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butterflydm · 2 years

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wot reread: winter’s heart (chap 14 - chap 27)

spoilers through winter’s heart. There is also a section at the end with spoilers through a memory of light, because I have some strong spoiler-based reactions to some of the scenes but I have it set off with spoiler space.

1. We are introduced to She Who Owns Many Slaves, Tuon herself. She’s currently having her head shaved by one of her slaves, Selucia. She’s the official herald of the Return (the actual settler invasion), as opposed to the Forerunners (the scouting invasion). One of Tuon’s big things is omens. This is not something that has been hugely focused on by other Seanchan PoV characters, but Tuon is obsessed. The main thing that I notice about this, of course, is that we do have some other characters who also obsess and worry over signs and portents: Rand (the Prophecies of the Dragon), Elaida (her Foretellings), Egwene (her prophetic dreams), and Min (her viewings).

2. Tuon gave a command in anger the previous night and it has made her feel off-balance, as if she’s lost honor. We casually learn that she has a total of ten slaves here specifically as maids, but Selucia always dresses her personally. We are also reminded that those maids of hers are da’covale and they are only wearing translucent white gowns at all times, so their bodies are always on display. Tuon is used to seeing nearly-nude ‘property’ all the time, so public nudity isn’t a thing that really bothers her. We also learn that her slaves have been picked out for their attractive appearance as much as their skills.

3. Tuon is a good rider, a good wrestler, and can handle weapons well, but she wishes that she didn’t look like a mischievous child whenever she forgets to keep on her stern emotionless mask, she wishes she were taller, and she wishes she had bigger boobs. She has ‘trained her mind’ as much or more than any of her other weapons. Selucia has been her personal bodyguard and nursemaid since she was ‘in the cradle’, given to her by Selucia’s mother. Violence is embedded in how children of the Seanchan Blood are raised; they are beaten when they are unruly and expected to thank the slaves who were assigned to beat them once they turn sixteen (which is when they are ‘presented’ as an adult).

4. She saw her mother twice a year when she was growing up, and her brothers and sisters were her rivals for her mother’s favor. We know from TPoD that the current Empress has been ruling for at least thirty years and she’s spent those thirty years planning and building and hyping everyone up for their invasion of the Westlands. Two of Tuon’s siblings died in power struggles; three of her siblings have tried to kill her; a brother and a sister have each been made into slaves and had their names stricken from the records. We also learn that anyone who is discovered to be able to channel is also stricken from the records. Tuon is aware that a single misstep on her own part could lead to her death or to her being ‘stripped and sold at the public block’ as a slave. Again, the Seanchan continue to be The Actual Worst, literally no matter what your place in the society is.

5. We learn that she has a symbol of Raven-and-Roses (which just makes me think the Shadow plus Andor lol) and she tells her slave Selucia that she needs to be veiled (she needs to ‘restore balance’ and believes her other option would be asking for a penance from her relatively new Soe’feia, who she doesn’t quite trust). The Veil thing is basically a big piece of theater, where everyone has to playact that they don’t know exactly who she is, even though literally all of the Seanchan know exactly who she is. It’s a big meaningless gesture that makes her feel better about herself. Tuon thinks about how she has definitely regretted punishing Selucia more than Selucia herself regretted being punished, the two times that it happened. (x) doubt.

6. When she leaves the cabin, we learn that she has six damane slaves with her on this ship. So that’s a total of 17 personal slaves for this one person so far. One of the damane is crouched over and weeping. She ordered the damane beaten with a cane last night because she asked for a prophecy and disliked the results. Conclusion: Tuon is not as ‘gentle’ with her slaves as she personally believes herself to be. Even when she’s trying to ‘comfort’ the beaten slave she hurts the woman more by making her sit up on her still-painful welts. We learn that these six slaves are not her only damane but are her ‘best’ and they have been broken to eager, groveling servitude, where they kiss Tuon’s hand and thank her for letting them have make-up treats after she’s had them beaten.

7. “She found as much enjoyment in training damane as in training horses”. We learn that Tuon tested successfully for being a sul’dam, though her high place in society means that she can’t actually be a sul’dam, so we know right away that she is CAPABLE of channeling and there is an implied narrative that should happen for Tuon, given all the information that we have about Seanchan society and its secrets. Finding out that Tuon is actually a channeling learner is one of the big things we find out about her in this first chapter of hers. And yet!

8. One of her favored damane is called Mylen by Tuon, but her real name is Sheraine and she was abducted by the Seanchan during their invasion of Falme (it is not mentioned yet in the narrative, but I refuse to call her by the name given to her by the people who tortured and broke her into accepting it). Tuon bought her when she was ‘half-dead with shock and fear’, refusing to eat or drink, and she is very proud of herself for training Sheraine into a properly obedient and eager slave, when most sul’dam had given up hope of being able to train her into obedience. Tuon is aware that Sheraine was Aes Sedai.

9. Tuon has over five hundred of the Deathwatch Guards as her personal slaves as well. It’s noted that they will “die if she dies”, which we remember from what happened at Turok’s place back in The Great Hunt. Selucia is probably also trained to kill herself if Tuon dies. Two dozen Ogier ‘Gardeners’ (actually also killers & soldiers) also follow her, but they alone are not slaves among all the people she has with her.

10. We learn that her secretary (not confirmed that he’s a slave but he probably is) is also the person who runs her personal complement of Seekers for the Truth (who are all slaves to the Empire as well). Because Tuon is wearing a veil, she gets slight bows from all the rest of the Blood instead of them groveling at her feet. Again, it’s so meaningless -- every one of the people here knows who she really is, so they aren’t REALLY going to ‘treat her like an equal’ when they know full well that she can take off the veil whenever she wants and then it’s groveling time all over again. Tuon might be fooling herself here, but she’s not fooling anyone else.

11. Tuon thinks again about how she is afraid of her Truthspeaker. Her old Truthspeaker died less than two years ago and her new one was appointed by the Empress unexpectedly, as there had already been a ‘Left Hand’ ready to take over. Anath is tall and dresses all in black silk. Anath points out literally the same thing that I did in the previous point, lol, that Tuon is just doing some meaningless virtue signalling here. All anyone else knows about the fortune that was told to Tuon was that it made her ‘throw a tantrum’ (I know Anath is not a good person but I can't help but agree with all her opinions on Tuon lol). Tuon says she will wear her veil until she receives an omen to remove it. Anath continues to tell her what a fool she is for several long minutes. This is a long tradition of her family, to have a ‘Truthspeaker’ who is allowed to say whatever they want and not get punished for it.

12. So, the Consolidation was only two hundred years ago, but Tuon’s family has had the Crystal Throne for much longer than that, as Tuon thinks that it was a thousand years ago when a man last sat on the throne, and it’s been all Empresses in the time since. So they must have ruled a much smaller portion of Seanchan at that time.

13. Tuon says that she needs to contact the Dragon Reborn as soon as possible, so that he can kneel before the Crystal Throne before the Last Battle (or all is lost). Speculation: Tuon specifically was sent with the Return after Rand and Aviendha’s honeymoon trip to Seanchan revealed that it was the Dragon Reborn who turned back the Forerunners at Falme? I might need to reread that chapter to try to confirm what information they might have figured out from Rand there. Anath tells Tuon that she must be careful not to reveal to the Dragon Reborn how dangerous that she is to him.

14. So, overall, this is a genuinely good introduction for this character - it has a lot of fascinating Seanchan lore and ends on an ominous note for both Rand and Mat with the reveal that she’s the DotNM plus a threat to Rand. I thought Tuon was quite intriguing back when we were first introduced to her and thought she had the possibility of having some very interesting and compelling stories ahead of her. We’ll, uh, see how that goes.

15. Since I was keeping track of whether or not people thought about Mat while he’s been missing, I will also keep track of whether or not he thinks of the people that he’s been separated from.

