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apocalypticavolition · 3 months ago

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Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 38: Maidens of the Spear

The Maidens will stab you if you complain about spoilers when you read this post. You're clicking "Keep reading" with full knowledge that I can and will spoil anything and everything about this whole series and any others I feel like.

This chapter starts with the Wheel-and-serpent icon because this is an important chance meeting.

Men were sometimes silly enough to think a woman was harmless merely because she was a woman; Egwene had no such illusions.

I assume these silly men are not counting women with ageless faces among the harmless but purely the average, non-channeling woman because otherwise they'd be jumping far past "silly" and into "suicidal".

Except maybe a fully trained sister, she admitted. But certainly not one woman, even if she is Aiel.

Egwene betrays her ignorance here. As her story goes on, she spends very little time being actually thwarted by any fully trained sisters and has a lot more difficulties with virtually everyone else.

“You have not the look in your faces, but we saw the rings. In your lands, you have women much like our Wise Ones, the women called Aes Sedai. Are you women of the White Tower, or not?”

Note that TECHNICALLY Aviendha isn't committing the same ageless face continuity error as in book 2. Not sure if that means it's already resolved or what.

“We are women of the White Tower,” Nynaeve said calmly. She was very obvious in not looking around for other Aiel. Even Elayne was peering about. “Whether you would consider any of us wise is another matter,” Nynaeve went on.

Nynaeve's statement wouldn't trigger the Oath Rod if she were already sworn to it, so good job! Also it's really quite impressive that she's so good at dealing with the Aiel. Unlike the other gals, she already knows that if they're surrounded, they're fucked, so why worry about an additional ambush when there seems to be a way to leave the conversation peaceably?

A friend of hers is dying? She sounds as if she is asking if we’ll lend her a cup of barley flour!

Egwene grows up a LOT, doesn't she?

And what if Nynaeve can’t Heal their friend? I wish she would ask before she makes these decisions that involve all of us!

I think Egwene is probably the last member of the party to come to the conclusion that the Aiel have no interest in fucking with them, and looks particularly immature to worry that the Aiel might kill them for honest failure but not for uncharitable refusal to help.

“I am Egwene al’Vere,” she told them. They seemed to expect more, so she added, “Daughter of Marin al’Vere, of Emond’s Field, in the Two Rivers.” That seemed to satisfy them, in a way, but she would have bet they understood it no more than she did all these septs and clans.

Egwene, it's obvious what being the daughter of someone means, and context explains the rest, though almost no one knows where the Two Rivers is.

“Then why do you not speak the words before your Wise Ones?” Chiad asked. “Bain and I became first-sisters.”

Because Elayne's saving herself for the right sister and she's right there, you homewreckers!

Bain knotted her brow in thought. “What you say comes near truth, yet misses it completely. When we wed the spear, we pledge to be bound to no man or child. Some do give up the spear, for a man or a child”—her expression said she herself did not understand this—“but once given up, the spear cannot be taken back.”

So obviously trying to apply modern labels of sexuality to people who don't exist in modern western culture is usually a mistake, even if their culture only exists in the fiction of western culture, but... Bain's a lesbian, right? I legit don't believe her when she says she doesn't NOT like men, she seems to be mostly in denial. (Also it's great getting to watch the Aiel go, "Holy shit you wetlanders are dumb." I look forward to this coming up more and more.)

“Yes, they do.” Chiad sounded as though she and Bain were sharing something between them.

They're laughing at Aviendha.

“Yes,” Egwene said faintly. She glanced at Elayne and saw the bewilderment in her blue eyes she knew must be in her own.

Egwene is so deeply into the White Tower that she can't even conceptualize organizations of people outside it anymore. That's deeply worrying.

But we do not share him, Elayne. We can neither of us have him.

Is this a Perrin chapter? Because I am just non-stop dunking on the stupidity of the POV character. EGWENE. Wake. the. fuck. up.

“Some of those fools that the oath-breaking treekillers call soldiers thought we were another handful of the bandits who infest this land. We had to kill them to convince them otherwise, but Dailin. . . . Can you heal her, Aes Sedai?”

That's... that's not how you convince people of facts, Aviendha. That's just how you stop them from harassing you.

Chiad and Bain stepped to the river’s edge and returned together. Their faces never changed, but Egwene thought they had almost expected the river to reach up and grab them.

Again we can see how our characters are very early on their personal journeys because even the random NPCs have better emotional and facial control than they do.

“She truly does sound like a Wise One,” Chiad told Bain softly, and the other woman gave a tight nod.

