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apocalypticavolition · 1 year ago

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Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 12: Woven in the Pattern

For the first time in this let's read, Perrin pushed Egwene out of the tag prompts, which must mean it's time for an Egwene chapter! If you don't want more spoilers for the whole Wheel of Time series than that, stop reading.

For this chapter, we begin with the Flame of Tar Valon. This chapter is about Egwene and Nynaeve's journey with the Aes Sedai caravan, so naturally we're gonna get lots of Aes Sedai stuff.

Egwene stopped, wide-eyed, too shocked even to think that she was surrounded by Aes Sedai. An attempt on the life of the Amyrlin Seat. It went beyond thinking of.

It's fun how Jordan remembers his POV's limitations. We know damn well that Amyrlins have dealt with assassination attempts before, but Egwene's a starry-eyed country bumpkin who has just found herself with a chance to get cloistered so of course she thinks no one would kill off the leader of her new organization. She'll learn better soon!

Her eyes came to rest on Egwene and Nynaeve, piercing eyes that seemed to Egwene to be seeing everything about herself that she wanted to keep secret. Egwene took a step back, then caught herself and dropped a curtsy, wondering if that were proper; no one had ever explained to her the protocol of meeting the Amyrlin Seat. Nynaeve kept her back straight and returned the Amyrlin’s stare, but she fumbled for Egwene’s hand and gripped as hard as Egwene did.

Good to know that in addition to neglecting the boys, Moiraine was neglecting the girls too! Egwene does really well when you consider how she doesn't get the special attention that the boys do. And of course Nynaeve is just like "Eff you mother I'd spit in your face if it wasn't undignified" while also being "Oh shit Egwene let's hide." Egwene's closeness to her lets us see her duality better than we can from Rand's eyes or frankly Nynaeve's own.

Nynaeve, riding alongside, shook her head. “Rand will be all right. He has Lord Ingtar and twenty lances with him. In any case, there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing either of us can do.” She glanced toward Moiraine; the Aes Sedai’s trim white mare and Lan’s tall black stallion made an odd pair off to one side by themselves. “Not yet.”

Likewise, Nynaeve sees Egwene better than she'll let herself admit, since the narration hadn't mentioned Rand since the beginning of the chapter. I continue to regret that she never got a chance to confront Moiraine about crap. It makes sense that her motivations moved on but don't even try to tell me it wouldn't have been awesome.

Lan came once to the tent Egwene shared with Nynaeve, taking the Wisdom into the night a little distance away. Egwene peered around the tent flap to watch. She could not hear what they said, except that Nynaeve eventually erupted in anger and came stalking back to wrap herself in her blankets and refuse to talk at all.

What is Lan even doing at this point? What is he saying to her? Is it just a heads up that he and Moiraine will be dipping out at any point? Is it some weakness on his part where he's trying to both be the brooding loner and get some action on the side and Nynaeve is just not interested in the emotional whiplash he's offering her?

She glanced at the lantern hanging at the highest point of the tent, and the flame rose a little higher. Egwene thought she felt something, thought she almost saw something about the Aes Sedai when the flame grew brighter. Moiraine had told her that one day—when she had more training—she would be able to see when another woman channeled, and to tell a woman who could channel even if she did nothing.

I honestly didn't remember this milestone in Egwene's growth and even though she's growing right on track I'm going crazy at the slowness of it all. Also: Verin's got them good subtle test skills, you know?

“Moiraine has . . . I mean, Moiraine Sedai has been giving me lessons,” Egwene managed.

Presumably this must be more than the one Rand eavesdropped on, so Moiraine hasn't been totally negligent here. I guess it's not fair to say she didn't prep Egwene just over addressing the Amyrlin since for Moiraine it was a complete surprise that she showed up and then things immediately went to shit.

Almost always they have built up walls to keep themselves from knowing what it was they were doing, and those walls interfere with conscious control. The longer those walls have to build, the harder it is to tear them down, but if they can be demolished—well, some of the most adept sisters ever have been wilders.

