#(1400 on the inn sequence)

[antialiasis]

I am more than 10,000 words into writing up All of My Thoughts on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and I only just got to the halfway point of the movie. I don't know if anyone is going to read all this but at least I will have put all the Thoughts in writing and then I will probably be able to do some other things

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 34: The Last Village

Once again I find myself obligated to warn woolheads about spoilers. If you haven't read the entirety of the series, don't stick around. I will spoil the shit out of everything. I might even spoil stuff in this very paragraph for a laugh, so you need to stop now and flee! Well, okay, not this paragraph. That would be mean. But maybe the next one, or the one after that!

This chapter starts up with the Trolloc triptych symbol. In this case it represents the Fade that pursues the boys in Carysford, as there aren't actually any Trollocs in this chapter. So I guess this icon can occasionally mean Shadowspawn in general, though it might just be early installment weirdness.

He wondered if his whole sense of time was getting skewed. Only three nights since Howal Gode and Four Kings, two since Paitr had surprised them in Market Sheran. Just a bare day since the nameless Darkfriend woman tried to kill them in the stable of The Queen’s Man, but even that seemed a year ago, or a lifetime.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

Guess what, Jordan? You played yourself. Your timeline's wrong! Assuming we count this current evening as night 1, then the fever night is 2 and sure Paitr works, but then we have the night at the inn before him as 3 and the night in the rain immediately following Gode as 4. Maybe if you hadn't written the sequence in a pointlessly confusing fashion, it would have been easier to keep track of.

Thank fuck we never have to deal with this nonsense again.

“Two paces to the span,” he muttered. “A thousand spans to the mile, four miles to the league. . . . I’m not walking another ten paces unless there’s a place to sleep at the end of it.

Ah yes, this is going to be an infodumping chapter, so here's Jordan establishing that the metric system is long gone.

“If there aren’t a hundred Darkfriends waiting for us down the road, or a Fade or two.” There was silence for a moment, then Mat said, “I think we’re the last ones left, Rand.” He sounded frightened. “Whatever it’s all about, it’s just us two, now. Just us.”

Seriously, is this knife more about magically imparting paranoia and mistrust, or just despair? Because Mat's been more consistently convinced of everyone being dead than much else.

“Where are you bound?” Mat called. “Why, Caemlyn, for to see the Dragon,” the fellow shouted back without stopping. He raised an eyebrow at the blankets and saddlebags hanging from their shoulders, and added, “Just like you.” With a laugh he went on, his eyes already seeking eagerly ahead.

Silly man, you wanna see the Dragon you need to stop and chill with this duo. Caemlyn only has a false dragon.

Once Rand misjudged a driver’s whip, just by the length of the tip. Clapping his hand to the shallow gash over his eyebrow, he swallowed hard to keep from vomiting at how close it had come to his eye. The driver smirked at him. With his other hand he grabbed Mat, to stop him nocking an arrow.

Oh, and murder. That's the other thing the dagger seems to inspire in Mat. Frankly, I support it.

The captain’s scowl deepened as he caught sight of Rand and Mat, standing in the road nearby. He gestured down the road with a steel-backed gauntlet. “Get on with you, or I’ll have you in for blocking traffic.”

That's an interesting threat. Laws against idleness and wandering are pretty old, they date back to the 1400s in England and I wouldn't be surprised to learn of earlier examples in other nations. But blocking traffic specifically is an odd one, in no small part because they're two pedestrians on a large road and can't possibly be blocking much. Maybe the captain's just using shorthand, but I wonder if he's not just threatening the bumpkins to make them move along when he doesn't have any legal right to shoo them off the road. Not that, as a cop, he wouldn't arrest them and beat their skulls in anyway, just that he might be going, "Boo!" at the small children more than anything.

The night thickened, relieved only a bit by scant moonlight. Mat’s burst of energy faded, and his complaints started up again. Aching knots formed in Rand’s calves. He told himself he had walked further in a hard day working on the farm with Tam, but repeat it as often as he would, he could not make himself believe it. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the aches and pains and would not stop.

Again, Jordan is really good at descriptions of physical exhaustion. It's delightful.

Skin prickling, Rand watched the shape moving off in the night. He did not know why, but his uneasiness seemed to follow that one, a vague tingling in the back of his neck and the hair stirring on his arms as if he had suddenly realized something was sneaking up on him. With a quick shake of his head, he rubbed his arms briskly.

Rand's Shadowspawn sense seems to have developed nicely, since he's upset about this dude for a whole page before he finally gets proof that the man's a Fade.

He paused, then went on as if he thought he had to explain further. “He’s from Four Kings. Looking for a couple of thieves. Young men. They stole a heron-mark sword from him.”

It's really funny to me that the two chapters where Rand's sword gets him unwanted attention are the two where it isn't the chapter icon. It's just because he's not thinking about Tam with it, but it's interesting that the sword matters as a source of internal conflict, not external.

“You sound almost as if you know them to look at.” “I’ll know them when I see them,” Holdwin said confidently.