I'd like to see Nynaeve go to Rhuidean and probably break the initial ter'angreal because she's so fucking constant it can't come up with any alternate futures based on other things she could have done.

The Stones River. . . . Some claim it had water in it once, but that is only boasting. There are only the stones. The oldest records of the Wise Ones and the clan chief say there was never anything but stones since the first day our sept broke off from the High Plain sept and claimed that land.

Probably the initial Aiel who discovered the area still had remnant knowledge from the AoL and thus the ability to recognize the signs of a river destroyed by climate change.

“I would never harm an Aes Sedai,” Aviendha said abruptly. “I would have you know that. Whether Dailin lives or dies, it makes no difference in that. I would never use this”—she lifted one short spear a trifle—“against any woman. And you are Aes Sedai.”

Aviendha is of course concerned that Egwene is grabbing the One Power out of nowhere. Egwene can't even conceive of Aiel channelers and again she's barely spent any time with the White Tower.

Just because Elayne had been taught something did not mean it was true, even if the Aiel said the same thing.

This isn't a bad instinct to have, but Egwene only has it when it comes to her two equals in the party, not when it comes to the knowledge she's been taught at home and the Tower.

“Balefire,” Egwene said. “Aviendha, what is balefire?”

It's a good thing that these Aiel are on the up and up or Egwene would have just blabbed on herself in an incredibly stupid way. Also, I guess the Aiel have a better cultural memory of balefire than westerners because of Rhuidean. I don't remember if it's explicitly used in Rand's genetic memories though.

She was not sure she had even been able to make out all the many flows, much less the way Nynaeve had woven them together. What Nynaeve had done in those few seconds had seemed like weaving four carpets at once while blindfolded.

Egwene won't admit it even to herself, but she is deeply concerned with how ahead of her in channeling Nynaeve is.

Next time: The girls get kidnapped. Again!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #egwene al'vere #elayne trakand #nynaeve al'meara #aviendha #bain #chiad #jolien #dailin

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iviarellereads · 3 months ago

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The Dragon Reborn, Chapter 39 - Threads 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.)

(Wheel icon) In which we finally seem to get a glimpse of one of the teensiest mysteries.

PERSPECTIVE: Egwene. Avi is close to tears, saying she owes Nyn a debt. Dailin is her second-sister,(1) and her life means a blood debt. Nyn says if any blood is to be spilled, she'll do it herself. As payment, she'll only ask if there's a ship at the village nearby. Avi says yes, there was one when she scouted yesterday. Egg asks how they cross rivers, feeling as they do? Avi says many have bridges, some they can wade, and the rest... wood floats. She says they made a little ship (raft) out of some dead trees lashed together.

Nyn suggests they should be on their way, but El asks why they've come all this way, and endured so much hardship? Avi says they haven't come far at all, they were the last to set out. Bain says they seek He Who Comes With The Dawn, and Chiad adds that it's foretold he will lead them out of the Three-fold Land, and the prophecies say he was born of Far Dareis Mai.

El says she was taught the Maidens weren't allowed to have children. Avi says if a Maiden bears a child, she gives the child to the Wise Ones of her sept, and they pass the child along to another woman, so that nobody knows whose child it is. Every woman wants to foster such a child, in the hope she may raise He Who Comes, but now the Wise Ones say he's to be found here, beyond the Dragonwall. "Blood of our blood mixed with the old blood, raised by an ancient blood not ours."(2)

Now, Avi says, she has a question for them: why do three Aes Sedai travel alone, here in a land ravaged by hunger and war? Where do they go? Nyn says Tear, unless they stand here talking until the Heart of the Stone crumbles, and the Maidens tense up. Nyn says they're hunting evil women, Darkfriends. A Maiden uses their word, Shadowrunners. Three Aes Sedai hunting Shadowrunners and seeking the Heart of the Stone. Nyn says no, she just mentioned it crumbling, and starts walking away.(4) Egg and El make hasty goodbyes, and they follow.