And yet no one ever managed to build a wall as effective as Nynaeve's, which turns the standard rules of the One Power on their head - or seem to, at least.

“Well, Moiraine has never believed in telling anyone anything they did not need to know. Knowing serves no real purpose, but then, neither does not knowing. Myself, I always prefer knowing to not.”

This is an absolutely incredible thing to say considering what her knowledge has brought her. Take what you want and pay for it indeed.

But you began trying to channel without anyone there to teach you any control at all of what you do. I know you don’t think you’re very far along, and you are not, but you are like someone who has taught herself to run up hills—sometimes, at least—without ever learning how to run down the other side, or to walk. Sooner or later you are going to fall, if you don’t learn the rest of it.

It's a little sad that Egwene actually got a good - if horrifying - education and this never really paid off because seeing Egwene slip up would have been quite interesting. I guess she probably would have died or something though so it's for the best! She's much too fun to kill off this early.

Egwene thought, Can she know about Rand? It isn’t possible. She’d never have let him leave Fal Dara if she even suspected. But she was sure she had not imagined what she saw.

Pseudo-bookends in Egwene and Verin's first and last interactions both involving Verin sharing very different secrets in very different ways. It's also funny in that Verin will shortly ditch the party to go join Rand.

Nynaeve’s hands tightened on her skirt, and she looked at the tent flap again, frowning. Finally she gave a short nod and settled back down on the floor. “I suppose I might as well,” she said.

Nynaeve hates veiled social threats and not being able to yell at people, but she's absolutely dying to learn this stuff too, even if she's uncomfortable with it.

It was slow, but Moiraine had said it would come more quickly with practice. Inside herself, she was a rosebud, red petals curled tightly. Yet suddenly there was something else. Light. Light pressing on the petals. Slowly the petals unfolded, turning toward the light, absorbing the light. The rose and the light were one. Egwene and the light were one. She could feel the merest trickle of it seeping through her. She stretched for more, strained for more. . . .

Is this very lightly sexual? I'm a pervert who can find sex imagery in just about anything, but I feel like... there's something here.

Is it just me?

Did I mention that novices do chores? They wash dishes, scrub floors, do laundry, serve at table, all sorts of things. I myself think the servants do a better job of it by far, but it is generally felt that such labor builds character. Oh, you are staying? Good.

Am I wrong to think that if Verin had been able to spend two straight weeks with Nynaeve, she would have had her block gone after the first week?

Egwene was sitting, watching the other two between her yawns. The night had grown late, well past the time she would usually be asleep. Nynaeve wore a face like week-old death, her eyes clamped shut as if she never meant to open them and her hands white-knuckled fists in her lap. Egwene hoped the Wisdom’s temper did not break loose, not after she had held it this long.

It will and it will be awesome, but can we all appreciate how hard that Nynaeve is trying? She spends the whole time talking about how little she cares and how she's totally leaving Mat and Perrin behind at Fal Dara any day now not interested in being Aes Sedai but dammit she's trying so hard and it's probably extra miserable because she's being judged by strangers and it's not coming anywhere near as easily to her as stuff has in the past.

“I—I was angry.” Nynaeve spoke through trembling lips in a bloodless face. “I heard you talking about a breeze, telling me what to do, and fire just popped into my head. I—I didn’t mean to burn anything. It was just a small fire, in—in my head.” She shuddered.

Nynaeve's lack of control of her emotions is quite interesting in that it's very male-coded: she's not randomly hysterical, she just gets pissed under circumstances when most people would be able to stay calmer and when the consequences of that anger bite back at her she gets overwhelmed.

Alviarin was as cool and businesslike as a merchant come to buy wool and tabac, surprised that Nynaeve was part of the lesson but accepting, sharp in her criticisms but always ready to try again.

Alviarin is clearly a much more deep cover kind of Black Ajah. You get just the tiniest little hints that she's not awesome, but where Verin overworks the girls (which may have just been Verin being Verin and not any Darkfriend assignment to try and sabotage them) and Liandrin does stuff we're about to see, she completes the assignment as expected.

