#avendesora

[necarion]

It's pretty clear from the start of the Wheel of Time that Jordan hadn't figured out how long everybody lived yet. Aes Sedai could clearly live a long time, but it seems like he'd thought of it on the order of "about a century" rather than "up to 300 years". Picking Siuan as Amyrlin at 40 is insane if she's going to hold the job for 200+ years, but makes more sense if she might keep it for 60.

It also makes the Age of Legends unusually fucked up. If the "Servants of All" could live upwards of 600 years! and the common folk only got to a normal healthy long-life (good medical care, etc) of around 100 or so. They become this multi-generation ruling magical class, and no amounts of discipline would keep that from becoming a fantastically massive political issue.

However, we also have (a) the metaphor of the Expulsion from Eden to draw from, where they "ate of the tree of knowledge" and introduced death into the world and (b) knowledge that ter'angreal allowed normal people to use certain weaves on a regular basis. So if you have:

It isn't use of the One Power, but presence of it flowing through a body that prevents (and reverses aging)

A large number of standing flows throughout the cities

Really good magical healing

and you could imagine that non-channelers could also have extremely long lives of multiple centuries. Further, the disparity would be much reduced between channelers of different abilities, too, if everybody was exposed to the same level of background One Power. Only the very strongest channelers might live longer, and maybe not by a whole lot.

But I can do one better. We already have a thing called the Tree of Life that gives feelings of peace and contentment, that lined all the streets of cities in the Age of Legends.

What if Avendesora/Chora trees have the effect they do by releasing a standing flow of the One Power that provides the minor healing / de-aging effect of the one power, for everyone?

[matgpt]

Loial wants to know what your favorite tree is.

Black yew. It’s the best thing for Two Rivers longbows.

[iviarellereads]

The Great Hunt, Chapter 36 - Among the Elders

(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.)

(Avendesora leaf icon) In which something's extremely suspicious here.

PERSPECTIVE: Rand. Loial gets more anxious with every step. When they enter a building to see the Elders, Rand suggests Loial stay outside and read, instead of coming in. Despite the hungry glances of every woman nearby, Loial agrees this is the best course of action.

The Ogier elders say they haven't let anyone travel the Ways in over a hundred years, and bring in Trayal, an Ogier of middle years, who was one of the last they saw go into the Ways. Verin examines him, and confirms that he's empty, there's no soul, no life in him, despite that he can move around.(1) They all confirm that they know the risks, but they must retrieve the Horn at any cost.

The Eldest remarks that they have a young Ogier among them, and he's far from home. After some discussion of the boys being ta'veren and weaving people into the Pattern around them, Rand promises that when all the weaving they're into is over, he'll see Loial safely home. The Eldest agrees to let them use the Waygate.(2)

They retrieve Loial, who is relieved to be able to go with them, and go on to it. Rand feels the return of saidin, now that he's realized what it is, when they cross back out of the stedding. They all ready up in front of the gate, but as soon as it starts opening, after Verin picks the leaf-key, Rand can see the Black Wind behind it, and shouts to close it.

There's some discussion of other stedding, other Waygates they could try, but Verin suspects they'd always find Machin Shin waiting. Hurin suggests the Portal Stones. Verin says they'd never find one, but Rand reluctantly speaks up to say that he could lead them back through the one at Kinslayer's Dagger. It's the only way to get there fast enough to save Mat.

The Eldest cuts in to say she wasn't aware anyone knew the working of Portal Stones, but if they have the knowledge to use them, there's one nearby. Verin remarks that the Pattern provides what's useful, and asks her to take them to it.(3)

=====

(1) Well, that puts some things into perspective. Remember when it seemed like this was just a young-adult Tolkien knockoff? (2) He's not of their Stedding, but it's sweet that they're so concerned about his wellbeing. (3) Nice save, Pattern. In some ways this could feel drawn out, but when you know there are another 12 books ahead, and who knows what characters might become important again down the road for a future plotline, it's harder to say this is pointless faffing about back and forth across the region.

[edwardslostalchemy]

I didn't know there was a max for receiving, too!! WOOHOO ✋🙌🎉 we did it y'all!!! Shout-out to everyone who sent me 10284841 boops in a row (@avendesora-sedai @ladysunami @bee-does-things @dancing-ace-skeletons @denizenhardwick @illeaadante @plusultrachaos @greyladyblue @gracefullilyofthevalley ) THERE WERE SO MANY OF YOU, THANKS. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of you, sorry about that! But the gratitude is for everyone! It was a lot of fun!!! I wish we could keep this button so we can boop each other from time to time! 🐾💖

[agardenandlibrary]

The Shadow Rising: chapters 23-26

okay, some stuff happens.

They make it to Rhuidean and Rand+Mat immediately are like - hey, I gotta go into your sacred city and I’m not leaving my boyfriend behind. The Aiel Wise Ones are like - Well, you might as well; the whole world is changing. Aviendha and Moiraine also go into the city. Avi needs to do the Aiel equivalent of the Accepted test, and Moiraine's just nosy.

Egwene gets set up w/ the Wise Ones and we learn more neat Aiel stuff!

Rand+ Mat go in together. Mat finds another Doorway like the one in Tear and goes in, determined to ask the right questions this time. So he goes through the doorway to Faerie and does not realize that the Unseelie world has different rules. But he gets 3 boons: his memory holes filled, a way to be free from the influence of the Power, and a way out and back to Rhuidean.