16. Most of chapter 15 is, unfortunately, the book establishing what a horrific nightmare that Mat is currently living in, a month or so into the Seanchan invasion of Ebou Dar. Tylin has taken advantage of him being injured and left behind and ‘as good as has a leash around his neck’ and has dressed him up as an obvious ‘pretty’ to the extent that strangers on the street will openly mock him and sexually harass him because they know he’s someone’s sex toy (Mat attempts to laugh this off in his internal narration when it happens). He broke his ribs and one of his legs when the building fell on him and he has ‘mostly healed’ but still feels the pain of the injuries from time to time. His hip hurts if he sits in one place for too long. It’s implied that he had to offer Tylin humiliating sexual favors (beyond what she normally demands) in order to keep his outfits from being even worse than they currently are. And, as a reminder, this all started as soon as he was healed enough to move out of the bed at all. As soon as he was slightly mobile, she dressed him up for her pleasure and started raping him again. He still needs to use a staff to help himself walk and he limps and he doesn’t believe he’s currently capable of riding a horse for further than a mile.

17. In other news: The Illuminators’ Guild essentially doesn’t exist anymore. The Seanchan destroyed the main chapter house in Tanchico when the Illuminators resisted the invasion. Every Illuminator who didn’t die was enslaved by the Seanchan as da’covale. And here I thought ~for most people, life was ~better. Anyway, Mat is trying to convince Auldra to teach him the secrets of fireworks so that he can turn them into a war weapon. She tells him that if he can tells her what she could do with a bellfounder, then she will tell him all her secrets. At this point in time, btw, he wants very much to use the weapons AGAINST the Seanchan. Just to establish his emotional starting point.

17. Mat thinks about how all his friends are probably doing just wonderfully right now, while he’s trapped as Tylin’s ‘pet and toy’. Thinking about Rand and Perrin makes colors swirl in his head. He still desperately wants to escape Ebou Dar - he’d like the secret of fireworks too but “he would take escape any day”. And Beslan is still hounding Mat’s steps and has insinuated himself into Mat’s life. Ugh, I also hate what this series has turned Olver into as a character, so I’m going to mostly ignore him from now on.

18. Mat was hoping to use the circus as his means of escape and Valan Luca is willing, for a price... but doesn’t plan to leave until spring. Mat despairs over this in his head but, out loud, he tries to pretend it doesn’t matter (I suppose he has to, since Beslan is RIGHT THERE). We learn that Beslan thinks that his mother is “a little too possessive” of Mat but otherwise is fine with what she does and worries that she’ll marry Beslan off to someone he doesn’t find attractive if she finds out he's helping ‘her pretty’ escape and that he thinks it’s good she has someone to rape to take her mind off dealing with the Seanchan. Mat is actually actively wishing he could be back in the Two Rivers right now, so I will note that down. Mat hates being in Ebou Dar, hates being Tylin’s pretty, and is doing everything in his power to escape as quickly as possible and anything to the contrary that the narrative tries to tell us later is revisionist history. The chapter ends with the dice starting in Mat’s head.

19. We are once again boldly told that ACTUALLY, the invading slaver culture did BARELY ANY DAMAGE and why are you all so fussed about being invaded and enslaved anyway? Okay, narrative, sure. You literally just told us about them completely destroying an entire subculture in the last chapter and there are heads on pikes right outside the city walls, but sure. Barely noticeable. Honestly, the Seanchan invasion and Mat’s abuse are treated the same very odd way -- the readers are clearly shown the damage that was done, but then it gets brushed off by the narrative as if we weren’t just shown how horrible it is. Jordan shows how terrible it is, and then immediately tries to soften it. Like in last book, we saw how uncomfortable and miserable Mat was during the entire section of the book when he was being raped and abused... and then, at the end of the book, we have Mat ~genuinely realizing he will miss her~. ??? wtf, Jordan! And we got a lot of that same stuff going on with the Seanchan now, too, where we see how horrific the slavery is... and then get the narrative cheerfully going, “but it’s not so bad; chin up!” And that’s really a situation where the note that the narrative ENDS on tends to be the note that is remembered the best, which is... unfortunate, in this case.

20. We learn that Mat used to go down to the docks to longingly look at the ships that he wasn’t allowed to leave on, but he doesn’t do that anymore (I think we learn later that Tylin punished him for doing this, so... yeah, whether or not Mat is ‘technically’ a slave right now is really a distinction without a difference, because Tylin definitely treats him like her sex slave). I note that Mat places ‘Tylin’ in the same category as ‘building falling on me and leaving me horrifically injured’.

21. Olver’s complete obliviousness to how horrific Mat’s situation is seems... unrealistic? He’s not a sheltered rich kid; he’s an orphan who has gone through war trauma. And he’s now in a city that was recently invaded and his mentor figure suffered horrific injuries as a direct result of the invasion and Olver is just... la-di-da, I will skip to-and-fro and do my best to flirt up all the grown women in sight. This child’s soul got sucked out of him sometime between LoC & ACoS. Like, I don’t genuinely think that Olver is to blame for Mat being stuck in Ebou Dar (despite my jokes about it) but I find it difficult to believe that OLVER wouldn’t think that? Mat was only still in the city because Olver wandered away from his minder, and then Mat had a building collapse on him. And I feel like most kids would internalize that somewhat and feel to blame, even though they aren’t. And that Olver not only hasn’t done that but is super-carefree and only cares about Hot Grown Ladies right now feels... frankly, just weird. I don’t think he even ends up being aggressive towards the Seanchan at all, at least not that I can remember, despite that being something that would absolutely be in character (he tried to kill Aviendha because his parents were killed by Shaido Aiel invaders).

22. A shitton more Seanchan arrived while Mat & Co were out at the circus (Mat is allowed to leave the city, but has to take Beslan with him, is I think the implication we’re given here) - the Return has officially arrived in Ebou Dar, with all the invading settlers who are here to steal the land from the people who already lived here (more ‘manifest destiny’ type stuff) - Mat realizes that this is an invasion force harder to fight than just soldiers, that it’s a settlement, complete with livestock, etc. We also learn that Beslan was whispering to Thom about potentially rebelling against the Seanchan invasion. Ah, here is where we learn that Mat got punished when he tried to buy passage on a ship before and we also learn that (now that Elayne and Nynaeve are gone) Tylin openly sexually harasses Mat in public, not caring who is watching. Mat is terrified that Tylin might marry him and make it even harder for him to escape and actually finds some reassurance in his fate-assigned marriage because At Least It Isn’t Tylin. Honestly, I’ve always felt that this is part of the reason Tylin exists as a character, so that Mat would feel somewhat relieved about whoever else it was who was the ‘Daughter of the Nine Moons’ because at least it wasn’t his rapist, no matter how awful she might be otherwise. Tylin sets Mat’s bar for ‘acceptable wife’ basically in the dirt, so all Tuon has to do is not be personally raping Mat in order to be considered ‘better’. A very very low bar. tbh, Tuon is kinda the queen (empress?) of ‘just barely clearing the lowest bar possible and then the narrative pretending that she broke the record for high jump’.

23. Aww, Mat has a lot of faith (or maybe just desperate hope) that Rand will ‘take care of’ the Seanchan invasion force. He also has a much more poetic description of the colors in his head than Perrin did, lol. I wish his faith in Rand had been rewarded here.

24. We’re reminded that anyone who fails to take the oath to await and serve immediately gets enslaved to do hard labor. Because, you know, life is better for (almost) everyone under the Seanchan. I do appreciate Mat pointing out that this oath taken under extreme duress is not a valid oath to him. We’re also reminded that the Listeners could be literally anywhere and that one of them overhearing something suspicious can immediately get your head put on a pike. Because, you know, things are so much better now that the Seanchan are here. Anyway, yeah, despite the narrative trying to talk about things being ~a little better~ for the common folk, sounds to me like that climate of fear, mistrust, and paranoia that Fain loved so much in Falme is getting set up again right here in Ebou Dar. At this point in the narrative, the cheerful ‘chin up, could be worse’ vibe can definitely still be read as Mat desperately lying to himself, since we do get hints of tension and wariness being thrown at us. Mat is very anti-Seanchan at this point and very anti-slavery, but he’s trying to keep his head down while he arranges his escape.