Alanna showed too much interest in Rand and Perrin and Mat for Egwene’s comfort, though. Especially Rand.

Alanna is a rapist...

Liandrin sat fingering her red fringe and taught little, and reluctantly at that. She questioned Egwene and Nynaeve as if they had been accused of a crime, and her questions were all about the three boys. She kept it up until Nynaeve threw her out—Egwene was not sure why Nynaeve did so—and then she left with a warning.

Where Verin and Alviarin both handle their Aes Sedai cover stories correctly, Liandrin can't even be bothered with that. Sadly, one of Egwene's character flaws comes to light here: she's so good at blending into the culture she's in that she forgets how to question its authorities when she's not supposed to. Nynaeve did the right thing.

Egwene was sure it was the Aes Sedai’s questions about Rand that had made her start dreaming of him, that and worrying about him, about whether he and the others had had to follow the Horn of Valere into the Blight.

Props to Liandrin (and possibly Alanna) for triggering Egwene's latent powers. Timelinewise, Egwene has her Rand dream the night before Ingtar's party arrives at the abandoned village.

“What? Oh, it’s you, child. Moiraine is gone. And your friend, Nynaeve, is already out on the River Queen. I had to bundle her onto a boat myself, shouting that she would not go without you. Light, what a scramble! You should be aboard, yourself. Find a boat going out to the River Queen. You two will be traveling with the Amyrlin Seat, so mind yourself once you’re on board. No scenes or tantrums.”

Egwene isn't the worst judge of character though, since her conception of Anaiya as someone who could be quite ordinary seems to check out by the woman's dialogue.

“First Moiraine vanishes with Lan, then Liandrin right on Moiraine’s heels, and then Verin, none of them with so much as a word for anyone. Verin did not even take her Warder; Tomas is chewing nails with worry over her.”

More likely he's chewing nails with worry over himself, fearing her absence will get him in trouble.

First there had been a man with a mask over his face, and fire in place of his eyes. Despite the mask, she had thought he was surprised to see her.

Ish almost certainly was! Dude was just getting used to having to share T'A'R with the Terrible Twelvesome again and now some innkeeper's daughter is spying on him? Dude was probably pissed for a week.

His look had frightened her till she thought her bones would break from shivering, but suddenly he vanished, and she saw Rand sleeping on the ground, wrapped in a cloak. A woman had been standing over him, looking down. Her face was in shadow, but her eyes seemed to shine like the moon, and Egwene had known she was evil.

T'A'R: I know you're not remotely trained at this kind of thing yet, so have a metaphor for babies: You're seeing Rand being stalked by a psycho Darkfriend. This symbolizes how Rand is being stalked by a psycho Darkfriend. Is this too complicated for you? Maybe I should label the woman "Lanfear" so you know that she's a symbol for Lanfear?

Her later dreams get a lot more esoteric, that's all I'm saying.

Then there was a flash of light, and they were gone. Both of them. And behind it all, almost like another thing altogether, was the feel of danger, as if a trap was just beginning to snap shut on an unsuspecting lamb, a trap with many jaws. As though time had slowed, and she could watch the iron jaws creep closer together.

Many jaws indeed. Ishamael, Fain, and Lanfear all fucking with Rand entirely at cross-purposes, each of them with their own methods and agents.

You may be a Dreamer. It is a small chance, child, but. . . . We haven’t had one of those in—oh—four or five hundred years. And Dreaming is close linked to Foretelling. If you really can Dream, it may be that you can Foretell, as well. That would be a finger in the Reds’ eye.

"Imagine how useful you'll be for the Blue Ajah if the Wheel has given you a gift to help us prepare for the dangers ahead! We can throw a party every week with banners on every floor of the tower reading, 'Fuck the reds!' unless your Foretelling says it's a bad idea. I'm sure that's all that your power could be good for."

Get it together, Anaiya!

Hold on, you wool-headed idiot. If you get yourself killed before I can get you out of this, I will skin you alive.

Best Egwene thought of the book, possibly the series. We'll see.

Next time: What if Trollocs had fighter jets? It's not shitty AU fanfic by some weirdo with a hard-on for military specs, it's canon!