RAND, MEANWHILE he goes on the same vision quest all Aiel chieftains must go on. He lives the brief moments in life of certain people, tracing the history of the Aiell all the way back to the breaking of the world 3,000 years ago.

This was very cool. Not least because we got to see the pre-Breaking world.

(Sidenote: did that one lady really say "hey, I found a way for men and women to channel from the same Source”, only for that source to be the Dark One? Ironclad ovaries, ma'am.)

We find out the Aiel served the Aes Sedai - for what reason or in what capacity, still unsure. After the Breaking, the Aiel wandered, charged with staying alive and keeping the various angreals safe. I get the feeling that staying alive is the more important of those tasks.

Over time, the Aiel fractured. The Tuatha'an and their Way of the Leaf are one branch. The Jenn Aiel and Aiel are other branches. All that remains of the Jenn Aiel is Rhuidean and this trip down Aiel memory lane. This was scrumptious. No wonder the Aiel are so squirrelly about the Tuatha’an. Big church-split vibes. 

Anyway - Rand gets out and finds Mat hanging from the world tree/Avendesora. Alright Odin, I see you, calm down. Mat also received a spear w/ Ravens on it with an inscription about thought and memory, plus a silver fox medallion. Yes, I think it's funny to call it a silver fox medallion, I will not be taking notes at this time.

Rand and Mat are like "well. Let's, uh. GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE." and they leave as dawn arrives....

[iliiuan]

I'm going to make a running list of things that make little to no sense in A Memory of Light. Things that unleash fury in my heart.

So far, I've got:

The Dragon's Peace

No really. This treaty is such nonsense I can't even articulate fully how bad it is. Add on top that Rand saved two thrones for his girlfriend and then turns around and says "No one get greedy now! Only one country per ruler!" Just gross.

Elayne running the Last Battle

Excuse me, what? She has zero experience. Again with the favoring your girlfriend nonsense. (From a character standpoint, she does make sense, being the skilled diplomat. But she's presented as war leader, which is not really her skill.) Anyways, it should have been Mat, obviously, but Sanderson couldn't manage that one simple plot point.

Ok, now she's in the Braem Wood being a pest because she can't believe the capabilities of the Two Rivers archers. WHY IS SHE EVEN THERE? She should be at the central command post, not running sorties on one of the battle fronts. What a complete disregard for chain of command.

Everyone deciding that Caemlyn absolutely must be rescued

I... don't get it. It's lost. It's far south, providing a magnificent distraction to the Shadow. Set up a kill net around the city, like whatever Rand had used on the Waygate in Shadar Logoth. Trollocs leave the city, trollocs get dead.

Perrin saying that there's no way to destroy the Waygate

Um, excuse me, were you not paying attention AT ALL to Loial's lectures? You remove both Avendesora leaves. Like what is even going on here.

Rhuarc and Amys insisting that the Aiel can do whatever the fuck they want at Shayol Ghul.

They just signed the Dragon's Peace and agreed that Elayne would lead. There is no way under ji'e'toh that they would immediately ignore their pledge.

Not inviting Seanchan and Shara to the party

Yes, I'm still bitter that not a single Aes Sedai thought to go check on Shara.

Also, Tuon definitely should have been there. My need for thoroughness and consistency demands it.

The numbers don't seem right

I haven't done the math, but there seem to be too many trollocs (where was there space for so many? And what did they eat?) and too many armies of the Dark, with a very small showing of forces for the Light. And then the small matter of so many channelers being turned. Like, I get that it would be a difficult war to win, but the numbers seem really skewed to me.

The Horn of Valere

Rand really didn't put together that Mat wasn't bound any longer? (Maybe not, ok ok, but still seems like he would have pondered it more.) Egwene really went to the Field of Merrilor to prepare for The Last Battle and didn't bother to bring the Horn of Valere with her? What level of unprepared bullshit is going on over here?

The Ogier

The world doesn't have enough food, so the most important thing the ogier can do is... fight? NO. Sure, send the warriors out, but have the rest sing food to life. I just. What a waste. (And a rather large lack of creativity.)

Pevara and Androl

An Aes Sedai (you know, the women who perfected the art of not responding to emotion) who's been alive over a hundred years (so she's definitely practiced) and is in the Red Ajah (you know, the Ajah that oddly doesn't have Warders), in a moment of panic, bonds a man who can channel.

I also was annoyed on my first read by having these randos all of a sudden occupying a rather large portion of the pov. After 14 books with a rather breathtaking cast, why are we exploring new people? I don't get it.

Cannon Misuse

They lined 100 cannons in four ranks across a road. That's 25 cannons across. That many cannons *might* fit across the monstrous 14 lane freeway behind my neighborhood. Maybe. That's *way* too many cannons for a forest road to nowhere.

Perrin Hesitating

You know, we finally have Rand being rational about female combatants, and now Perrin is hesitating over a fucking Forsaken? He didn't hesitate over the Shaido, so I'm calling bullshit. He would have taken Hessalam out immediately. Moonhunter maybe not, because he didn't put together who she was until it was obvious she was helping him. But going after Heartseeker is like starting a hunt, and my boy would NOT squirm just because she's a woman.

Dreamwalkers Abandon the Dream

The Aiel Wise Ones, for all their bluster, turn out to be neither particularly wise, nor particularly brave. "Ooh, the Dream is so scary now! We better stay away!" Meanwhile, the Forsaken continue to roam. Did they ever even consider hunting their enemy? Did they even notice the purple domes? Do they care at all about anything beyond the end of their noses?