25. Ugh, the way in which Mat is constricting his movements so not to anger his abusive rapist ‘partner’ is really painful. He doesn’t even dare go too close to the docks, because he’s ~learned his lesson. What Mat absolutely did NOT need after what happened with Tylin was yet another woman who believes absolutely that she has the right to own people. Almost anyone else would have been better. Elayne, Rand, Talmanes, Aludra, NYNAEVE, I don’t care. But not another woman in Tylin’s mold. This is such a fucking horror show and I don’t understand how Jordan could write this and then undercut it later by his various narrative choices in this and in Mat’s later ‘relationship’. We just really see Mat cutting off pieces of himself in order to try to make Tylin less angry with him, because he is trapped and it’s clear that she’s willing to do some horrific awful things to him all while telling him that she’s just ~having fun and ~why is he objecting. (it really is treated just the same way as the Seanchan invasion). Mat is literally trying to figure out how to have a place to stash his running away money; this storyline just bleeds domestic abuse in every aspect. Tylin is still starving him when he displeases her.

26. Mat gets attacked by the gholam. It runs away when they start to draw attention and Mat chases it. It escapes into a hole much too small for it to fit through naturally and Mat meets the man who tricked it into thinking that people were coming around: Noal Charin. I’ll be honest with you - I do not have the emotional energy to care about Noal, lol. But he’s here and Mat’s met him, so I guess that’s nice. Mat notes that the dice are still tumbling in his head, so whatever it is that stops them is going to be worse than the gholam. So true.

27. Even seeing the title of this next chapter kinda makes me want to throw up. Summary: I hate Tylin and the way that everyone in the palace treats Mat like her property and is happy to serve him up for her to rape if it helps keep her temper away from them. I hate that Jordan decided to start off Mat and Tuon’s relationship (not a spoiler, since he already revealed to the reader that she’s the DotNM) with Tuon trying to BUY HIM. I hate hate hate Tylin pretending that she doesn’t think of Mat as property even while she blatantly does so, and I hate us needing to go through Mat dreading her punishments of him. We do get Mat seeing Teslyn in one of the damane collars and trying to convince himself that it’s better than her being dead (he can’t quite do it). re Teslyn - “She had done him no good turns, and maybe some bad, but he would not wish this on her.” Mat is currently anti-slavery, even of people he doesn’t like. Just marking that down again. Also, he thinks in this chapter that he would rather face the gholam again than be alone with Tylin.

28. Next chapter. Apparently now, after months of letting Olver press his face into her breasts, Riselle has finally asked and been told that Olver is ten. How old did she think he was? No idea. This is such a fucking weird subplot, the story of how ten year old war-orphan Olver is Obsessed With Breasts and doesn’t seem to have noticed that the city he’s living in has been invaded and his mentor was horrifically injured during said in invasion and that the whole reason he is being Deliberately Distracted By Boobs was so that his mentor could be raped by his distraction’s boss. This kid seemed so much more aware of his surroundings and the realities of war back in LoC.

29. Back when markantonys was first reading ACoS and feeling despair over the Mat & Tylin situation, I had to break the unfortunate news that Tylin raping Mat is actually plot-relevant -- and it is; that’s the whole reason that Mat is trapped in Ebou Dar in this book. Even with his injuries, if Tylin weren’t caging him here so that she could rape him on a regular basis, Mat would be long gone by now and unavailable for Tuon to stalk. So, this is me, trying to think of how the show might handle this entire horrible situation. I can think of a few possibilities:

tighten up the timeline: if Tuon & the Return arrive in Ebou Dar with the initial invasion force, then Mat doesn’t need to be living in Tylin’s cage in order to meet her. honestly, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to kill off Suroth in TGH-ish area and simply have Tuon be the one leading the Seanchan in all future appearances. And this method would keep Mat & Tuon’s meeting intact without Mat needing to be raped and abused by Tylin.

Cut out Mat & Tuon’s relationship. Unsure how likely this is. If we don’t get Mat hearing the DotNM prophecy in Tear, then this is likely the road that is being taken. This road would probably mean that Ebou Dar would be truncated or skipped entirely, which might be a good idea if the show instead decides to make Dumai’s Wells more of an ‘all hands on deck’ situation and Elayne, Nynaeve, Aviendha, & Mat all end up there. Mat doesn’t need to have a romance - we don’t need to pair-bond everyone. Rand has enough romance to cover everyone else lol.

Keep the general story as-is but don’t soften it the way that Jordan kept doing: show that what Tylin is doing is horrific and don’t sexualize it; show that what Tuon is willing to do (re: slavery) is horrific and don’t romantize it. What Jordan does in the books to try to ‘soften’ the Seanchan does not work, imo (and it SHOULDN’T; they are slavers) and the show should steer clear of doing any of those same things.

30. Mat notes that he’s learned from the various soldiers here that the continent of Seanchan has “almost constant rebellions and revolts that kept its soldiers’ skills keen” (matches what we heard in the Seanchan PoVs in TPoD). So we are still undercutting what the narrative tells us on one hand (life is ~better~ under the Seanchan) with the realities of what rule under the Seanchan is actually like on the other (constant unrest against the oppressive heavy hand of the Empress). I really am going to be keeping an eye out to see if/when this nuance gets lost in the story, along with keeping an eye out to see if/when Mat loses his loyalty to Rand & the Westlands and turns his coat to the Seanchan/slavers side, since he is prophesied to marry one of them and all. But, yeah, on my first read through of this book, I don’t think I was worried about either of those things happening at all, since Mat is so clearly miserable in Ebou Dar and miserable around the Seanchan.

31. Mat hears various rumors about Rand but does his best to dismiss them -- even ignoring the colors, he’s convinced that he would KNOW if Rand were dead. This is so much more ridiculously romantic in Mat’s PoV than it is when Perrin is thinking about it. Perrin literally took two sentences to dismiss Rand & the colors and Mat needs an entire page. We also have Mat thinking “whatever Rand’s situation, he could do nothing about it in Ebou Dar”. Aww. He’s worrying about Rand. It’s very sweet. Given what a horror story the rest of Mat’s chapters have been so far in this book, between the rape and the Seanchan, getting to see Mat thinking about Rand is a very nice page-long breather before we dive back into the horror.

32. Mat is now legitimately traumatized by the color pink. He not only burns all the pink ribbons that she... used on him, he burns every other piece of pink clothing that she’s added to his wardrobe. Again, things to remember for the future. Honestly, this almost feels like another Tylin-Tuon metaphor at this point -- the use to which pink was used makes Mat have such a distaste for it that he’s relieved to put on the garish clothing that he despised the day before, as long as it isn’t pink. Before Tylin, I don’t think anything Tuon could do would make Mat look at her with anything but disgust for being a slaver. After Tylin -- At Least It Isn’t Pink/At Least She Isn’t Tylin.

33. Mat finally gets his cubbyhole of safety, at the Wandering Woman, where Setelle Anan is relieved to hear that (as far as Mat knows) The Kin all escaped with Elayne. Her inn has pretty much been completely taken over by Seanchan, including lots of sul’dam. “He was happy too” [about the Kin & Elayne & co escaping the Seanchan] “just not happy enough to put himself in chains for joy”. Anan is also the first person to mention that, traditionally, pretties are supposed to have CHOSEN it and be allowed to leave when they chose, so Tylin has been breaking tradition this entire time by forcing Mat into it. So I will also note that for the future: Setelle Anan is aware of the fact that Mat was forced into being Tylin’s ‘pretty’ and not allowed to leave when he wanted to leave. But Setelle Anan also requires Mat to ‘pay’ for his cubbyhole by sexually harassing him too (forcing him to display himself in his clothes for her). So. Yeah. Ebou Dar is such an awful place. I hate this city. Anyway, Mat arranges for the two valets - Nerim (who works for Talmanes) and Lopar (who worked for Nalesean) to move his old clothing -- which Tylin surprisingly did not burn but did hide with Prince Beslan’s old childhood toys -- over to the cubbyhole at the Wandering Woman piece by piece so as not to arouse suspicion.

