#for tuon's name

[butterflydm]

Mat & Tuon

[starry-carrousel]

Posting the girls on this beautiful Flower Thursday

Read Flower if you haven’t already!

[amemoryofwot]

Tuon I think would be very assuming and assured in Berelain’s “cooperation” for their arranged marriage because like, what else would she be, coming from such a tiny city-state against such an empire, plus the omens are surely in her favour, but there would be a time Berelain would get the upper hand without her realizing and Berelain would just reach over and pat her hand like “remember, dear wife, you are also married to me :)”

[highladyluck]

as a special treat because I'm sick my therapist asked me 'what's the name of the female character you've been talking about' and I got to explain Tuon Name Lore for 10 minutes

[markantonys]

egwene leaving the meeting with tuon to return to "where gawyn waited for her" is so funny because why in god's name would the amyrlin's warder not have been plastered right to her side to guard her during a face-to-face meeting with the Head Channeler Enslaver? especially when mat and a bunch of other people were in attendance? where is gawyn's invite? why did he walk up to the meeting with egwene and tell her how much he doesn't like the idea of working with the seanchan, disappear, and then get collected by her at the end?

i can only conclude that he was narratively forbidden from attending because sanderson knew that there is no universe in which gawyn would not go apeshit and bloodknife tuon for talking to egwene like that. egwene is levelheaded enough to keep her cool in the face of tuon's shit, but gawyn is 30% impulse, 70% loving egwene, and 0% self-preservation, so he Would Not Hesitate. so sanderson decided to solve that "problem" by just quietly removing gawyn from the premises until tuon is gone (and mat too, because you know gawyn would've beat mat's ass for that gross line about how he's going to spank egwene if she doesn't start being civil to her former enslavers). i say "problem" because gawyn bloodknifing tuon would actually be the opposite of a problem, and in fact would be the sexiest thing done by anybody ever in all of WOT.

[toastandjamie]

Tuon naming Mat ‘Knotai’ is something I think about a lot, because names in the Wheel of Time do have meaning and hint at personality and future events. So I often think about what it means to post-Tarmengedon Westlands that Mat, an ex-Ta’veren, one of the great generals of the age, the Seanchen prince of the Ravens, a child of Manethran, is named Knotai. Destruction; ruin.

Tuon gives us a pretty clear interpretation when she names him of the two paths the pattern may weave for Mat post-tarmengedon. He’ll either bring about death and destruction to the enemies of the Empress, a weapon Tuon can wield and point at any who oppose her. Or he’ll spell ruin for the Seanchen empire, burning it to ash with only the light knowing if they’ll rise from the ashes better for it or if Mat will salt the earth and leave the Empire unable to ever rebuild. And well, both are likely, to most people Mat is unpredictable, he is chaos. There’s many reasons might turn on Tuon though it’s unlikely that he’d hurt her physically unless he’s forced to. The type of thing that could convince Mat to do the whole, salt the earth type scenario are things like Tuon breaking the dragons peace to attack the white tower again or if they had a channeler child and Tuon chose to collar them. Or if Tuon got assassinated I could see Mat murking the members of the High Blood responsible creating a power vacuum on accident. Not to mention Moghedian lurking around Seanchen, potentially scheming for her revenge against our protagonists. In short, Mat is one bad day away from becoming a real god of death like Odin and starting his own little ragnarok.

[jackoshadows]

I keep reading about how the Sul’dam/Damane stuff is more brutal on the show and so there is no way the show is going to do the Mat/Tuon stuff.... when it's pretty much exactly this in the books!

Yes, actually seeing on screen what is done to Egwene (And give Madeleine Madden all the acting awards!) shows us how evil these fuckers are, however, they were just as evil in the books!

This is the Seanchan. This is what they do to channelers. In the books, Egwene was not even allowed to keep her name. They torture, they enslave and treat channelers like animals. This is why they are one of the most hated factions in the books.

Tuon is a terrible person and everything that happens with Mat and Tuon in the books makes him a terrible person - when he knows what was done to Egwene and others like her.

So yes, if we do end up getting Tuon on this show, it's better the show goes in a different direction where Mat and Tuon are concerned. Unless Tuon has entirely different characterization and the show manages to disconnect her from the actions of these slavers. Or they have Mat actually repudiate the actions of the Seanchan.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Saw someone say that the wheel of time show has nothing in common with the books and this is. So not correct.