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iviarellereads · 7 months ago

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The Great Hunt, Chapter 12 - Woven in the Pattern

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Flame icon) In which most of what I'd say is just in the text, there to be interpreted and remembered.

PERSPECTIVE: Egwene follows Nynaeve toward the Amyrlin in the direct aftermath of the arrow shot. She hears the Amyrlin tell Agelmar that she will leave presently, and if he finds anything about the assassin, he can notify her in Tar Valon. She turns her attention to Egwene and Nynaeve, evaluating them like the carpenter back home looked at his tools. Egwene curtsies, but Nynaeve stays standing straight. Shortly, the Amyrlin declares that they should all horse up, so they can get moving. Egwene keeps looking back, until Nynaeve reassures her that Rand is perfectly safe with Ingtar and twenty lances, and there's nothing they can do for him in any case... not yet, at least.

They camp late each night. The Aes Sedai get tents, separating by their Ajah. The warders sleep outside the tents of the women they're bonded to, so the Red tent looks lonely, and the Green tent looks festive, as the two Aes Sedai brought four Warders between them, and they stay up late chatting.

Moiraine hardly acknowledges Egg and Nyn, but other Aes Sedai come to give them lessons in the evenings. The first is Verin. She tells Egwene she's not been wrong, exactly, but she's been channelling and that in itself can be dangerous. Egwene protests that Moiraine... that is, Moiraine Sedai had been giving her lessons.

Verin held up her hands for quiet, and they fell silent. She might seem vague, but she was Aes Sedai, after all. “Child, do you think Aes Sedai immediately teach every girl who says she wants to be one of us how to channel? Well, I suppose you are not exactly every girl, but just the same. . . .” She shook her head gravely. “Then why did she?” Nynaeve demanded. There had been no lessons for her, and Egwene was still not sure if it rankled Nynaeve or not. “Because Egwene had already channeled,” Verin said patiently.(1) “So. . . . So have I.” Nynaeve did not sound happy about it. “Your circumstances are different, child. That you are still alive shows you weathered the various crises, and did it on your own. I think you know how lucky you are. Of every four women forced to do what you did, only one survives. Of course, wilders—” Verin grimaced. “Forgive me, but I am afraid that is what we in the White Tower often call women who, without any training, have managed some rough control—random, and barely enough to be called control, usually, like you, but still control of a sort. Wilders have difficulties, it is true. Almost always they have built up walls to keep themselves from knowing what it was they were doing, and those walls interfere with conscious control. The longer those walls have to build, the harder it is to tear them down, but if they can be demolished—well, some of the most adept sisters ever have been wilders.”

Egg asks what that has to do with her, and Verin says her predicament is quite the opposite: once she learned she could channel, she kept at it, never wondering if there was a bottomless pit at her next step forward. Once Egg started channelling, there was nothing for it but for Moiraine to teach her the control necessary. Did she never explain that? Well, she's never believed in telling anyone anything they didn't need to know. Egg asks if there is a pit waiting for her. Verin compares it to someone who has learned to run up hills without learning how to check if there's a cliff on the other side: you haven't found one yet, but you may well find one if you keep running, especially as strong as Egg could be one day. It’s nothing on what the men do, but accidents can still happen. As she says this, Egg notices that her gaze looks less vague, and Egg wonders if Verin knows about Rand. However, Egg discards the thought, as surely Verin’s the sort who would never let Rand go off on his own if she knew he could channel.(2)

Nynaeve tries to excuse herself, and Verin points out that she won't need much training before being raised to Accepted. Nynaeve still tries politely to leave, but Verin offers her some information. Typically, the younger the novice, the better she’s able to cope, to do as she’s told without question. Accepted must know enough to know when to question lessons and orders.(3) She asks which Nynaeve would prefer. Nynaeve grumbles a bit but sits next to Egg and says she might as well start learning.

Verin leads them through a meditation, focusing on a flower bud.(4) Egwene reaches a sliver of the Power, and reaches for more...