34. “Light, it would be nice to think that he had more to look forward to than scars and battles he did not want. And a wife he did not want or even know. There had to be more than that.” I definitely agree with @essie007 and markantonys that Mat’s narrative does frequently come across as a queer narrative - him fighting against What Is Supposed To Happen For All Young Men, of trying to resist folding into that stereotypical narrative of toxic masculinity and forced heterosexual monogamy. There has to be more to life than warfare and a wife. There must be, he thinks. But the narrative refuses to let him choose his own path and, when we actually get to the moment of decision... well, we’ll get there. But there’s a strong Min comparison in that moment that I’m already pretty sure I will be making (and Perrin too). But his narrative here is (deliberately?) a traditionally feminine one -- he needs to navigate around the whims of a powerful figure who rapes and abuses him, sock away hidden run-away money and clothes, and try to figure out how to escape without letting his abuser know what his plans are. I am wary of thinking this was deliberate just due to how it ends, though.

35. Mat and Aludra do spend some time kissing in secret, we learn. I honestly hope that they both enjoyed it a lot, because* (reason popped down below for spoilers through AMoL). It sounds like they both enjoyed it, even if Auldra is sadly also of the same school as Min/Egwene and believes that men shouldn’t be told more than “they need to know” even if they’re literally trying to help you.

36. Tylin is adapting to the Seanchan culture more and more, spending much of her time closeted with Suroth (darkfriend) and Tuon (who told Tylin to think of her as like a sister), laquering her nails and making plans to shave parts of her head in the future. Beslan is currently very upset about that, as he’s still unhappy about his city being invaded by slavers for some reason. Tylin is also seriously considering the idea of enslaving Mat and turning him into da’covale because her possessiveness and paranoia is ramping up. Note here how easy it is implied for a member of the Blood (or at least the High Blood) to enslave someone. She doesn’t need a REASON to make Mat property; she needs to want to enslave him and it will be done. Mat tries to insist that he’s not unhappy about his situation because he dislikes being bedded by Tylin (despite all the evidence that he actually dislikes ‘being bedded’ by Tylin a great deal and constantly attempts to sneak out of the palace before she has a chance to summon him); it’s just that she tries to take up so much of his time. The maids always summon Mat to Tylin with ‘broad grins’ because him being raped is a good thing to them, because it calms Tylin’s temper.

37. Mat begins to note that it seems like Tuon runs across him too much for it to be chance. Tuon tells him that she will buy his raven-inlaid spear for ‘ten times’ what he paid for it, and he tells her that he didn’t pay in gold and refuses to sell it. This section here, with this sort of cat-and-mouse isn’t poorly done. Again, it could be the start of a character arc for Tuon, running into this person that she thought perhaps she could intimidate or buy and finding out that he won’t let her do that. It could make her maybe rethink some of her assumptions about the world, especially this new continent that her people have invaded.

38. Mat visits the Wandering Woman to check on his stash but Anan is out, so he goes to the kitchen instead and gets a meal there (he missed breakfast because he slipped out before Tylin could see him again). And he is ~luckily~ there long enough to see Anan come back with a hooded Joline (the other of the Aes Sedai who was originally here from Elaida’s embassy). She’s actually here specifically to meet with “a man who might take her with him when she leaves Ebou Dar” though she wasn’t expecting it to be Mat. At first Mat thinks that she’s the one who slipped him that note, but her reaction makes him realize that it must have been Teslyn. And between the two things there -- promising to help Joline and realizing that Teslyn tried to warn his friends back in ACoS -- Mat now has a new obligation that he needs to try to meet.

39. But first we are reintroduced to Bayle Domon and Egeanin. Doman has... embraced Seanchan culture? idk why. And he’s Egeanin’s Voice now. Last I remember, they were planning to drop the SAD bracelets in the ocean forever and NOT hang out with the Seanchan but I guess that plan went out the window (or I’m forgetting something in their narrative). Anyway, Mat almost but doesn’t quite recognize Bayle, and the pair of them end up leaving the kitchens without Bayle seeming to recognize Mat either. Which makes sense! He hasn’t seen him since EotW, I don’t think.

40. Mat forces himself to go into the damane kennels to talk to Teslyn (and he does have to force himself -- he even thinks being raped by Tylin again right now might be preferable to needing to go there). He’s horrified by it all! He hates that he doesn’t feel like he has the power to save them! He’s disgusted even at the thought that he might want to have sex with someone who has been enslaved and had their choice to say ‘no’ stripped away from them when Tuon mentions that some people do that sort of thing. Mat in Winter’s Heart is ANTI-SLAVERY.

41. It really is horrific. They’re kept in tiny wooden cells, and the Windfinders have all had their cultural jewelry stripped from them. Mat can hear some of them crying. The rooms are small enough that the woman inside can reach everywhere she needs to with her a’dam bracelet on its peg. This is what Tuon actively believes should be the fate of every woman who is capable of channeling. Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve. Every Windfinder. Mat’s sister and every Aes Sedai. Aviendha and all the Wise Ones. But, hey, if you torture them enough and convince them that there’s no hope, they’ll kiss your hand and beg you not to uncollar them so... yeah. I really hate the Seanchan. I really hope the show does better with their narrative arc than Jordan and Sanderson did. Because this, all of this in Ebou Dar, is a HORROR STORY and it deserves to be treated that way as the story continued forward.

42. Mat tells Teslyn that he will help her escape, if he can, and she promises him that she will do anything he asks of her in return. She tells him, in horror, that she’s found herself looking forward to getting treats from the sul’dam because it means that she’s pleased them. She can feel her spirit starting to break. She tells him about another sister that she wants him to save, Edesina, and, with sadness, that there are two others who have already had their spirits broken and respond only to their slave names and Teslyn is unhappily certain that they would betray any escape.

43. On his way out of the ‘kennels’, Mat runs into Tuon, who is probably here to creepily think about how much she loves owning all these poor ladies and how much ~better life is for them being trapped in tiny wooden cells than living free lives. We get a genuine ‘cultural misunderstanding’ here between Mat and Tuon, where he is disgusted at her bringing up the idea that anyone would want to sleep with someone who has been enslaved and has no choice while Tuon is relieved that he isn’t a pervert who sleeps with ‘animals’. Again, this is something that COULD have been built on in the future when Tuon was forced to confront that she herself qualified as less-than-human by her own definition, since we the readers already know that she’s capable of channeling. At the time this story was published, I’m pretty sure that I assumed that it would be something that Tuon would be forced to confront about herself (oh, I was searching for some factual info about Tuon a couple of months ago and came across a hilarious old forum thread where people were arguing, with complete sincerity, that Tuon actually WASN’T capable of channeling; lol we literally learn that she’s a channeling learner in her first PoV chapter).

44. Now we flip over to the Seanchan side of things. Bethamin is with Renna. Renna is one of the two sul’dam that got leashed with their own a’dam at the end of TGH (the other, Seta, is assigned to Suroth, we learn in Bethamin’s narration). “A new name was a useful tool with the most difficult cases, creating a break with what was done and gone.”* This chapter is mostly useful for what it teaches us about how the Seanchan break their slaves (from the side of the slavers). It is... unpleasant. Have I mentioned recently how much I hate the Seanchan?

45. Teslyn has been renamed ‘Tessi’ by the sul’dam and Bethamin notes that she doesn’t seem as miserable as normal and is responding like a normal damane and not reluctant to say the proper forms. She suspects that ‘Tessi’ is pretending to play along, so Bethamin writes a note that her training and punishments are to be redoubled and her ‘treats’ to be sporadic, in order to keep her off-balance and crush her spirit. “She would be happier for it, in the end," Bethamin tells herself.