If you want to see what a show looks like when it has nothing to do with the source material, watch Netflix’s take on the witcher. That’s what happens when not only do the people adapting it not care about the source material but the showrunner actually has stated on record that she dislikes the source material. The witcher on Netflix fucked it up so bad that the lead actor, a huge fan of the source material, walked after three seasons. (I have been informed he actually left due to onset conflicts and instances of being misogynistic to his coworkers. Still a bad adaptation but I rescind this point) Pretty sure the entire country of Poland has disavowed this adaptation and the author wants Nothing to do with it.

The wheel of time is the total opposite. It is Extremely clear that the people working on it and the showrunner love the source material.

This production is running off a shoestring budget. Amazon put most of their high fantasy money into the rings of power (and the effects for the volcano eruption). And rather than being given enough seasons to adapt the entire book series, they’ve been given 8. To adapt 14 Extremely long and complicated books. How many named characters are there in the wheel of time?? Over 3000.

They are being given a very short time frame to accomplish a LOT of plot. Of course they’re going to cut stuff. Of course they’re going to combine characters. Season 2 is covering both books II and III! But they are focusing on the arcs of all the major characters and making sure they are set up for all their major character beats, and setting up the power players and institutions that matter in the larger geopolitical conflicts of randland. Sometimes that means making one character have later parts of their own plots sooner than it takes in the books (Moiraine and Mat in particular so far).

There are a lot of people saying it’s a bad adaptation mostly because a. They’ve made any changes from the books at all and b. Too many characters are gay now. Admittedly most of the people complaining about the adaptation having too many gay characters and nonwhite actors are on Reddit, but still. Both of these are of course nonsense. Of course you have to make changes in making Any adaptation of any book but trying to do the wheel of time in 8 seasons is a Herculean task. That’s why RJ made it 14 books, he tried to do it in less and failed cause he was an adhd king.

Rafe and the other writers have their own particular interpretations of characters but they Are interpreting the original work in a way that holds all the core themes. This season in particular is doing a great job so far of establishing the threat of the seanchan and the trauma of when channelers are cut off from the one power, both of which will of course be central focuses of the rest of the narrative for all of our main characters. I’m Really looking forward to the introduction of the Aiel this season as well.

Also if you’re mad there’s so many queer characters Come The Fuck On. Siuaraine is book canon, go reread New Spring. And I think making the polycule an actual polycule instead of a Mormon sisterwife situation is a fucking Brilliant choice. Making polyamory overtly present in the world already with Alanna and her warders is so good! And given they’re already coding Min as bi I have high hopes for Aviendha and Elayne as well (and also Mat, Mat should join the polycule I am crossing my fingers and toes like I know he’s probably gonna marry Tuon still but Come On he deserves to be in the polycule). If there is one thing I trust Rafe and co. to do well with this adaptation it’s the queer stuff.

Like I get it I’m also sad Uno had to die to make the Seanchan look more badass (r.i.p. my favorite foul mouthed bastard). But they have to make changes in the course of adaptation and if your criticism is just ‘they changed something,’ then please look at the holistic context of the changes, and accept that every adaptation of every book will make changes in order to translate the story to film.

[theravennest]

Gonna get something off my chest...

I am mostly loving the WOT adaptation as a book reader and the last episode was certainly one of the best of the series but this last episode also did something that I don't see anyone talking about so I will, as both a show enjoyer and a Black book reader.

I think the optics of having Ryma be a darkskin Black woman is not great given how her story ends and how prevalent the colorism in the show casting has been so far.

They should have cast the actress as a different character and picked someone else for this role.

**Book Spoilers**

Like, Ryma's story is that she gets taken and enslaved as a damane alongside Egwene and is never set free all the way to the end of the series. So having the hopeless enslavement story done by Ryma as a brutal, violent contrast and foil to Egwene's eventually liberated enslavement story is kinda in poor taste. Egwene, who is not Black and who is lightskin.

Especially since Ryma's character was not Black in the books so they specifically racebent her when casting Nyokabi for the role.

IDK, it feels especially icky because most of the other named darkskin Black people so far in the show have been evil/villains/antagonists. Edit: The only "good" ones have been Elyas, who is a wolfbrother and Ihvon, both men. The only darkskin women so far have been completely unnamed or one off characters and we still have Tuon coming up.