El talks about how much she's just learned, how much is wrong of what she was taught before, and how much nobody taught her at all.(3) She was taught that the Aiel considered themselves thief-takers, coming after King Laman of Cairhien for the crime of cutting down Avendoraldera to make a throne out of its wood. It wasn't a war to them, it was an execution.(5) Egg remembers one of Verin’s lectures about how Avendoraldera was the offshoot sapling of the Tree of Life itself, given from the Aiel to the Cairhienin five hundred years ago as an unprecedented offer of peace. It's still not clear how they got a sapling of Avendesora, the Tree of Life, since it's said it will never make a seed, and nobody knows where the Tree itself is. And, now, since Laman’s Sin, Cairhienin who enter the Waste disappear, with rumours that they’re being sold into slavery on the other side.(6)

Egg supposes she can understand a war, from that perspective. El distracts her by saying she must know who He Who Comes is, right? Egg says she can't mean... El nods. She's heard a little bit about the Prophecies of the Dragon, and one line is that he will be born of a maiden wedded to no man. And Rand... He does look like an Aiel. Well, he also looks like portraits of Tigraine that still hang in the palace, but she disappeared long before he was born, and she could hardly have been his mother anyway. His mother must have been a Maiden of the Spear.(7)

They catch up to Nyn, and say she handled all that very well. Egg says the healing weave made lightning look like mixing oatcake. Nyn thanks them, smiling, and they walk on in silence. Another mile passes them by, and suddenly El screams, something hits Egg in the head, and everything goes dark.(8) She awakens, bound, across the back of a horse, in a huge group of horses and rough-dressed men. She tries to channel, but the pain in her head stops her. She sees El and Nyn, bound across horses as she is, Nyn's braid dragging on the ground. One of the men notices she's awake, and she's hit in the head a second time.

Waking is easier the next time. Her head still hurts, but not as much. She tastes sour wine and something bitter. She's not bound this time, in a room with a dirt floor and a poorly fitted door. Nyn and El are with her, still asleep. She peeks through a crack in the door, and the next room is richly furnished. She hears them talk about capturing them, feeding them some kind of herbal mixture that should keep them asleep for hours longer.

Egg wakes Nyn, covering her mouth to keep her from giving them away to the men. Nyn realizes they must have given them sleepwell root, which helps with headaches, but just makes you drowsy for a bit. Nyn examines El, and says her skull is broken, but they took her herbs, and she can't do anything without them. A look crosses her face, and she rasps that she didn't bring El all this way to die, she should have left her to scrub pots. Saidar shines around her, and El is healed. Nyn says doing it that way was like peeling off her own skin, though.(9)

They explain to El what happened, but when they look through the cracks again, there are three Myrddraal in the room, one picking up Lan's signet ring, which Nyn had been carrying. Egg channels a hair-fine weave of earth into the iron of the lock, weakening it, but just as it falls to the ground, the outer door of the next room swings open, and many Aiel unleash black-veiled death on the humans. They're about to start in on the Myrddraal when the wondergirls bust out of their room, startling Aiel and Myrddraal alike.

Egg sets the Myrddraal aflame, their screams like a meat grinder. El seems to push the air around them, crushing them, and Nyn wields a thin bar of white light that makes the noon sun seem dark, and the Myrddraal seem to cease to exist, as if they had never been. El asks what the heck that was, and Egg knows somehow that it was balefire.(10)

The Aiel unveil themselves, the Maidens they'd known and some men, as well. Nyn starts toward the two injured ones, but the older man says there's no need, they took Shadowman steel, which doesn't wound but kills. One of them is Dailin, and Nyn gets extra angry, she didn't heal the girl to die like this. El apologizes that they interrupted the... dance. The man, Rhuarc, chuckles and says he's grateful, three Shadowmen would have killed many of them, maybe all.

Nyn calms down, and asks Avi how they're all here? Avi says she followed them, but was too far behind to help when they were captured, so she sought out as many as she could get in touch with quickly to mount the rescue. She says she didn't expect to find any clan chief here, much less her own, and asks Rhuarc who leads the Taardad Aiel, with him here? He shrugs, saying the sept chiefs will take turns and decide if they really want to go to Rhuidean after he dies. He wouldn't have come, but Amys and Bair and Melaine and Seana said the dreams said he had to go.(11)

Avi laughs as if it's a joke, and says a man caught between his wife and a Wise One wishes for a dozen enemies to fight instead, but a man caught between his wife and three Wise Ones, and the wife a Wise One also, "must consider trying to slay Sightblinder.” Rhuarc says the thought occurred to him, as he catches sight of the three Aes Sedai rings and the heavier gold ring on the floor. He picks them up, and Egg asks about the dreams, do the Wise Ones know what they mean? He says she'll have to ask some Wise Ones, they don't tell the Clan Chiefs anything but what they have to do. He examines the signet ring, and Nyn snatches it from him.

Three Aes Sedai, traveling to Tear, and one of them carrying a ring he heard about as a child. The signet ring of Malkieri kings. They and Shienarans rode with Aiel sometimes, in his father's time. But they died, leaving a child king who courts death as other men court women. He never expected to see so many strange things, here. The path they set is one he wouldn't choose to follow. Nyn says they set no paths for him, they just want to continue on to Tear, at first light.