46. Now we get Bethamin finally getting herself think about that day in Falme, when she had gone upstairs to check on Egwene (”Tuli”) and seen Renna and Seta collared and desperately trying to remove the collars from each other’s necks. And it made Bethamin question everything she knew about being sul’dam, about how something she felt like she could ~almost see weaves. I... do not remember where this plot thread goes from here, but I feel like if it had a satisfying conclusion that I WOULD remember it? But we’ll see, I guess. We learn that the empire yearly tests sul’dam until their ‘twenty-fifth name day’ for the spark and she thinks about how if the Empire finds out about Renna and Seta, that testing won’t end at 25. So it sounds like some damane in the empire are learners who accidentally opened themselves up too much and so got caught. Because women generally spark around 16, I think we’re told, so every sul’dam who is caught in that yearly testing afterwards was a learner and not a sparker. I wonder who instituted the 25 year rule originally.

47. She has figured out that Alwhin must have found Renna and Seta and told Suroth, so Suroth knows the truth and is keeping it a secret. She believes that Suroth is keeping the secret ‘for the good of the Empire’ so as not to undermine their war machine by revealing that their soldiers are actually supposed to be guns instead. Bethamin thinks about how she is “dedicated heart and soul to protecting her own freedom” rather than protecting the Empress and the Empire as she should. Again, again, this book promised so many things in the future narrative.

48. We see here how readily the average Seanchan just crumbles when confronted with a Seeker for the Truth. She was ready to defend herself, but he shows his little badge and she turns into a meek kitten. Seekers for the Truth are allowed to torture even the Imperial family, if they decide they need to. But once she realizes that he doesn’t actually know that she knows dangerous things, she IS brave and bold enough to lie to him here. Oh, wow, so Egeanin was rewarded by High Lady Suroth (darkfriend), was she? Um. Anyway, Bethamin is ordered to renew her old friendship with Egeanin and report back to the Seeker whatever Egeanin says and does, and Bethamin is so internally relieved that the Seeker is after Egeanin and not her. Because it’s so great to be under Seanchan rule, everyone! Look what a lovely government they have in place! “In the Empress’s name, he could take even Suroth to the question, or Tuon herself.” Anyone at all can be tortured if they are suspected of stepping out of line (except the Empress herself)! Ah, we get the whole story of how Egeanin bought Bayle after their ship was boarded by the Seanchan.

49. Now we flip over to Egeanin’s PoV. I have to admit, I appreciate on some levels that we’re getting this Seanchan storyline (since it is being honest about what the Seanchan are like)... but I wish Mat weren’t trapped in it*. Of course, a main character kinda HAS to be stuck in it in order to justify all the pages that Jordan clearly wanted to spend on it (not that this stopped him from spending so much time on the Shaido before Faile and Perrin got involved...). Anyway, Egeanin lied her ass off to Suroth and thus was rewarded with her promotion to Low Blood and orders to go to Ebou Dar and await more orders. We learn that Bayle, at least, resists being treated like Egeanin’s slave -- the one time she ordered him beaten, he refused to sleep with her until she apologized for it (and obviously she hasn’t done it again, from what she says here). Oh, fuck, here is also where we learn that Suroth has the SAD bracelets that can control Rand, because Egeanin and Bayle were found by the Seanchan and got out of the mess by saying “oh, look, we have a gift for the Empress!” So, yeah, an easy way to condense A Certain Plotline after Tanchico is just to have Bayle and Egeanin actually be able to complete their mission and dispose of the collar & bracelets. Oh, eeek. Part of the reason that Egeanin talked Bayle into giving up and handing over the bracelet is because some part of Egeanin DOES think it might be necessary for Rand to be collared for the Empire. Hate this song. Hate it to pieces. Honestly, bringing Egeanin back into the story is already started to tear down the plotline that she’d had before about getting deprogrammed from the Seanchan, because it’s clear that her promotion to Low Blood has put a lot of that programming right back in (though not all of it). There’s a lot of memes about her being a ~friend to channelers, so I hope she deprograms again, but I do not remember a surprising amount of Mat post-WH storyline, I have to admit. My dislike of Mat & Tuon kinda blots out everything else.

50. Bayle sort of asks her to marry him, and points out that it would require her to free him in order to do so. She thinks about how she had wanted to marry him, before he’d gotten sold at block and she’d needed to buy him, but hadn’t known enough of his customs to get around to asking. But now: “She wanted wholeheartedly to marry the man Bayle Domon. She was bitterly unsure she could bring herself to marry manumitted property.” They’re literally sleeping together but her belief in the Seanchan slavery system is SO STRONG that even though Bayle has only been enslaved a matter of months, it has so completely changed the way she looks at him that she’s unsure if she could bring herself to marry him once he is ‘freed property’. (also this kinda shows another of the lies in the Seanchan fairytale -- the idea that slaves can be freed, because we see here that even once a slave is freed, they aren’t seen as a person again but as ‘freed property’ instead. Once you become property, you are never really a person again in their eyes*).

51. *sigh* We now have the FIFTH romance where a woman punches a man in the stomach. Faile-Perrin; Min-Rand; Nynaeve-Lan; Setelle Anan-Nameless Husband; and now also Egeanin-Domon.

52. Oh, Bethamin WAS in trapped an a’dam as well - in Tanchico. I... absolutely do not remember that storyline at all. Anyway, Egeanin freed her. This is now the scene where Bethamin has come to befriend Egeanin. Bethamin is absolutely up-front and honest about the Seeker telling her to come and renew her ‘friendship’ with Egeanin. Love to see some honesty. Bethamin tells Egeanin about Renna and Seta as well. “The empire depended on sul’dam; its strength was built on them. The news that sul’dam were women who could learn to channel might shatter the Empire to its core.” There is so much rich storytelling meat being set up here. We have been promised a specific story about the Seanchan since BOOK TWO and it is getting reaffirmed over and over in this book that this is the story that we’re about to be told about the Seanchan. All the puzzle pieces are in place to tell this story. Ah, and we learn here that Bayle did recognize Mat back in the Wandering Woman, so that’s how the two storylines will collide again. And Egeanin does understand the difference between the genuine affection of a man who does not actually think of her as his owner and the enforced and trained affection of a slave when she sees the way that Bayle says that he wants to help her. And Egeanin is committed to her own freedom here as well, “whatever it took”.

53. Ah, and now we are in Rand’s sidequest about hunting the traitor Asha’man. I feel like this whole traitor Asha’man thing could and should have been wrapped up in a single chapter (and not been placed in Far Madding), so we could move on to the cleansing. The side-quest vibes in this storyline are just as strong as the ones in Perrin’s ‘kidnapped wife’ plotline. I will summarize the bits that stood out to me:

It is hilarious that Rand thinks that dying his hair black makes him unrecognizable. His face was bannered across the sky in fire! He’s basketball player levels of tall!

Nynaeve is with Rand in his storyline (she’s the one who dyed his hair) and yet still has not told him about Mat being left behind in Ebou Dar. Rand feels like she’s behaving ‘weird and mysterious’ like she’s given up who she is to be Aes Sedai.

It’s so ridiculous that Rand took Min along to Far Madding, given his feelings about putting Elayne and Aviendha in danger and the Asha’man definitely all know what Min looks like because she is his famous breeches-wearing mistress.

Oh, he does still have his sword from Aviendha! And is capable of having an independent thought about her! That’s nice.

Rand literally decided to set his trap in a place where he knows that the people in charge would truss him up in a cell for Elaida (and where the Power doesn’t work so they would actually be capable of it). wtf.

Ah, here is where we get Taim and Demandred talked about clearly as two distinct people who are both giving the traitor Asha’man orders, with Demandred apparently unaware that Taim is also a Darkfriend. Moridin is ALSO giving this Darkfriend Asha’man orders, btw. Talk about overkill! Three sets of bosses all giving him orders about Rand. Anyway this one gets killed by Fain anyway, so I guess he was just here to establish that Taim and Demandred are definitely seperate people.

Min takes over folding Rand’s laundry, because heaven forbid we forget for a single moment that she is Here For Her Man and now cares about all these domestic things that she used to hate.

Oh, Luc/Isam has returned to the plotline and we get some vague details on How His Thing Works. It’s also confirmed that he killed the Black Ajah sisters back in the Stone of Tear way back in TSR. He also was the one who killed the Gray Man in the White Tower in... TDR, I think it was. He’s in Far Madding to kill Rand and Min, but accidentally kills some randoms instead. Anyway, he’s basically the Shadow’s elite assassin, it sounds like. You’d think he’d be better at finding his correct targets.