There is already a colorism problem with the show's casting and they go and do this. If they had done a better job at fixing the colorist casting earlier they could've mitigated this but here we are.

It's just not a good look tbh.

I can only hope that they change Ryma's story some but then the narrative purpose of Ryma/Pura would be lost. Only other option is to lean into casting more good female characters who have hefty storylines with darkskin Black performers. idk...

I'm loving the show, truly, but this is so glaring and weird and I need the show to do better in this one aspect.

[swordofsun]

Don't be sad. Remember that Rafe said Liandrin won't be combined with any other characters, Elaida has been cast, Alviarin will probably show up towards the end of s3, and Moghedien and Graendal have been name dropped. There are so many unhinged, antagonistic, or just down right evil women coming to our screens.

Also Tuon will be coming. Where ever you want to put her on the evil scale.

We will have an embarrassment of riches in the morally grey to evil side of women.

[butterflydm]

poll: hidden ta'veren

Organized alphabetically.

Jordan said that none of the 'main' female characters were ta'veren, but did not rule out the secondary/tertiary female characters.

Some characters ruled out for the poll because they spent significant time around Siuan and/or Logain (who both have the Talent of seeing ta'veren), ex. Min, Moiraine.

[sixth-light]

WoT 2x08 thoughts

WoT s2 really, I haven't got to blog the season like I would have wanted because (checks notes) everybody in this household has been sick for a month and counting (do not recommend). No order here, just things as I think of them, full series book spoilers possible:

They really did stick the landing on this season for me, as well as line everything up so neatly for next season. I think S2 is really going to reward a rewatch.

Particularly re:Lanfear. I literally choked when she walked up to Bayle Domon and started talking about the pieces of cuendillar she'd sold him. I know the Dark Prophecy is probably still legit because we flashed back to Ishamael reciting it as he released her BUT ALSO I am now imagining her lying on her bed surrounded by screwed-up drafts as she tries to make it sufficiently ominous.

The Forsaken shenanigans this season have just smashed it out of the park and we only had two of them. I presume we're going to highlight one or two a season for practical purposes (and ofc TSR/TFoH are the Moghedien-Nynaeve books) so I reckon next season we mostly get Moghedien and...I guess Asmodean if we're doing that plotline at all?

Man I so liked my "evil Seanchan/less evil Seanchan" theory but the way they ruthlessly killed off every named Seanchan character this episode (yes we didn't see Suroth and Alwhin's bodies, but that seemed pretty fatal, they explicitly did NOT show any ships getting away) says to me that they want to put that plotline on ice until the Corenne and Tuon arrive. It could still work but we'd have to introduce more Seanchan nobles to make it happen...or...they could make the whole Extremely Dysfunctional Imperial Family dynamic real by having one or more of Tuon's siblings tag along. That was a very tell-not-show element of the books and then rendered irrelevant by Semirhage murdering all of them at once.

Extremely out-there theory: the way they're focusing on Moghedien being 'insane' and having Lanfear refer to the rest of the Forsaken as 'the boys' and being visibly wary of Moggy...what if they merge Moghedien and Semirhage? After all, Moggy goes after the Sad Bracelets first even if Semirhage is the one who uses them...

THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP as that gifset going around demonstrates, this really was the theme of the season. I continue to love how much these kids love each other (and the lingering fear the show has planted that it won't matter, because look where Lews Therin and Ishamael and Lanfear ended up...). Totally bought that they would all just roll with running into each other like that when there was a clear and present threat.

Rand is still so much in his 'just trying to protect my friends' era, poor kiddo, we're going to see that get more and more worn away as the Pattern forces him into bigger and bigger confrontations.

MAT, goddamn, his story took a bit of time to get moving but looking back all the pieces are there. Everything about the knife-on-a-stick sequences was just. fjlkfsdjklfsadjlkfsd. Amazing foreshadowing AND a funny and effective piece of storytelling in the moment. Particularly enjoyed the use of the dagger to open the box with the Horn.

Re: Min's vision: I'm thinking that at some point next season someone will report back to her what actually happened and we're going to see an arc with her learning about her own power and realising that her visions can be partial or metaphorical.