And Egwene isn't any better. Instead of being on a battlefield pretending to be a warrior, she should have been in the Dream, hunting with Perrin.

The whole thing was really disappointing.

Gareth Bryne

How, exactly, is Graendal able to compel Gareth when he's Siuan's Warder and they're always together? She should have been noticed and rebuffed.

Plot Lag

Yes, it's a problem through the entire series, but The Last *Battle* ended up being a book and a half political mess plus lots of blood and gore. The whole Black Tower debacle? Should have been resolved already. Perrin hunting Slayer? Should have been resolved early, so that he's leading the Hunt as Rand *enters* Shayol Ghul. Mat getting fitted with Seanchan attire? Should have happened instead of sitting in Caemlyn for a month, because there's no way that letter doesn't just fall open after a few days, bellowing smoke and yelling that trollocs are about to invade.

Moiraine

She is constantly expressing emotions. This is not my Moiraine. What alien did the Finn return to us?

She's also back to giving really bad advice. I thought she had grown out of that? Le sigh

Story Imbalance

I sincerely thought that the war part would be maybe a third of the book, and then we'd get into the aftermath. I guess I was naive.

The Last Battle

Who the fuck approved a chapter over 150 pages long? WHO? Absolute insanity.

[miirshroom]

Thinking about how Elden Ring serves as a Spiritual Successor to a Certain Fantasy Series

I find fascinating the lore ouroboros from reading Elden Ring in context of the Wheel of Time and vice versa. Significant spoilers ahead for Elden Ring and minor spoilers for Wheel of Time.

There's the surface level stuff like:

The Erdtree Guardians wield sword-spears and are guarding offshoots of the Tree of Life like the Aiel with Avendesora? Neat!

The previous Elden Lord fought with an axe and was succeeded by an Elden Lord who fights with a hammer and runs with wolves? Sounds a lot like the character arc of Perrin Aybarra. The Beastman of Farum Azula in Limgrave could even be a wolf brother who was "lost to the wolf"

Interesting choice to have a Commander Niall at Castle Sol, considering that Wheel of Time has Pedron Niall, the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light. A villain who thinks that his cause is righteous. This has...implications...considering Miquella's connection to Castle Sol...

It gets more pointedly specific:

Raya Lucaria academy being located in a anatomically shaped body of water and governed by a woman sounds pretty similar to Tar Valon. But maybe it's just a trick of my eyes that the lake looks like an anatomical heart with the roadways and landmasses located at the major veins and arteries (I've sketched this out and it seems legit - it's an uncommonly seen angle of the heart though)

Radagon's name can be rearranged to "a dragon", is red-haired like Rand al'Thor, and his personal rune is a loose rendering of a woven Pattern - one of the central motifs of Wheel of Time. That seems a little beyond simple homage by GRRM to the works of a fellow author who he was well acquainted with (a nod from one book in A Song of Ice and Fire: "Archmaester Rigney wrote that history is a wheel, that the nature of man is fundamentally immutable. According to him, what has already happened will happen again, without remedy.").

So, what can Elden Ring be saying about Wheel of Time, a series that infamously has lingering questions that will never be answered due to literal death of the author.

There's a statue of a bearded man in the underground areas with a tablet at his feet that depicts the Imago Mundi - a real world artefact that is a map of Mesopotamia. This is implied to be the earliest age of civilization in Elden Ring just as real world civilization emerged from the river basin between the Tigres and Euphrates Rivers. This is where the ouroboros wraps back around to realizing that there may be some symbolism in Wheel of Time beginning at protagonist Rand al'Thor's home in a region called the Two Rivers.

The "Loux" in Hoarah Loux is a Germanic surname meaning "Lynx Eyed", or having sharp eyesight. The kind of eyesight that would be useful for a man out at sea navigating by the stars. The Prologue of Wheel of Time begins with the previous incarnation of the Dragon before Rand, a man named "Lews" Therin Telamon. "Theron" is a Greek word meaning "hunter". "Telamon" is the name of one of the Argonauts who sailed with Jason to find the Golden fleece. So the full name could mean "sharp eyed hunter, a seeker of the Golden fleece". It seems appropriate that Rand the 'Dragon Reborn' starts off his journey as a shepherd who tends sheep.

The Western Zodiac consists of 12 astrological signs (and sometime Ophiuchus), of which Aries is the first sign. The story associated with the constellation Aries is the story of the Golden Fleece. Wheel of Time was also supposed to be 12 books long. It was very important to author James Rigney (pen name Robert Jordan) that the series end with the 12th book - but circumstances being what they were the series eventually concluded with Brandon Sanderson writing the 12th, 13th and 14th volumes.

That's about as much as can be covered without getting really into the deep lore of Wheel of Time. I have a lot more thoughts about how both Wheel of Time and Elden Ring are thematically bound to the wheel of Vedic Astrology and invoking themes of a dreamlike collective unconsciousness (the Jungian thing). Also the alchemy stuff.

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 50: Meetings at the Eye

Spoiler alert: No matter how simple everything should be, computer upgrades will always find new and exciting ways to wreck your shit. We should abandon technological civilization and become tree people, like the semi-spoilery character above. This post doesn't just cover this guy but spoilers all the way out to the end of The Wheel of Time, so you should go away if that ain't your thing.

This chapter opens up with the trefoil leaf icon, a reflection of just how goddamn awesome Someshta is. MVP of this book, I'm telling you.