Don’t understand how Rand could have his first PoV chapter after the bonding and yet we don’t really get his thoughts on it at all except in passing. wtf. It’s like a non-event to him, especially since he’s going to continue to only hang out with Min and just occasionally think about Elayne and Aviendha.

54. I don’t care about anything that happens in chapter 23. I’m over the Windfinders. I’m over Cadsuane. This chapter shouldn’t exist, only exists to make this book even longer by feeding into Rand’s upcoming new plot event that also shouldn’t exist.

55. I also don’t care about anything that happens in chapter 24. If Jordan wanted us to know about Far Madding so desperately, he should have thought of a reason to involve it that didn’t mean re-treading already-done ground or making Rand act even more reckless than the taint makes him act at times (why in the world would he go to a place where he can’t channel and where he is also aware that if he were to be captured he would likely be given to Elaida?). I think this entire subplot is meant to sell us on Cadsuane’s usefulness/ruthlessness but I just find myself annoyed and bored that I’m being forced to endure it. The only person in either of these two chapters that I care about even in the slightest is Verin.

56. Chapter 25 is mostly pointless, though at least it has Rand. Notable things:

He’s playing his flute again now; he’s playing a song Lews Therin knew. Something that he knows would have scared him once, but now he takes it in stride

Min threatens Rand with a dagger to make him stop playing his flute and jams it into a doorframe when he gives her a silent look over the threat. Something like this is inevitably going to make me think of Tylin when it happens in the same book as Tylin using her knife to communicate to her servants when it’s time to fetch Mat to rape him. I’m still unsure why Jordan decided to make knives a thing for Min in LoC, especially when they have yet to actually be useful for her.

Min provides yet another viewing that’s bad for Rand’s mental health -- Alivia is going to ‘help him die’ which kinda feeds into his self-sacrificing/self-loathing stuff, as Rand thinks about how death would probably be a relief.

while Elayne saw the importance of getting Rand’s consent to bond him, Min says she would have been willing to bond him even without his consent. Good thing she can’t channel, I guess, because she would have been just another Alanna. Probably would have force-bonded Rand that very first day she showed up in Caemlyn.

Rand forces himself to endure Cadsuane’s company entirely because of Min’s viewing. Literally the only reason that he’s enduring her and trying to ~spark her interest is because he trusts Min.

Cadsuane hits Rand in this chapter. Honestly, a lot of how Cadsuane treats Rand is also reminding me of Bethamin’s Rules For Breaking A Slave that we went over a few chapters ago.

Verin almost kills Cadsuane but decides not to at the last moment. We also find out she’s a ~wanted woman~ in Far Madding. Verin and Rand are the only interesting people in this chapter.

Min’s loose lips strike again: she told Cadsuane that she told Rand that he needs Cadsuane. Rand is literally the ONLY person that this woman can keep a secret from!

57. Elayne!!! My dearest!!! I’ve missed you so much! Elayne is talking with Egwene in TAR, where they are walking in the dream version of Emond’s Field. Elayne feels saddened by the changes she notes in the village (Oh, I think Nynaeve showed her Emond’s Field in TAR a couple of books ago, yeah?) and Egwene is completely shocked to the point of losing control of her appearance in TAR. It isn’t a village anymore but a prosperous town. A thick stone wall is being built around the town and Egwene is particularly struck by the battle monument.

58. Elayne misses Rand. Continue to be gutted out of how much she gets cheated out of spending time with him. Aviendha, too, but we get Aviendha PoV much less frequently than Elayne.

59. Elayne thinks about how the Red Eagle being raised in the Two Rivers is a Complication that she needs to deal with, because it challenges Andor’s rule too much. She also reminds Egwene that she could Travel to see her home, if she misses it and wants to find out how her family is doing, but Egwene is of the opinion that she Can’t Go Home because she’s changed too much. Oh, and Elayne’s section here is set in the past from where we ended off with Egwene at the end of TPoD, because the army hasn’t shifted over to Tar Valon yet. So Egwene’s last bit of TPoD is actually running AHEAD of Rand’s plotline in Winter’s Heart, because Rand’s bonding of Elayne anchors that moment in time. We are currently in Egwene’s past right now. Everyone is still catching up to Egwene’s timeframe. It has been “a few days” since Elayne saw Rand.

60. Elayne gives Egwene an impulsive hug and tells her that she trusts that Egwene will make the right decision. Egwene tells Elayne that if Rand “comes to her again” then she must inform Egwene and tell her anything that might give Egwene a hint as to what Rand is planning to do or where he’s planning to go. And Elayne thinks here, slightly guilty, that she has told Egwene ‘almost everything’ about Rand’s visit, but did not tell her about the group bonding. I’m glad she was willing to keep at least one secret for Rand’s sake. Gives her a leg up over Min, anyway, who is willing to tell pretty much anyone all of Rand’s secrets at the drop of a hat. Elayne doesn’t say anything to Egwene here about how Rand mistakenly thinks that Mat is with her and her army, btw, and Egwene mentions nothing about her dreams of Mat “pale and in pain”. Egwene DOES very ominously say that she does not plan to heal the White Tower just so Rand can chain Aes Sedai like damane and then disappears from TAR before Elayne can ask her what rumours she’s heard to make her believe that’s possible.

61. Aviendha and Elayne are sharing a bed. <3 lol, Elayne forces Aviendha awake because if SHE has to be awake, so does Aviendha. And Aviendha is only annoyed that she slept so late. Aviendha has special permission to sleep with Elayne in the palace but now needs to rush back to her Wise One training. Wish we saw more of that. I’m also curious if Aviendha is as open about Rand’s secrets with the Wise Ones as Elayne was about most of his secrets with Egwene (and as Min is about all his secrets with literally anyone). See, the thing is... having people to confide in is important, right? But it’s sensitive information getting shared with people that Rand doesn’t trust that makes me grumpy. Especially since Rand himself doesn’t seem to ever get any benefits of his secrets being known -- he doesn’t get comfort over them, or the chance to process them, or anything like that.

62. Okay, now we begin the incredibly weird saga of Woman Less Than a Week Pregnant Already Considered Nothing But a Vessel For Her Fetus(es), as Elayne doesn’t get to eat a real breakfast anymore (????). Genuinely do not believe that Jordan talked to anyone actually capable of being pregnant when he wrote the entirety of this part of Elayne’s storyline because it is BIZARRE as fuck. I’m going to mark down any pages about this in unnecessary but just know that I am thinking wtf??? during almost every moment where Jordan talks about the Extreme Baby-Coddling Lengths that we must go to when Elayne is literally “a few days” pregnant. I do not blame Elayne for any of her later pregnancy-related shenanigans tbh because the way she is treated by the people around her is RIDICULOUS (and genuinely makes no sense). I am including the whole “desperately pick a random man to be the fake dad for her future kids” under this entire weird saga btw.

63. Also, the only reason people know that Elayne is pregnant is due to... you guessed it... Min’s loose lips. The ONLY people that she didn’t blab to were the ones who left with her to be in Rand’s storyline (because Rand isn’t allowed the hope of knowing he’s going to be a dad, I guess, and because Only Min is allowed to be ever-present in Rand’s thoughts and if Rand knew Elayne was pregnant, Jordan probably would feel obligated to actually have him visit Elayne every now and then and not just hyper-focus on Min).