In an instant it was all gone, rose and light. Moiraine had also said it could not be forced. With a sigh, she opened her eyes. Nynaeve had a grim look on her face. Verin was as calm as ever. “You cannot make it happen,” the Aes Sedai was saying. “You must let it happen. You must surrender to the Power before you can control it.”(5) “This is complete foolishness,” Nynaeve muttered. “I don’t feel like a flower. If anything, I feel like a blackthorn bush. I think I will wait by the fire after all.” “As you wish,” Verin said. “Did I mention that novices do chores? They wash dishes, scrub floors, do laundry, serve at table, all sorts of things. I myself think the servants do a better job of it by far, but it is generally felt that such labor builds character. Oh, you are staying? Good. Well, child, remember that even a blackthorn bush has flowers sometimes, beautiful and white among the thorns. We will try it one at a time. Now, from the beginning, Egwene. Close your eyes.”

Verin continues this late into the night, eventually dismissing Egwene for one last try with Nynaeve.

“Feel the flow through you,” Verin was saying. Her voice did not change, but suddenly there was a gleam in her eyes. “Feel the flow. Flow of the Power. Flow like a breeze, a gentle stirring in the air.” Egwene sat up straight. This was how Verin had guided her each time she had actually had the Power flowing through her. “A soft breeze, the slightest movement of air. Soft.” Abruptly the stacked blankets burst into flame like fatwood. Nynaeve opened her eyes with a yell. Egwene was not sure if she screamed or not. All Egwene knew was that she was on her feet, trying to kick the burning blankets outside before they set the tent on fire. Before she managed a second kick, the flames vanished, leaving wispy smoke rising from a charred mass and the smell of burned wool. “Well,” Verin said. “Well. I did not expect to have to douse a fire. Don’t faint on me, child. It’s all right now. I took care of it.” “I—I was angry.” Nynaeve spoke through trembling lips in a bloodless face. “I heard you talking about a breeze, telling me what to do, and fire just popped into my head. I—I didn’t mean to burn anything. It was just a small fire, in—in my head.” She shuddered.

Verin apologizes for working them so late, but hopes that this shows them why control is so necessary. Not only could you hurt yourself, but if you draw more than you can handle at once, you can burn yourself out, destroy your connection to the Power entirely, or worse.(6) Then, as if she hasn't told them they're walking a knife's edge, she cheerfully wishes them a good night.

After that night, Verin pays them no more mind than Moiraine. Egwene thinks of how her mother had always told her that Aes Sedai are cold manipulators, merciless destroyers, the Breakers of the World. She knew now that the latter had just been male channelers, but how many Aes Sedai were like the tales, and which?

The Aes Sedai who came to the tent each night were so mixed that they did not help at all in clearing her thoughts. Alviarin was as cool and businesslike as a merchant come to buy wool and tabac, surprised that Nynaeve was part of the lesson but accepting, sharp in her criticisms but always ready to try again. Alanna Mosvani laughed and spent as much time talking about the world, and men, as she did teaching. Alanna showed too much interest in Rand and Perrin and Mat for Egwene’s comfort, though. Especially Rand. Worst of all was Liandrin, the only one who wore her shawl; the others had all packed them away before leaving Fal Dara. Liandrin sat fingering her red fringe and taught little, and reluctantly at that. She questioned Egwene and Nynaeve as if they had been accused of a crime, and her questions were all about the three boys. She kept it up until Nynaeve threw her out—Egwene was not sure why Nynaeve did so—and then she left with a warning.

They arrive at a river town, and load onto boats to take them back to Tar Valon. When Egwene asks Anaiya Sedai where Moiraine is, she's told that Moiraine left, Liandrin close on her heels, and then Verin. The Amyrlin is in quite a mood about it all. Anaiya also says she bundled Nynaeve onto a ship herself. They'll be traveling with the Amyrlin, so Egwene had better find a boat to transfer her to the River Queen, quickly.

Egwene is troubled by this and decides she has to tell someone, so she says to Anaiya that Rand is in trouble. Anaiya says boys that age are always in one trouble or another, but that's clearly not it.