Child of the Dragon. Warily he watched the Green Man, walking ahead with Moiraine and Lan, butterflies surrounding him in a cloud of yellows and reds. What did he mean? No. I don’t want to know.

Rand and Perrin are both practicing their strongest denials here, Perrin just because he doesn't wanna be a werewolf and Rand because he thinks Someshta has IDed him as the Dragon Reborn. Naturally not even Moiraine manages to pick up on the useful detail here that Someshta identifies Rand with the Dragon because of his Aiel heritage and not because he can see his soul.

And he began plucking one from this plant and one from that, never more than two from any. Soon Nynaeve and Egwene wore caps of blossoms in their hair, pink wildrose and yellowbell and white morningstar. The Wisdom’s braid seemed a garden of pink and white to her waist. Even Moiraine received a pale garland of morningstar on her brow, woven so deftly that the flowers still seemed to be growing.

I'll let the sexism speak for itself here by asking you to imagine the better version of this scene where Someshta decks out the boys, Lan, and Loial to boot. How much more effective would the imagery of the peace of the Eye had been if even the hardest warrior in the party was briefly decked out in the only non-palace-based blooming flowers in the known world?

“All things must grow where they are, according to the Pattern,” he explained over his shoulder, as if apologizing, “and face the turning of the Wheel, but the Creator will not mind if I give just a little help.”

Literally every one of Rand's mentors and would-be mentors fails until they understand the meaning of the Green Man's words here.

The Green Man gave Rand an odd look, then shook his head. “Avendesora is not here. I have not rested beneath its ungentle branches in two thousand years.”

Considering that Avendesora has been in the Aiel Waste the whole time, I wonder if this statement means that the Trolloc Wars were so bad that even the Green Man had to fall back. The Eye and Rhuidean being in the same place for awhile would be rather hilariously appropriate.

Knowing they would die, they charged me to guard it against the need to come. It was not what I was made for, but all was breaking apart, and they were alone, and I was all they had. It was not what I was made for, but I have kept the faith.

One of the recurring themes of the series is desperate attempts to fling some light into the future under the certainty that you yourself won't live to see if it even makes it - and those desperate attempts often being spearheaded by those who had no reason to expect that they would be in the role they were. The Eye, Rhuidean, the Tu'athan who were assigned to try to get the Two Rivers children to safety if all else failed, Rand's attempts to build academies and peace treaties, Verin's list of Black sisters, Aviendha's attempts to avert the dark fate of the Aiel, even Egwene's last stand to an extent. You might think that all the repetition would make it hit less hard after awhile but IT STILL HITS. If I could turn this shit into an actual drug I would overdose immediately.

Not all the crystals in the dome glowed with the same intensity. Some were stronger, some weaker; some flickered, and others were only faceted lumps to sparkle in a captured light. Had all shone, the dome would have been as bright as noonday, but they made it only late afternoon, now.

This too reflects another theme, that everything is a pale imitation of what it once was but that a pale imitation is still recognizably an imitation. All of the corruption of the Third Age's institutions hides the true core of what it should be but once you do a little work you find that there's still more than enough good to work with (Aes Sedai like Verin and Pevara who reflect the true nature of their instutiton, the Whitecloaks who willingly follow Galad to Tarmon Gaidon, leaders like Berelain and Ituralde amid the various corrupt nobility).

“But what is it?” Mat asked uneasily. “That doesn’t look like any water I ever saw.” He kicked a lump of dark stone the size of his fist over the edge. “It—”

It's a good thing that Moiraine assumes Someshta confirmed Rand as the Dragon here or the revelation that absolutely everyone can see this pool of saidin instead of just male channelers like you'd expect would probably have given her an aneurysm.

“I always wondered,” Loial said uneasily. “When I read about it, I always wondered what it was. Why? Why did they do it? And how?”

Those are very good questions. The most likely explanation for how is that it was a twofold suicide circle, where first the men channeled as much saidin as they could and had the women do something similar to what Nynaeve will do at Shadar Logoth, but without Logoth's counteracting taint these women absorbed the evil and died from it, and then as they fell and the circle collapsed the men got hit with the rest of the extracted taint and died right after the women.

As for why... Prophecy, probably - and probably misinterpreted prophecy at that. The Aes Sedai likely assumed this was meant for the final showdown like Moiraine suggests, but really it's about buying Rand time for the showdown. Without the Eye, Rand wouldn't have been able to save the Borderlanders without going bugnuts (or burning himself out since he would just be getting started). If he weren't able to save them, then he wouldn't have time to unite the north and east (nor would the Seanchan have had time to colonize the west and south, though the image of the Forerunners sailing to Falme, seeing the Trolloc hordes, and immediately turning around again is great, isn't it?). The Eye's existence also distracts the Forsaken to a good extent, keeping Ishamael busy on a wild goose chase for the first three years of his freedom instead of scheming more effectively.

Rand’s throat rasped as if he had been screaming. “Why did you bring us here?”

Moiraine deserves so much respect for not screaming this chapter. So, so much respect.

“He guided us.” The hand that pointed to Mat was old and shriveled to scarcely human, lacking a fingernail and with knuckles gnarled like knots in a piece of rope. Mat took a step back, eyes widening. “An old thing, an old friend, an old enemy. But he is not the one we seek,” the green-cloaked man finished.

So to clear some things up, Aginor and Balthamel being least sealed bar Ishamael gave them some special privileges. The obvious one was the gift of aging, which boy did they deserve, but also they had more awareness of the world than the others, who spent their time in a dreamless sleep. As the Bore is not at Shayol Ghul but literally everywhere, they got awareness of everywhere. So they know about Shadar Logoth despite it postdating them by over a thousand years because their formless consciousness got a gander.