64. But luckily we do get to focus on other things in Elayne’s plotline as well! I do like hearing about the political stuff that Elayne is dealing with. We never really focus on any one specific thing long enough for me to get bored about it. Elayne worries about Rand alienating the Aes Sedai but doesn’t worry about how the Aes Sedai may have potentially alienated him (which they... have). They’ve uncovered nine spies and dealt with them by NOT dealing with them. “A spy is your enemy’s tool until you know her but then she is your tool,” her mother told her, and Thom had given much the same advice as well. Ha, this is basically exactly the approach that Rand took with Aviendha when he viewed her as the Wise Ones’ spy in his tent. Since he knew she was the spy, he was content to keep her where she was so that they wouldn’t send another, unknown spy (which I guess they ended up doing when they started interrogating Min last book). The merchants are nervous that Elayne might choose to anger The Dragon Reborn, which would have a huge impact on trade. She does want she can to reassure them that she plans to ally Andor with him in due time (presumably after she is crowned) but they are not fully reassured. Ironically, the merchants would probably find it very reassuring to know she has a personal connection to TDR but I do absolutely understand her not wanting to lean on that connection and to instead make sure she has the crown under her own influence and power, and not Rand’s.

65. Some nights, Aviendha half-carries Elayne to the bed that they share because Elayne is too exhausted to get there on her own. Yeah, it will be so easy for the show to make Avilayne full canon. They are literally a kiss away. This is one change that I really do feel like we’re definitely going to get; it just seems like such an obvious update to the relationships as presented in the books. And we could also actually have MIN bond with Aviendha at some point and become her first-sister, so that we still have a first-sister relationship. But Avilayne should be canon and I have strong feelings that it probably will become canon.

66. Merilille returns from talking to the large Borderlander army to the north. She can confirm that all four rulers of the Borderlands are there, just hanging out with their armies. Hate that Mellar is here... not just because we know that he’s secretly a Darkfriend but because he has no business being in Elayne’s meetings with people! Why is she allowing this! There are at least two hundred thousand soldiers with this army. And she spotted “at least ten” Aes Sedai sisters (we know that there are 13 total). They want to talk to Elayne because of her ~connection to Rand (though Merille speaks around his name) and because they know she was at Falme? I genuinely do not know how they know that Elayne was at Falme; we might find out, because Elayne finds this mysterious as well. Elayne decides to go back and meet with the rulers immediately.

67. Interesting. She plans to approach them as “Elayne Sedai” and not “Elayne, Daughter-Heir”. She is going with Aviendha and Birgitte, with Merilille going ahead with a letter. She has dressed all in green to emphasize that she is Elayne of the Green Ajah. She is able to meet with the four rulers directly, without all the pomp and circumstance that would be needed if she were coming as the Daughter-Heir.

68. Elayne starts off on the offense and soon learns the reason that they’re all here -- to find the Dragon Reborn, and they thought he might be found in Andor, due to the rumors. They’re looking for him mostly to figured out why he is ignoring the Borderlands and the Blight, where it seems most likely that the Last Battle will take place. She says that she will give them the direction that she believes that the Dragon Reborn is currently in, if they will cross Andor without a fight. King Easar and Queen Ethenielle realize that Elayne plans to use the potential threat of the Borderland armies to unite Andor and then ‘negotiate’ with them once they are near Caemlyn and ‘convince’ them to leave without a fight. And both sides hopefully get what they want -- the rulers of the Borderlands will be heading in Rand’s direction and Elayne will be Queen of Andor.

69. Tenobia wants to talk to her uncle on the way, and Elayne says she can tell her where Bashere is located (at the center of the encampment of the Legion of the Dragon, I’m guessing, since Elayne says he’s near Caemlyn). However, Elayne doesn’t actually tell them where she feels Rand is located (in the direction of Tear) but sends them towards Murandy instead. Okay, wait, let me check something. Okay, per the map, Far Madding is basically exactly between Murandy and Tear, so they actually WILL be a lot closer to Rand if they go that way... as long as he doesn’t Travel out of the way before they get there. Elayne does want to try to figure out how to warn Rand but isn’t sure how to do so safely. Take care of him for us, Min, Elayne thinks, once again being the person holding this polycule together by her fingertips.

70. And when she gets back to the palace, she gets the urgent news that armies are approaching from the EAST (competely different army) and should arrive in a week. Despite her exhaustion, she kicks herself back into gear to begin preparations to defend Caemlyn. Twenty or thirty thousand soldiers are approaching and it is unknown who they follow. I think this might be the end of her storyline for the book, but it was quite an exciting ending! Elayne is doing her best to hold up this entire story by herself and I thank her for it from the bottom of my heart.

Tuon’s omens:

a soaring albatross means victory

an owl calling at dawn means death

rain without clouds means an unexpected visitor

ants and beetles are both involved in omens though we don’t get the details

broken nails are very bad luck

three gray porpoises rising once means to hold to your course

Mat mentions:

Nynaeve x5

Egwene x1

Talmanes x1

Elayne x5

Rand x12

Perrin x2

Asha’man in general x1

Things Mat considers preferable to or the same as spending time with Tylin:

facing Moghedien

facing the gholam

a building falling on him, leaving him with horrific injuries that take well over a month to heal

Unnecessary scenes:

the Mat-Tylin horror show: 1 (9 pages), 1 (1 page), 1 (4 pages), 1 (4 pages), 1 (12 pages), 1 (2 pages), 1 (3 pages), 1 (6 pages), 1 (1 page)

Far Madding nonsense: 1, (10 pages), 1 (21 pages), 1 (16 pages), 1 (18 pages)

the weird way Elayne’s pregnancy is treated: 1 (4 pages), 1 (1 page), 1 (1 page)

Spoilers up through A Memory of Light below

* on Mat & Aludra in chapter 18:(includes post-canon speculation with post-canon spoilers)

this is probably the last time Mat gets to kiss a woman purely because they both want it, with nothing hanging over his head telling him that he better like it or else (unless I’m forgetting someone else in the future). It makes me so sad, honestly. Because Mat doesn’t want the future that we know he gets at the end -- Tuon wants to retake Seanchan, which will mean endless battles and scars for him (and if they stay in the Westlands, there’s a very uneasy peace between Tuon’s slavers and... all the people who don’t want to be slaves). And though Sanderson tries his hardest to make us believe that Mat loves Tuon for whatever inexplicable reason, the original Mat (the real Mat), as we can see here, is horrified by slavery. So as soon as the 'marriage/infatuation’ high wears off Mat’s character, he will be horrified again and baby-trapped into his literal worst nightmare -- a life of scars and battles, with a wife that he doesn’t really know. Mat ends up in his own Worst Ending and it makes me so sad.

After a bit of searching, it looks like it’s even semi-canon that it’s Mat’s Worst Future, because the two sentences that Jordan provided about how the outriggers would begin included Mat in a gutter, having gambled everything away... apparently including his iconic hat:

Interview: May 24th, 2013

Phoenix ComicCon Report - KakitaOCU (Paraphrased)

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Lastly, and IMO, most important. While he stated he was paraphrasing from memory, he revealed the "two sentences" that Jordan had left for the outriggers. The first was a scene of Mat in a wool cap laying in a gutter having gambled away everything. The second was a scene with Perrin on a ship thinking that he was going to have to go kill a friend. (source is here: theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=999 -- that same source actually says that Siuan’s death was Harriet’s decision and not in Jordan’s original notes, which is... interesting)

So it sounds like if the outriggers had been written (they were supposed to start 5-10 years post-canon, I think?), it would have opened on Mat being miserable in Seanchan (possibly having run away from Tuon given that apparently he doesn’t have access to the resources of the Empire) and Perrin potentially on his way to kill Mat, perhaps because they think he’s a mastermind behind horrific slaver crimes of some kind but don’t realize he’s ~left Tuon’s service~? idk but Jordan did apparently realize that he was sentencing Mat to a miserable life when he married him off to Tuon, at least that’s what ‘in a gutter’ implies to me. It also kinda gives “Sam Vimes at the start of Discworld” vibes to me, and Mat is kinda a Vimes-y character anyway, when he’s at his best; I could picture Older Mat kinda going through a similar character arc as Vimes, as long as Jordan or Sanderson kept their hands off him.