They all spend the night out under the stars, and the Aiel share their breakfast: goat jerky and a hard blue cheese. They choose the three best horses for the wondergirls, and the Aiel bid them farewell, may they always find water and shade, and perhaps they'll meet again "before the change comes", whatever that means.

The wondergirls go on to the village, Jurene, that they had tried to reach the day before. They're no longer wearing their rings, they don't want to be taken for Aes Sedai in Tear, of all places.

The Andoran soldiers holding Jurene say it's lucky they came when they did, as they expect orders to return home any day now, and the villagers will probably go with them. There's one boat docked, a merchant ship full of fancy wood and rugs, not fast but he's the only one that would dock here, and that only because he found worms in his food supplies.(12) Nyn pays their fares, and twice as much again for the horses, so angry that neither Egg nor El talks to her until they're long away from Jurene.

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(1) First cousin. (2) Hmm. We've seen that the Two Rivers has some "old blood" still running through them. And we know that Rand is He Who Comes With The Dawn, though that title always makes him sound like a euphemism for morning hornies. At any rate, raised by ancient blood but not Aiel sounds right. But, he's not 100% Aiel? Whose old blood joined theirs, and how, when his mother was found fighting as part of Far Dareis Mai on Dragonmount? (See 7) (3) In fairness, hon, their culture's been cut off for thousands of years from your wide open end of the continent, with the exception of the trip to gift the tree and at least the one big war for reasons… (see 5) (4) Interrupting my long ramble to interject that, Gaul mentioned Aiel prophecy regarding Tear. These Maidens obviously know of it too, and see the implications just as quickly as Gaul did. (5) …we can finally talk about! Aviendha called the men "oath-breaking treekillers" last chapter, and I didn't draw attention to it, but here we finally have something like confirmation of why the name, and more, why the Aiel War. Now, is it right that they consider the whole country of Cairhien responsible for one man's crime? No, absolutely not. But, when you rise up in defence of your king, in a way you do become as complicit as he is in what you're defending. Everyone's a little bit right and a little bit wrong here, except Laman Damodred, who was entirely too fucking arrogant. (6) Yeah, so, when we joke about "your fave is a war criminal" in this fandom, we are often only lightly exaggerating. If this is true, the Aiel are selling Cairhienin into slavery, as a punishment, for their king's arrogance. The "your fave is problematic" of it all never stops in this series. (7) Ah, but here we continue from footnote 2. They mentioned Aiel, mixed with another old blood (like… royalty?) raised by yet another old blood (Manetheren). I know I and many many other long-time readers missed this unassuming little infodrop on our first reads. Elayne's probably intimately familiar with every portrait of a prior ruler of Andor, being the heir and all, so she'd be able to tell resemblances. Isn't that funny, that Tigraine disappeared after some sort of prophecy from Gitara Sedai, when Galad her son was still just a toddler, and some years later a young man shows up as the hero of our story who we now find out looks just like he could be her son? Must be a coincidence, after all his mother was fighting as a Maiden, surely no Daughter-Heir would be doing that? (This is absolutely why I asked for direct attention to the history bits explained in Eye of the World in particular, as Rand and Mat approached Caemlyn. RJ's outline of the series was there from the outset. It changed over time, both in detail and in format a bunch: originally, this book was to be the third act of the FIRST book in his proposed trilogy. The man couldn't be concise enough, though, to pull it off. So it was that one book became three, and three became fourteen.) (8) Who would raise a hand to a Wise One, indeed. (9) It can't be a pleasant experience to have to make yourself SO ANGRY just to do it, and then do it all in such a wild, uncontrolled rush. (10) Who else have we seen wielding bars of white-hot fire? What do you think balefire is now? Was Perrin only saved from ceasing to exist when Rand used it against him because he was dreaming? (11) That sounds extra serious. Not just one Wise One, but FOUR said so? Dang. And one of them his wife! That's interesting, given how infrequently Wisdoms and Aes Sedai marry in Randland. (12) But the ladies are TOOOOTALLY not Ta'veren, right.

#wheel of time #wot #the wheel of time #twot #the dragon reborn #tdr #wot wheel icon #egwene al'vere #nynaeve al'meara #elayne trakand #aviendha #bain (wot)#chiad (wot)#jolien (wot)#dailin (wot)#coke (wot)#adden (wot)#rhuarc (wot)#canin (wot)

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