“The Light protect—” Loial began, his voice shaking, and cut off abruptly when Aginor looked at him. “The Forsaken,” Mat said hoarsely, “are bound in Shayol Ghul—”

RE: Belief and order give strength: Now that the old way of things is turning upside down, so too is belief harder to cling to even as it becomes a more reflexive safety net than ever.

Lan’s sword sprang from its scabbard too fast for Rand’s eye to follow. Yet the Warder hesitated, eyes flickering to Moiraine, to Nynaeve. The two women stood well apart; to put himself between either of them and the Forsaken would put him further from the other.

RE: Love is the death of duty: Wait wrong series sorry.

“No!” Rand called. “You can’t fight the Forsaken!” But they ran past him as if they had not heard, their eyes on Nynaeve and the two Forsaken.

Nynaeve, Egwene, Perrin, Mat: Fuck reason and fuck the inevitability of defeat, someone I care about is hurt and I'm gonna do something even if it's against the Forsaken!

Man prophecized to fight the Forsaken: no i'm smol.

I wonder how much of the trauma from this battle and how endangered everyone was while he stood by the sidelines plays into the hero complex of not letting anyone die for him he gets later. And for that matter, I wonder how much of his denial of his destiny is playing into his inability to be remotely useful in this battle.

He tried to help Egwene up, but she slapped his hands away and stood by herself, angrily brushing off her dress.

This does make good bookends with ghost Egwene telling Rand to fuck off in Shayol Ghul.

Aginor spared him a brief, contemptuous glance. “Begone! Your time is ended, all your kind but you long since dust. Live what life is left to you and be glad you are beneath our notice.”

It is immensely thematic that Someshta lives what life is left to him by choosing to fight the Shadow at the cost of that life and that something so beneath the notice of the Shadow fucks them up as badly as he does.

The Green Man threw the Forsaken down. Balthamel twisted and jerked as all the things that grew in the dark places, all the things with spores, all the things that loved the dank, swelled and grew, tore cloth and leather and flesh—Was it flesh, seen in that brief moment of verdant rage?—to tattered shreds and covered him until only a mound remained, indistinguishable from many in the shaded depths of the green forest, and the mound moved no more than they.

This is incredibly badass.

We again get the balance theming of things in that it's not the pretty, happy flowers of peace and love that destroy Balthamel but instead the carrion eating fungi.

I know we the fandom love to give Be'lal shit for going down like such a punk because he doesn't even come back, but in so many ways Balthamel deserves it even more for not managing to last half a chapter before going down. Be'lal did that much.

Stillness came. And an oak that could have stood five hundred years covered the spot where the Green Man had been, marking the tomb of a legend. Nynaeve lay on the gnarled roots, grown curved to her shape, to make a bed for her to rest upon. The wind sighed through the oak’s branches; it seemed to murmur farewell.

RIP you beautiful bastard.

“Not her!” Rand shouted. “The Light burn you, not her!” He snatched up a rock and threw it, meaning to draw Aginor’s attention. Halfway to the Forsaken’s face, the stone turned to a handful of dust.

Thank you Rand, for finally getting your shit together.

He hesitated only a moment, long enough to glance over his shoulder and see that Egwene was hidden in the trees. The flames still surrounded Aginor, patches of his cloak smoldering, but he walked as if he had all the time in the world, and the fire’s rim was near. Rand turned and ran. Behind him he heard Moiraine begin to scream.

Aginor's seen enough action movies to know how to walk away from an explosion. Have you? If not, you'll have plenty of time to catch up on your studies as I'll be taking another break day tomorrow now that we're finally in the exciting, climactic shit. But I will see you again!

[wot-tidbits]

Stats for the period of 22.01.2014-22.01.2024

And here they are, the stats of the blog after 10 years of sharing my WOT love with you. 

10 years!

Anniversary that it usually requires attention. So I did try to recollect my thoughts going through the memory lane and it grew up out of proportions for just one post. What a surprise. Not for me.

So in the following days I will post parts of this big Anniversary Project. Now I am leaving you this post to the bare bones of the traditional statistics.

Thank you for clicking on this piece of the Internet, fellow WoT nerds!

Let the Light keep you safe.

LightOne

And now the numbers

Followers  –  4396

Average number of followers per day/month – 1.20/36.63

Visits – 88,062

Average – 24.11 visits per day

Countries – 159

Here are TOP 10 of WOT art and photos posted by my blog.

Heron-Marked Warder Sword made by Brendan Olszowy by Fableblades

Various awesome art pieces by Gal Or (lightwaved)

Rand, Mat, Perrin, Nyneave and Egwene by Ariel Burgess

Bobby and banana for scale

Don’t share your secrets Randlanders! (Graph of conflict in WOT)

Rand alThor by reddera

Share a coke with Nyneave

Dance with Jak o’ the Shadows - Mat Cauthon by endave

Bela’s Garden

If you needed one more reason to love Brandon Sanderson

[wenamedthedogkylo]

!!! Thank you for the tag @plavoptice! Now I get to do that thing where I have to pick favorites and suddenly forget every show I've ever seen ever sdkjfhs

Only #1 is really a place of specific ranked honor here, everything else is just as I think of it. Some stuff is like "omg I LOVE that show it's one of my favorites!" and some stuff is more "I do tend to rewatch this a lot so I think that must count as a favorite of some kind lol".

