the sequel series.
I can be rather harsh with my criticism of these books, but I have to admit that Foretelling was pretty impressive.
This basically means he had the whole ending figured out at this point, save for a few details on how to get there. Which explains why it took so long. I mean, this isn’t even the halfway point.
And yeah, it does sound like he had new ideas even beyond the ending of the last book. Shame we couldn’t read those.
The “three on a boat” prophesy sounds very much like a shortened version of what Min says to Rand in Eye of the World, that she sees “three women standing over you on a funeral bier and you on it.” Boats to the afterlife are pretty common. Besides the Arthurian version, there’s the Viking funeral boats, Charon taking people over the Styx, the Egyptian solar funerary boats, various Buddhist versions of boats crossing the Sanzu River, and so on.
I don’t find it odd that Egwene fell in love with Gawyn. Gawyn is a very pleasant young man in the first books, good-looking, patient with Elayne, an excellent swordsman, and a good sport about having the tar beaten out of him by Mat. And his behavior in the dream is rather sweet. It’s only when the plot demands him to be torn between love for Egwene and hatred for Siuan S. and the AS, and later between his need to protect Eggy and her need to be in charge, that he becomes pretty annoying, especially when RJ’s need to keep all the other plot wheels turning requires Gawyn’s puerile angst to be spread out over an ungodly number of books.
I also don’t find it odd that Gawyn fell for Egwene. RJ himself was obviously very fond of her, and I’m puzzled by the animus some people express towards her (not just people here). Eggy’s faults, such as nosing about Tel’aran’riod despite the Aiels’ warnings, lying about things like being an AS, and trying to push people around, are ones she shares with the other Supergirls and other characters in the series as well. Her urge to take charge of things will be put to the test when she’s promoted in the not-too-distant future and does a bang-up job of it. People forgive Nyneave her Nyneave-ness, Siuan her Siuan-ness and even (in Harry Potter) Hermione her Hermione-ness, so why not Eggy?
One reason, of course, is that once she fell into Brandon Sanderson’s hands he turned her into an insufferable prig much of the time. But that’s many books in the future.
The lion clearly refers to Andor, but “the lion sword” sounds more like Gawyn, the prospective First Prince of the Sword, than Elayne, who has little to do with swords. It would also fit Gareth Bryne, the former First Prince of the Sword, or another Andoran swordsman such as Galad.
“The dedicated spear” is clearly an Aiel, but it’s a better fit for an Aiel warrior than for Aviendha since she was forced to give up the spear.
“She who sees beyond” is a good fit for Min. It could also refer to someone else with prophetic abilities, such as dreaming or foretelling, but Min is the one who most literally sees her prophecies.
Those three in combination, however, seem most likely to refer to Elayne, Aviendha and Min. I guess those half-matches were inserted to make the foretelling more ambiguous.
Calling the funeral pyre a boat feels a little too much like a stretch to me. I guess that was a detail that had to be changed as working a boat into the ending was found impractical.
The Swedish translator translated “and he who is dead yet lives” like it meant “and he who is dead but lives anyway is also there”. Like Sylas, I thought for a long time that it probably referred to Mat. Now that I’ve read the ending, I think it may have been intended as “and despite that, he who is dead still lives”.
ABout Nicola’s foretelling
The Gaurdians and Servants line would be VERY VERY hard for Sylas to figure out now. In the timeline of the books rand just came back from his first meeting with Taim…at this point there isno Black Tower, nor Asha’man. Just some “guys out at the farm” – Yes the term Asha’man will pop up before the end of the book, but right now he is still ignorany of it or its tanslation
And it will be glorious
@24: That doesn’t square with the Wise One’s comments about *how* Egwene got sucked into that dream in the first place.
@34 foamy: sure it does. The strong emotion only needs to be on one side:
So it could have been all Gawyn, if he’s passionate enough (and boy is he ever capable of being passionate).
@23: I still think, considering the way things went down at Shayol Ghul and how unique and critical it turned out to be in letting Rand seal the Dark One’s prison, that “the future teeters on the edge of a blade” was meant to refer to Callandor.
@23, 36: I read it as a reworking (using Yankee vocab) of Galadriel’s statement to the Fellowship at Lothlorien: “Your quest stands upon the edge of a knife.” That is to say, it’s a metaphorical blade; the outcome is uncertain. Building up suspense for the eventual WOT sequel, probably.
Oh, no question there. I just meant I think it had both a metaphorical and literal meaning. :)
@36 – I def think it is a sly reference to Callandor – was just hoping no one else had commented on this yet. The obvious meaning (that the future is uncertain) is just a screen.