Egwene thinks about the dream she had. A man with a mask over his face and fire in place of his eyes, who had seemed surprised to see her.(7) Then he vanished, and she saw Rand sleeping on the ground, wrapped only in a cloak, with a woman standing over him, her eyes shining like the moon,(8) and Egg knew she was evil somehow. Then they both flash away, and what Egg remembers most is a sense of danger behind it all, like a trap about to spring, but she knows the danger is for Rand, not herself. She says she had a dream, but doesn’t relay the details to Anaiya.

“I—I don’t think they’re in the Blight, or back in Fal Dara. I had a dream.” [...] She could not bring herself to tell Anaiya. Formally, she said, “Anaiya Sedai, I know it sounds foolish, but he is in danger. Great danger. I know it. I could feel it. I still can.” Anaiya wore a thoughtful look. “Well, now,” she said softly, “that’s a possibility I’ll wager no one has considered. You may be a Dreamer. It is a small chance, child, but. . . . We haven’t had one of those in—oh—four or five hundred years. And Dreaming is close linked to Foretelling. If you really can Dream, it may be that you can Foretell, as well. That would be a finger in the Reds’ eye. Of course, it could be just an ordinary nightmare, brought on by a late night, and cold food, and us traveling so hard since we left Fal Dara. And you missing your young man. Much more likely. Yes, yes, child, I know. You are worried about him. Did your dream indicate what kind of danger?” Egwene shook her head. “He just vanished, and I felt danger. And evil. I felt it even before he vanished.” She shivered and rubbed her hands together. “I can still feel it.”

Anaiya says they'll talk more on the River Queen, and if she is a Dreamer, then Anaiya will see to it that Egg gets the training she needs.

Egwene peered into the dark, toward the south. He was out there, somewhere. Not in Fal Dara, not in the Blight. She was sure of it. Hold on, you wool-headed idiot. If you get yourself killed before I can get you out of this, I will skin you alive. It did not occur to her to ask how she was going to get him out of anything, going to Tar Valon as she was. Snugging her cloak around her, she set out to find a boat to the River Queen.

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(1) Did we see Egwene channel, back in the Emond's Field sequence? Moiraine only said she could sense that Egwene was close to the first time she would channel. The phrasing was tricky, it's the end of EOTW 12 if you want to check for yourself. (2) Third! Person! Limited! Each POV is absolutely limited by the knowledge, experience, and assumptions of the character in focus. A great reminder that everyone is working on limited, faulty information in these books, and never to take any observation or assumption for granted. (3) Real healthy relationship to authority, has the White Tower. This is where we start to see the more mundane aspects of RJ's military experience: novices go through boot camp and do better if they can learn to be obedient soldiers. Though, the Aes Sedai are forbidden from making weapons of the Power against any but the Shadow, but there are all sorts of roles that make up a military force. (4) It's a good thing I don't live in this world and have to learn how to channel, 'cause neither the flame and void nor the flower bud would work for me. I seem to have total aphantasia. I say seem to because, well, when your experience is the absence of something others take for granted, it becomes REALLY difficult to judge if you're lacking that sense or if others are exaggerating. Anyway, I am not unaware of the irony that I love this series so much when so goddamn many words in it are descriptive and meaningless to my brain. But, it DOES make it faster to read when you learn to skim the descriptions and get back to the important bits. And, if I had to see, really see and feel and smell a rose bud to develop this sense of the Power, I'd be absolutely lost. (5) Yep, women must submit to the Power to be able to use and control it. RJ might have tried to make a world where original sin belonged to men, but he certainly Made Some Choices along the way. As for Nynaeve… well she's a bit of an exception, but you could say she's surrendering to her anger when it bursts out of her. Do you recall in the Ravens prologue for book 1, when the previous Wisdom undid Nynaeve's bandage and shook her head, disappointed in Nynaeve? She was testing Nynaeve's ability to Heal, because this was after she healed Egg of the breakbone fever (EOTW 21). But, Nynaeve seems to have built a wilder's block with her anger. It started when Egg was sick and Nyn felt lied to and angry she couldn't do anything more to help, and here with Verin it's clear that she couldn't do anything until she was frustrated by her inability to do anything. (6) We can guess this probably happens more often than stilling, given that novices learn the names of every woman stilled in the Tower since the Breaking, but this is news and Verin, she of the many tangents, doesn't offer numbers. (7) Huh. Could Egg have actually met The Big Guy in a dream? We know he was able to draw the lads into dreams, but she says he was genuinely surprised to see Egg in hers, and she has no other way to know what he looks like for the reader to recognize. What could that mean? Is Anaiya right, and Egg is a Dreamer, capital D and all? (8) What an oddly specific description. Eyes like the moon, huh? Egg thinks she could have been Moiraine, or Liandrin, or Alanna… but none of those feel right, either. The night and the moon are inseparably linked despite the fact the moon cycles through the day and back again the other side. Who's to say. Wasn't there someone feminine associated with the night recently? (Hint: chapter 7. Told you you'd want a bookmark.)