Penny Dreadful (highkey the best show ever made imo, I'm still emo about it)

Hannibal

Tiger & Bunny (definitely my favorite anime of all time)

Good Omens

Over the Garden Wall (the way I rewatch this multiple times a year because I live on the vibes 😩)

The Boys

What We Do in the Shadows

The Sandman

Mike Flanagan's horror series (House of Usher, Midnight Mass, Hill House)*

Bob's Burgers

Futurama

Brooklyn 99

Jessica Jones (s1, never got around to s2)

Daredevil (also only s1, I think ADHD struck with the other seasons lol)

The Legend of Vox Machina (look they changed my standards for adult animated shows okay, it is what it is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

*I debated listing them all separately, but these shows like. Fundamentally shifted something inside me and they all stand pretty evenly in my heart, so it felt wrong to separate them just to pad out the list. I'm sure Bly Manor would be included, I just never finished it cuz ADHD hit me bad, but I will one of these days!

Ahhh now the really hard part, tagging folks! As always, tags are not legally binding—if you wanna do it, then yay! If you don't, that's chill too. And if you wanna do it but weren't tagged, consider this to be me tagging you!

@because-of-the-whimsy @the-fractured-god @anakinskvwalkcr @pankhearst @coffeespoonful @bi-the-way-drbloom @spontaneousmusicalnumber @deez-no-relation @avendesora-sedai @killabin999 @oingeaux-boingeaux @pingnova @raisingcain-onceagain @paperhatsandrabbits @frankensteins-mt-dew

"your top 15 favourite tv shows can say a lot about your personality!"

I got tagged by the wonderful @godotismissingx for this. honestly i don't know what they say about my personality, but i just picked 15 shows from the top of my head that i think i can rewatch under my current mood. they are indeed mostly murder and crime shows (yes i'm shallow like that).

besides three-body ranking #1, the rest aren't in any particular order. bold font = cdramas; italic = kdramas; regular = western shows. *means there's at least one gay ship that consumed my soul when i first watched the show LOLLOL.

Three-Body* (2023)

Day and Night* (2017)

Winter Begonia* (2020)

Original Sin* (2018)

The Long Night* (2020)

Chimera* (2021)

The King of Pigs (2022)

Kingdom* (2019-?)

Whitechapel* (2009-2013)

Fargo* (2014-2024/?)

Better Call Saul (2015-2022)

Poirot (1989-2013)

Spartacus* (2010-2013)

Dexter (2006-2013)

Mr. Robot* (2015 Season 1 only)

tagging @bahoreal @xinxiaojie @yohankang @zhivchik @a-very-fond-farewell @randomingoftherandomness only if you haven't done this and want to do it; also tagging any followers who want to do this.

[iviarellereads]

The Great Hunt, Chapter 33 - A Message from the Dark

(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.)

(Avendesora leaf icon) In which you scream, scream, scream.

PERSPECTIVE: Rand, following Hurin through the manor. Hurin found the trail, Mat's fine, but the Darkfriends with the Horn went into a garden, were followed by Trollocs, and none of them came back out. Rand's grateful Hurin is talking to him like a person again instead of a Lord. They find Loial and Mat, and Mat complains about having to pretend to be Rand's servant, but he hasn't sensed the dagger. He just feels like someone’s watching him all the time.(1)

They follow Hurin's trail, and Loial can sense the Waygate inside the space where the trail leads. They decide that Fain, the DFs, and Trollocs must have gone through the Ways. Mat sighs loudly and complains he doesn't want to walk the Ways again. Rand sends him to get Verin and Ingtar, then sneaks into the walled-off area. Hurin is afraid of the Waygate, and Rand opens it to prove it's fine, but Machin Shin is right behind it, and whispers evil creepy shit out at them. Rand grabs saidin by instinct, and it almost seems as if the Black Wind is coming out of the gate to get him.

Rand and Loial struggle together but manage to get the leaf-key back onto the Waygate and close it. Then Rand has to struggle to let go of saidin before it carries him away, and then he's left with the nausea. They climb back over the wall, and Mat appears, saying Verin told them to come up and they'll leave and make a new plan if they know where the things are. Rand hopes Verin has ideas, because he sure doesn't.

They meet up and make for the entrance hall, and Bart meets them, saying surely they can stay, or he can send an escort back to their inn, won't they favour him with their presence again, etc. As Verin confirms they cannot stay, Bart grabs Rand's sleeve. He was given a message, and after seeing all this tonight, maybe he'll deliver it after all. Rand hopes it's from Selene, but it's from someone mysterious who can only be Fain.(2)

“He says he will wait for you on Toman Head. He has what you seek, and if you want it, you must follow. If you refuse to follow him, he says he will hound your blood, and your people, and those you love until you will face him. It sounds mad, of course, a man like that saying he will hound a lord, and yet, there was something about him. I think he is mad—he even denied you are a lord, as any eye can plainly see—but there is still something. What is it he carries with him, with Trollocs to guard it? What is it you seek?” Barthanes seemed shocked at the directness of his own questions.(3) “The Light illumine you, Lord Barthanes.” Rand managed a bow, but his legs wobbled as he joined Verin and the others. He wants me to follow? And he’ll hurt Emond’s Field, Tam, if I don’t. He had no doubt Fain could do it, would do it. At least Egwene is safe, in the White Tower. He had sickening images of Trollocs descending in hordes on Emond’s Field, of eyeless Fades stalking Egwene. But how can I follow him? How?