* on Setelle Anan and Mat in chapter 19:

In addition to Mat’s character getting butchered to make Tuon look better, Setelle Anan gets character assassinated as well -- she goes from being willing to risk her life to save an Aes Sedai who is hiding from the Seanchan slavers to buddying up with the future head slaver of them all and being protective of her. There are things I dislike about Anan (she’s yet another of the increasing trend of women who are legit abusive to the men they’re in relationships with) but she is firmly anti-slavery here and while she puts on a show of being welcoming to the Seanchan, we see her true colors behind the scenes. And from what I remember of CoT/KoD, she’s just... genuinely on Tuon’s side because Woman Good, Man Bad.

And Mat, here seeing Joline’s absolute terror at the idea of being caught by the Seanchan and then seeing Teslyn in the ‘kennels’ later in this chapter as well. It just makes me want to spit rocks at what I remember happening in... Knife of Dreams, I think it is, where Tuon is allowed to collar someone and hurt them and get away with it because Tuon is Our Special Princess Who Never Gets Consequences For Her Actions, even when she’s literally torturing someone that she wants to enslave. And then she gets rewarded with Mat being more attracted to her because of it! The narrative REWARDS her for being the type of person who tortures and enslaves other people, because, hey, she’s ~pretty when she smiles~ and Jordan has decided that THIS is how low Mat’s morals have fallen, despite there being absolutely no reason for Mat to have changed this way. (it’s almost funny that Tuon has such a tragic and interesting and compelling backstory because wow does the narrative pull every possible punch when it comes to her actual in-book storyline; it’s like Jordan used up all the good writing on her backstory and didn’t have any left over for now!Tuon, who mostly acts like a coddled spoiled brat who refuses to grow up, from what I remember of CoT/KoD)

Like... I understand why people get mad at Sanderson’s portrayal of Mat, but Jordan is the one who started dragging Mat’s character into the mud, not Sanderson. Sanderson accelerated a process of moral decay that Jordan started. And while there is a sexism leap in TGS (from what I remember), Mat has been getting progressing more sexist the last couple of books as well, so that’s not something Sanderson was pulling from thin air either. He exaggerated it, because he exaggerated everything about Mat, but Jordan is the one who put it there when he decide that a pretty smile outweighed Mat’s morals about slavery. Mat feels a VISCERAL DISGUST about slavery in Winter’s Heart (as well he should). But that was inconvenient for the “falling in love with a slaver” plotline, so Jordan warped Mat’s character in CoT & KoD, and then Sanderson continued that process in TGS-AMoL. But Jordan started it.

* from chapter 20 - on slave training and Mat & Tuon’s relationship

So this is a thing that I do not believe was intentional on Jordan & Sanderson’s part but, wow, after rereading chapter twenty, it is impossible for me to get it out of my brain:

One of the points that Bethamin makes is how getting a slave to accept their new name is one of the ways that you can ‘break’ them from their old life. This is definitely a technique that we see Tuon use with Mat in CoT-AMoL (and he is answering to his assigned name in aMoL, like an obedient slave). I think one of the ways that I am going to survive through the rest of the Mat sections of my reread is marking out every place where it feels like Tuon is using slave-training techniques on Mat to break him to her will. Every time she uses ‘Toy’ instead of his name, every time she throws him off-balance to get him to obey her, etc. It will be depressing but hopefully distracting as well (honestly, it might be too depressing for me to actually do this; we’ll find out!).

So, things we know are used in training a damane:

they need to be completely removed from their previous, non-slave life

they must depend on you for their everyday needs

teach them to respond to their owner-given name

reward them when they obey you and work to please you (I believe Tuon uses kisses for this in KoD), but sporadically, so that they have to be constantly pleasing you to get even a small occasional reward

punish them when they disobey you or disrespect you

teach them to show proper respect to you and your position above them

and then use them to teach other, newer slaves how to behave properly (which reinforces proper behavior in them)

Thinking back, I’m pretty sure Tuon uses most if not all of these techniques on Mat throughout CoT-aMoL (and, according to what we hear from Bethamin here, Tuon treats Mat as a ‘hard case’ that needs to have his spirit thoroughly crushed in order to gain his loyalty and make him meek for her hand). And, honestly, in a lot of aMoL, from what I recall Mat is basically responding like a trained slave -- by the end of the series, he removes himself from his former life (doesn’t go to his best friend’s funeral); he accepts the name his mistress gives him and says he finds it pleasing, no longer protesting that he wants her to respect his own choice of name; he guides his actions by how much they please his mistress; he judges other people on how well they are showing respect to his mistress and iirc thinks about how he’ll need to teach Min the proper way to behave around his mistress.

There are a handful of moments where it feels like Original!Mat breaks through, but overall... it kinda does feel like his spirit has been at least half-broken to slavery by the epilogue (and while part of that can be chalked up to Sanderson, again, it started with Jordan). Which, you know, I hate. Absolutely hate. Literal worst ending that he could have gotten. Dying would have been better than living like this (as Mat himself realizes in Winter’s Heart when it comes to the damane), a shell of himself who exists only to please his mistress and eek out what tiny bits of happiness and contentment that he can salvage in his gilded cage, stronger than Tylin ever managed to make hers.

And if this is supposed to be ‘love’... it looks a lot like a leash. Just... I hate that a story that could have been about toppling or undermining a slaver empire instead became a story about how we all just have to live with slavery and accept it. Mat’s storyline post-LoC is just one damn depressing thing after another and it culminates in this depressing as fuck ending where he’s essentially a slave to his ‘wife’/empress but has convinced himself/been convinced that he’s okay with it. Escapes one abusive relationship only to end up in another one, more subtle but also harder to escape.

* On chapters 20-21 and Mat

Of course, the frustrating thing is that, from what I remember, all this set-up that we’re getting in these two chapters is going to end up have a very disappointing narrative conclusion. I don’t remember ANYONE successfully standing up to Tuon during the circus arc (which is one of the reasons that the circus arc feels so pointless for her; there’s no character growth, just her realizing that Mat is a more useful and dangerous tool than she’d first realized), so I feel like both Bethamin and Egeanin just crumple like wet rags in front of Tuon and then just stay that way, instead of rallying the way that Bethamin does at the end of her chapter?

Maybe I’m wrong - my memory of Mat’s storyline in CoT is basically just “ugh, why is Mat courting a slaver, why is Mat completely ignoring that she’s a slaver who is actively enslaving someone right now” (Tuon basically stays glued to her slave’s hip during the whole journey iirc) and my memory of his storyline in KoD is “why is Mat being TURNED ON by a slaver actively treating someone like a slave wtf wtf wtf?? who IS this person? this is not Mat Cauthon” so it’s possible that the background characters did have a good story and I just missed it in all my visceral disgust at the Mat & Tuon storyline. I will find out!

But, yeah, from what I remember, this all ends up dying in an unsatisfying whiffle, so all these elements that I thought were actually a deliberately horrifying but compelling start to a potentially fantastic storyline are just... disappointing during this reread. Again, I ask, wtf happened to Jordan in between writing Winter’s Heart and writing Crossroads of Twilight? Why did he have Mat go from vehemently anti-slavery to where Mat ends up in KoD? Because Winter’s Heart!Mat would be sickened by Knife of Dreams!Mat and probably straight-up lose his lunch if he knew about A Memory of Light!Mat willingly using damane in battle and giving up his own name for a Seanchan name. Ugh, I hate what a frustrating experience rereading Winter’s Heart is now that I know how disappointingly this storyline ends, at least from what I remember.

* On the subject of freed property (and Mat and Tuon)

Egeanin’s feelings here, that she is unsure if she can ever actually see Domon as a person again, despite obviously being in love with him, is something that is also very difficult for me to untangle from the upcoming Mat and Tuon ‘love story’. Once property, always property even if freed, seems to be how the Seanchan view things. Tuon spends two books (I think?) calling and thinking of Mat as ‘Toy’, as Tylin’s property that ran away from her and that Tuon is considering claiming for her own. Even when she completes the marriage ritual... does she see him as a person or does she still see him as escaped property that she is reclaiming for the Empire because he’s useful and maybe she wants to have sex with him in the future?

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #winter's heart #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #mat cauthon #slaver empress tuon #seanchan content warning #i am still on vacation but i have my phone!#tylin content warning as well #the wheel of time

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