#wheel of time #wot #the wheel of time #twot #tgh #the great hunt #wot flame icon #egwene al'vere #nynaeve al'meara #siuan sanche #lord agelmar jagad #moiraine damodred #leane sharif #lan mandragoran #verin mathwin #alviarin freidhen #alanna mosvani #liandrin guirale #anaiya carel

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queenofmalkier · 9 months ago

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WOT Favorites

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

Emond's Field 5: Nynaeve al'Meara

Secondary Character: Moiraine Damodred*

EF5 Love Interest: Gawyn Trakand

Forsaken: Lanfear

Black Ajah: Alviarin Freidhen

Blue Ajah: Faolain Orande

Brown Ajah: Verin Mathwin

Green Ajah: Elayne Trakand

Gray Ajah: Yukiri Haruna

Red Ajah: Silviana Brehon

White Ajah: Sereille Bagand

Yellow Ajah: Samitsu Tamagowa

Asha'man: Jahar Narishma

Random Side Character: Almen Bunt

Darkfriend: Padan Fain

Weapon: Ashandarei

Location: The Blight

Culture: Ogier

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

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

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

#wheel of time #wheel of time book spoilers

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asha-mage · 2 years ago

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Missing the Mark: Graendal and the Forsaken

One of my favorite things about Jordan as a writer is this neat hat trick he has, where every time he enters the PoV of a new character, from random one offs to Our Heroes to the most Dastardly of Evil Overlords, he sits down, sets aside his own biases and feelings, and makes them come alive as a fully realized human person.

This especially what makes his villains, and the Forsaken in particular, such memorable antagonists. Jordan has this remarkable ability to step into the point of view of people that we the reader are predisposed to hate and want to simplify and flatten, and force us to confront the fact that their multilayered and nuanced. Their still bad people, but their actions are presented with context, their personal narrative given weight. We see their foibles and their strengths, the ways they delude themselves and the ways that they sometimes see with far more clarity then the heroes, and we see motivates and drives them. Their personal narrative, the story they tell themselves where they are the hero, is given weight and heft, and we are even on occasion allowed to root for and sympathize with the Forsaken (Moghiden in Mind Trap, Asmodean during his time Forcefully Reassigned to Team Light, Dashiva/Osan'gar trying to talk reason to Rand during the Seanchan campaign), all without ever letting the reader forget that these are horrible people who have committed atrocities against humanity that are still felt three thousand years later.

This is entirely possible only because of Jordan's ability to set his own biases aside when writing these characters. The Forsaken are engaging entirely because they are human beneath all the mythology and horror and awe inspiring power, and Jordan works to portray that humanity.

Contrast with Sanderson.

All of the Forsaken get a degree of flattening underneath Sanderson's writing, with the exception of Demandred (who has appeared so seldom up to that point their isn't much to flatten or work with), though the one who gets the worst of it is Graendal. And if I had to wager a guess, it's Sanderson's biases coming into play, affecting how he depicts members of the Forsaken.