Outside, Verin asks where it's being kept, and Rand says it's being taken to Toman Head. Verin says sharply that they'll talk of this later, and they ride in silence back to the inn. When they arrive, Perrin notices immediately that it didn't go well. Rand explains everything, and there's some discussion about what Machin Shin is and isn't, with Verin insisting it can't be commanded or controlled, despite what Rand witnessed.

Rand says he'll have to go to Toman Head for the Horn, he'll leave tomorrow. Loial says it's months of travel away. Will Fain really wait there for us? Oh yes, he'll wait, but Loial doesn't have to come. He says he does, though. He likes Rand, and he would even if he weren't ta'veren, or maybe he likes him despite it. But in either case, he's going with him. Mat says he has to go because of the dagger, and Perrin says he'll go because someone has to keep Mat out of trouble. Ingtar thinks it's foolishness, but Verin says some of the writing on the wall in Fal Dara after Fain's jailbreak did indicate a connection to Toman Head.

They must take the Ways, though, there's no time to travel overland. They'll go to Stedding Tsofu, nearby, they'll have a Waygate. She directs Ingtar to have the Shienarans ready to leave tomorrow, and they head out of the private room.

When they’re alone, Rand demands to know why Mat is declining so hard. Verin says the Healing must not have taken as well as they thought. He may only have weeks left before the sickness eats him alive, so Rand has reason for haste. Rand argues that he doesn’t need another spur in his side.

“And what of you, Rand al’Thor? Do you feel well? Do you fight it still, or have you yet surrendered to the Wheel?” “I ride with you to find the Horn,” he told her. “Beyond that, there is nothing between me and any Aes Sedai. Do you understand me? Nothing!” She did not speak, and he walked away from her, but when he turned to take the stairs she was still watching him, dark eyes sharp and considering.(4)

=====

(1) Remember when Rand was feeling that way, and it was Fain in the dungeon? Is that still the case, since he's not in the manor anymore, or is something else going on? (2) The message, of course, left as they were passing through with the Horn right under Bart's nose. (3) You recall that ta'veren shape fate around themselves? Encourage people who pass them by to tell more than they intend to tell, to give way to the tide of fate? (4) What do you think Verin might be thinking here? Do you trust her? She doesn't seem to have sabotaged the mission yet, but how much does that count for, this early, when we haven't seen inside her head?

[c01dwitch]

the wheel of time is something that can be so... French?

[badalijewelry]

Recently we had a request to make our official Avendesora Way of the Leaf pendant in fall colors instead of the usual green shades. 🍁🍂🍁

[rogue-rook]

some unanswered questions I have about wheel of time, of varying importance

are galad and berelain actually going to end up together

whether laman damodred was a darkfriend, influenced by ishamael sticking his fingers in the world and stirring shit around, or just the dumbest man alive by cutting down the avendesora tree

what was the point of the portal stones and the parallel worlds? they were only in one book in the early days and just never really came back. was that just for robby j to flex about how much effort he was putting into the worldbuilding?

what was the point of slayer as an antagonist? I could have done with either much more context for that or none of it at all but the amount we got was....confusing

will [redacted] get to become a hero of the horn for patching the balefire cracks in the pattern? or do channelers not get to be picked for that

obviously no more wheel of time books ever but my god I wish we could know if the seanchan are going to be redeemed

who was nakomi I mean really. avatar of the pattern? spirit of the jenn aiel? time traveler? the creator??? the author breaking the fourth wall??

how did rand light that pipe by willpower? extreme ta’varen-ness? the dream world bleeding over into the real world? control over the pattern? the author breaking the fourth wall? I feel like robby j really wanted to break the fourth wall

[readerbell]

Random musings from Chapter 50 of The Eye of the World.

Summary: The gang go into The Eye of the World. Aginor and Balthamel show up. The gang get outclassed. I understand more things than I did through the first read through but much is still unclear. Book spoilers up to Book 9 of The Wheel of Time: Winter’s Heart. TW: discussion of sexual threats and assault.

The Green Man

“The Green Man gave Rand an odd look, then shook his head. “Avendesora is not here…” Mat wants to see Avendesora. I can’t remember whether he even cared for it when he finally does. The Green Man, looking at clueless Rand, is probably wondering what has happened to the Aiel. Why does an Aielman not know where Avendesora is.

Omg! The Green Man feels his end is linked to The Eye? 😭 He seems to be speaking as if he knows he won’t live past this moment? 😭

“The greatest Aes Sedai works were always done so, joining saidin and saidar…” Rand 📝📝 📝 This whole thing is great for showing pre-Lews Rand what’s possible. Though small scale here, he sees cleansed Saidin is possible. Did the original Aes Sedai intend the pool for this purpose? No idea.

The Eye of the World

“They worked through the taint of the Dark One on saidin to make it, and make it pure, knowing that doing so would kill them all. Male Aes Sedai and female together.” No wonder Lan was so opposed to Rand’s plan to cleanse Saidin. Rand and Nynaeve were here too so they would’ve known the risk. Sure, our gang had the Choedan Kal but while Rand knew of their power thanks to Lanfear, Nynaeve didn’t truly understand just what the access keys could do. It was enough for her that Rand asked. That’s her baby. 😭

Moiraine describes The Eye of the World as having, “The Power to mend the seal on the Dark One’s prison, or to break it open completely.”