Last time I said Paitr was getting info from TAR, but it does seem as though Fades are the primary mechanism at this point. That said, Holdwin's confidence that he'd know the boys on sight suggests that there is still a subconscious mechanism of info dissemination.

“If the Queen’s Guards can’t keep the road safe this close to Caemlyn, then we’re none of us safe even in our own beds. If you ask me, one thing the Guards could do to make sure the roads are safe would be clap that friend of yours in irons. Sneaking around in the dark, afraid to let anybody get a look at him. Can’t tell me he’s not up to no good.”

Dear old Almen Bunt. He's absolutely right. The Queen's Guards can't keep the road safe this close to Caemlyn - there's a Fade walking the streets! - and no one is safe anywhere. Frankly, the Shadow would have had a much better shot of winning the conflict if it had just ordered the Myrdraal to spend the Third Age warping from shadow to shadow, ganking anyone in arm's reach, and hoping that by the end of the age humanity is too depressed to keep fighting. Course, the Dark One probably has tried that a few times and it probably doesn't work all the same.

“So you two are going to Caemlyn. To see the Dragon, eh?” ... “The false Dragon,” Rand said with emphasis.

Rand doesn't even know he's the real deal yet and he's already insisting no one respect the imitators.

Well, wait till you see it. The greatest city in the world. Oh, I’ve heard all about Illian and Ebou Dar and Tear and all—there’s always some fool thinks a thing is bigger and better just because it’s off somewheres over the horizon—but for my money, Caemlyn is the grandest there is.

The fun thing is, even with the expanded knowledge of the world we have, Bunt is still pretty much right. Caemlyn, for all of Andor's Two Rivers-related flaws, is probably the best capital city to live in. Andor doesn't hate the peasantry or channelers like so many other nations do, the monarchy is strong enough to keep the peace, it's not at constant risk of Trolloc invasion, and it's not Tar Valon where the Black Ajah are headquartered. It's also not Rhuidean, which is fancier but presently abandoned, nor Seandar or Shara's unknown capital which double down on slavery and other hideous crimes against human rights.

There's a reason that Caemlyn is an important site in the Last Battle - and why even now we have the teleportation systems being set up to justify it being potentially under threat despite its distance from the Blight. Its devastation is an echo of the fall of Manetheren and other Trolloc War-era cities.

Another Aes Sedai. If . . . when Moiraine got to Caemlyn, she might well go to a sister Aes Sedai. If the worst happened, this Elaida might help them reach Tar Valon. 

Oh she'll help you get to Tar Valon alright. And seriously, Bunt is on a roll. Elaida is the worst Aes Sedai advisor a woman could possibly have and she should be sent home. Not Tar Valon, just home. Forever.

Send the Daughter-Heir off to Tar Valon to study with the Aes Sedai, and the eldest son off to study with the Warders. I believe in tradition, I do, but look what it got us last time. Luc dead in the Blight before he was ever anointed First Prince of the Sword, and Tigraine vanished—run off or dead—when it came time for her to take the throne.

Of course, Bunt can't be right about everything! Tigraine going to Tar Valon to study was the most important thing that happened in the span of human events, even if Luc had to suffer for it. Like I said, this is the infodump chapter - Bunt has opinions on everything.

Brought Cairhien into the plotting before he was done, and you know how that ended. The Tree chopped down, and black-veiled Aiel coming over the Dragonwall. Well, he got himself decently killed after he’d fathered Elayne and Gawyn, so there’s an end to it,

This is about the only hint we get as to why Laman chopped down the Tree, and I'm just fascinated as to what bizarre set of events led from, "Help Taringail end up wed to whoever becomes Queen," to "Destroy a priceless treasure that only brought the nation prosperity even if you ignore the threat of devastation from the neighbors getting pissed you metaphorically spat in their faces". What happened there? Would Jordan have ever answered that question in the prequels? Had he originally intended to answer it in Elayne's arc beforehand?

“The Queen is wed to the land,” Thom said as brightly colored balls danced in a circle, “but the Dragon . . . the Dragon is one with the land, and the land is one with the Dragon.”

More for Caemlyn being the grandest, most important city - the Queen who is wed to the Dragon is Andor's queen.

“At least. . . .” Mat yawned, cracking his jaws. “At least you got some sleep.” There was little sympathy in his bleary eyes. He was huddled under his cloak, with his blanketroll doubled up beneath his head. “He talked all bloody night.”

Mat's head is now swimming with all sorts of fascinating factoids about the Trakands, Damodreds, and Mantears, plus probably a comprehensive history of Hawkwing's empire and even Coremanda from the Compact. Little does he know that from here on out he'll be able to figure out the answer to virtually every question about the backstory that he or the others will have all the way to the Last Battle - but in a cruel twist of fate he will of course lose all of this knowledge once he's cured of his current dagger fixation.

Ah well, we've made it to Caemlyn, and so next time we'll be starting the next chapter: Caemlyn, when Rand and Mat explore the city of Caemlyn! Caemlyn.