Graendal, from her appearances prior to TGS, is a incredibly nuanced and interesting character. A former ascetic who dedicated her life to helping the mentally ill, only to loose faith in humanity after years of service, and abandon her ideals in pursuit of total carnal pleasure. She remarks during ACOS that her first steps to the Great Lord where 'full of pain' and that she dosen't like thinking about them. And yet....when we see inside her head she's still using the terminology of a psychologist, still regarding people as patients and thinking in terms of disorders and neurosis. The implications of her skill at Compulsion- that it descends from her attempts (and failures) to use the Power to heal broken human minds-, and of her need to be surrounded by adoring servants consumed by overwhelming love for her paint a fascinating portrait of a woman attempting to bury her trauma and pain deeply, and using any means at hand to accomplish it. Notable, despite her instance of not being willing to die even for the Great Lord of the Dark, she is one of the few members of Team Shadow who truly seems to buy the party line that the Wheel needs to be broken, and suffering stopped, and in accordance with the old rule of thumb she is one of the most devastatingly effective as a result.

And then Sanderson takes over, and she just gets flattened into puddy. Which is WILD, because based on the structure and set up, where Rand's personal character arc was meant to come to head around the same time he was confronting Graendal, based on the fact they have so many parallel issues and problems, their is so much juicy stuff to dig into with that face off that just...dosen't get dug into. And that's partly because Graendal looses a lot of her nuance and depth under Sanderson's tenor. Graendal becomes squarely about the carnal pleasures she peruses and the control she exerts over her victims, and nothing else. Her tendency to use psychologist terminology in her personal monologue is lost, her ability to sharply read people and gain insight into their motives is reduced to guess work about where Demandred and the others are hiding, and what their plans are. The fact that her sultry hedonist persona is a persona used to fool her enemies (something Demandred himself noted back in Winter's Heart) is forgotten and instead she is written as just a sultry hedonist.

Their are a lot of reasons this could be the case, but as near as I can tell it boils down to bias, and Sanderson's inability to set aside his own biases. Graendal is inherently sexual, and Sanderson's works are somewhat famously rather sexless. His strong Mormon beliefs about Free Will will later crop up in how he re frames the 13x13 trick (being unable to mention it without mentioning that actually no these people probably weren't turned to evil against their will, but rather just soul murdered and replaced with an exact evil duplicate) and it's no mistake that Graendal's Compulsion is treated as On Another Tier of Monstrosity entirely, while other Forsaken atrocities: the subjugation of an entire continent's worth of people by the subversion of their Prophecies, so that they can be used as an army for Team Evil, or the mass torturing of waves of innocents to turn them to Team Evil, are minimized somewhat minimized, still treated as bad, but considered less bad because after all the Sharans choose to follow Demandred, and Semrihages victims to be give in to the pain. (This is particularly egregious, where Messana's worst crimes: creating schools to the Dark One and raising an entire generation of children to cruel, hateful, and monstrous thugs- something that's noted to have made the Breaking worse go largely unmentioned in the rundown of Why She is Bad in ToM). But Graendal's use of compulsion, which leaves no room for the illusion of free will or choice, is treated with a level of abhorence by both the narrative and the characters- the later of which might make sense, but the former of which is something Jordan never really stooped to.

While Graendal gets it the worst, all of the Forsaken are flattened to a greater or lesser degree, along with other key Darkfriends. Moghieden's steely courage even in the face of overwhelming odds is largely lost, Messana's twisted motherly/teacher nature become simple arrogance, Alviarian completely looses relevance showing up in a few cameos, even Moridin feels more shallow: becoming more generally sad and sinister, loosing much of the anger that had always paralleled Rand's.

The main exception? Sanderson's self professed favorite among the Forsaken, Demandred, which shows the pendulum of bias swinging the other way. But I'll save talking about that for when I actually get to AMOL.

#WoT #WoT Musing #Wheel of time Musing #Wheel Of Time #WoT Book Spoilers #AMOL Spoilers #Graendal #Demandred #semirhage #moghedien #Alviarin Freidhen #Moridin #Ishamael #Mesaana #Sanderson Critical

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