So why did Ishamael have such an elaborate plan to get them here? According to Google (I can Google things now 😉). Ishy intended for it to be used up before Tarmon Gai’don so that it couldn’t be used against the Dark One. According to other people, he intended to use it to break the seals but it was used up by Aginor, him & Rand battling it out. In other words, no one knows why The pool itself was so important.

As for why Aginor cared about The Eye, Robert Jordan apparently said Aginor wanted to use it so he could have access to Saidin that the Dark One doesn’t control/know about. It’s hardly surprising that the shady scientist would want to do secret shady sciency things without the Dark One knowing.

No one knows what Balthamel’s deal was. Did Aginor intend to sacrifice him? What even was Balthamel good for? Aginor might have had a terrible record in the Third Age but the man left his mark on the world…

“Moiraine no longer looked at the pool. She was watching Rand and his two friends, studying them, her eyes weighing.” Why? She must’ve known about Tam’s history by this point. Why does she look unsure here? Or is it Rand extrapolating his own feelings on her? #UnreliableNarrator

The two losers show up 🙄

Light fingered Mat’s dagger was a neon sign for Fain, Fades, and, it turns out, these two losers.

They knew they were looking for Rand immediately. Did Ballzy share intelligence with them or…?

“Like Ishamael, we walk the world again, and soon the rest of us will come…” So I should’ve picked up on the fact Ballzy was Ishy here. I didn’t. Lanfear had to spell it out for me.

“You will have no Lews Therin Kinslayer, this time. No Lord of the Morning to save you.” Give him a while, Aginor.

“Lan’s sword sprang from its scabbard too fast for Rand’s eye to follow. Yet the Warder hesitated, eyes flickering to Moiraine, to Nynaeve. The two women stood well apart; to put himself between either of them and the Forsaken would put him further from the other.” I can imagine poor Lan’s crisis. He broke up with Nynaeve (I mean if we can even call it that). He cares for her, he can see she’s in pain because of his words and now the life of this woman he cares for is at risk. The text tell us his feet moved. But to who?! I think he moved to Moiraine but the moment of hesitation is more than enough to raise anyone’s hackles about his changing loyalties. The Lan at the start of this book wouldn’t hesitate.

The gang vs Aginor & Balthamel

Lan is hurt. Nynaeve wails and GOES AT A FORSAKEN WITH NOTHING BUT HER BELT DAGGER 😭😭

Balthamel starts power handling Nynaeve. While Balthamel is the one holding her, Aginor talks about forgetting about the pleasures of flesh. Between Balthamel’s actions and Aginor’s words a wail breaks out of Nynaeve. I wondered why in her Accepted test Aginor appeared as one of her fears when Balthamel is the one who physically assaulted her. I suppose it’s Aginor’s words that struck the true fear in her. From Dagger Mat we know she thinks there needs to be a distinction between being a Wisdom and a pretty/desirable woman. These two touch on that but it’s Aginor’s words that make Balthamel’s physical threat a sexual one. That’s what sticks with her.

This brings me to what Egwene does to Nynaeve in tel’aran’rhiod. I’ve read the different opinions on how people read that scene. The reason why Egwene’s actions are so disgusting to me (and so many others) is that regardless of what Egwene intended, as readers we know Nynaeve is more terrified of sexual assault than she is of physical danger. It’s not just the dream monsters trying to eat her that’s so scary, it’s the fact that she doesn’t know whether they will eat her or kiss her. The fact that they tore open her dress increases her fear of the latter. Egwene might not know all of Nynaeve’s fears but her intention doesn’t matter so much as it’s effects. Nynaeve never mentions it again and focuses on the disgusting drink Egwene threatens her with. There are two ways to read that: she suppresses the memory of the assault (after all she spends so much of Fires of Heaven terrified and confused about her place in the world and her changing dynamic with Egwene) OR RJ didn’t fully understand the implications of the way he wrote the assault.

Anyway, book 1 Egwene is not half as callous as her future self & even in that mode, I’m sure Egwene would still risk her life for others. She goes at The Forsaken. Rand stops her. My dears Perrin and Mat attack them, because that’s their Wisdom.

Aginor makes the same mistake Moggy does later. He threatens a Two Rivers resident with debasement. “Perhaps he could not fight the Forsaken—no ordinary human could—but he would not let them believe for a minute that he was groveling before them.” So either Rand is deceiving himself here (he seems to understand he had something to do with what happened back in Four Kings but chose to ignore it) or he understands he can do something, just not enough to fight a Forsaken OR it’s The Two Rivers stubbornness peeking through. I think it’s a little of all three.

DRIP (don’t rest in peace) Balthamel. Rest well, Someshta. :(

Someshta is the best. 😭 “Nynaeve lay on the gnarled roots, grown curved to her shape, to make a bed for her to rest upon. The wind sighed through the oak’s branches; it seemed to murmur farewell.” Even in his dying throes, he looked after the comfort of another.

Egwene. 😭 “It was not fear that held her, he realized. She was trying to throw her puny, untrained wielding of the Power against the Forsaken.” She tries.

Rand tells Egwene to run & then turns to the Eye.

“Behind him he heard Moiraine begin to scream.” I wonder if getting so throughly defeated by Aginor is what inspired Moiraine to go on her knowledge gathering retreat. She goes from Mistress womp-womp here to the bad ass we see in The Dragon Reborn. Either way, I’m glad she realised she needs to fix up. Throwing a bunch of scared kids at the problem might have worked out but it wasn’t without its dangers. 😭

[christophernolan]

Rip to the waygate using good old Avendesora to open rather than the one power 🥴