Man I hope Egwene gets lots of nice things next season because this one has been (not unexpectedly) brutal. Completely on board with her killing Renna. I wonder if they're getting rid of the 'sparker/learner' distinction in the show, given what she said to Renna about sul'dam just being very weak in the Power. I also wonder what 'very weak' actually means coming from Egwene, who canonically in the show can hold up against a Forsaken for some length of time (another change I am fine with).

Fascinating to think about Perrin in 2x08, straight-up killing Geofram Bornhald for killing Hopper, vs Perrin in 1x08 deliberately choosing pacifism. I don't actually mind that they gave him some unquestionable culpability here; in the books it was always SO obvious he wasn't in the wrong that it felt silly.

Relatedly, I think what's going on with Nynaeve (to the extent that anything is, she certainly didn't suffer for screentime this season) is that like Perrin her PERSONAL plot actually stalls out around book 8-9 - they're slowburning her block storyline for the same reasons they're slowburning his Wolfbrother one, I reckon. I wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't heal stilling until much later in the show than the equivalent of book 6.

I didn't even notice that we left all the White Tower-related plotlines behind entirely this episode until I got to writing this post. FASCINATED to see where we pick up with Verin, Alanna, Siuan, et al next season...not to mention Liandrin

I haven't even talked about Aviendha! She hasn't had a lot to do beyond be introduced/introduce the concept of the Maidens and the Car'a'carn but it was solid set-up for next season and in line with how much she actually had to do in TDR.

My one big lingering question for this season is whether Ingtar isn't a Darkfriend on the show or whether he IS and they decided that his verbal confession wouldn't happen/work in the show and left it as a subtextual easter egg for book readers. I think both positions are arguable from the text, I'm curious what the intent was.

[asha-mage]

Randland World Leaders - Do they know the price of a banana apple?

Morgase Trakand - No, but she could get it in the right neighborhood if asked. Understands the economic influences that affect prices and knows roughly where Andor's sit at any given time.

Elayne Trakand - Pre world travels? Not with a gun to her head. She wouldn't give a false guess though, just avoid the question rather then admit ignorance. Post world travels she knows the prices of most common food stuffs for Andor and all of it's immediate neighbors with scary accuracy.

Rand al'Thor - Yes. One of the first things Rand does after taking over Tear is familiarize himself with tax policies and food production and grain trade. He is a farm boy at heart and has Powerful Opinions on cost of living.

Perrin Abyara - Nope. He thinks he does, but in reality he names the price of apples he paid aka, pre adventure. He knows that prices in general have gone up but if you tried to sell him an apple he would get offended when you wouldn't take the same price he paid prior to half a dozen kingdoms going to war, and the endless summer choking out trade. He wouldn't say anything though and just assume you where trying to squeeze a few coins out of him because he's dressed like some 'idiot lord'.

Faile- Yes. She knows exactly the price of apples grown in the Two Rivers and knows that it's out competing the neighboring provinces apples by a good margin. Does this have something to do with her threatening local officials to ensure they don't try to hard to compete with Two Rivers food prices? Maybe, but it's nothing Perrin can prove she did. HE dosen't know the price of apples.

Siuan Sanche - Apples? No. Fish? Yes. Siuan could tell you the price of every fish in the market at Tar Valon and what will be cheaper next month based on yields out of the south. This is not for economic reasons, it's because she still eats fish for 3 meals out of 4.

Berelain - Nope. She has economic advisers who she pays to know that. Her skill and perk points all went into Foreign Policy and Espionage, not Economics.

Alliandre - The price of apples keeps Alliandre up at night staring at her bedroom ceiling, fearing for her life. It turns out having a religious tyrant running rampart around your kingdom burning down farms and causing skyrocketing inflation by assaulting trade routes and exacting inconsistent 'tithes' on merchants will make you VERY familiar with the economic conditions of the common man. Every time the price of apples goes up a silver mark, Alliandre makes her food taster check her meals an extra time.

Tuon - Yes. Always good to know the price of local cyanide containing fruits, just in case.

Elaida - "It's an apple Alviarin? How much can it cost? 10 gold marks?"

[wizardofbones]

name your favorite oc GO (and why if you would like to elaborate)

Oh, that's so hard! So I'm going to do a copout!

Tgeta is my favorite conceptually. I didn't do a good job of characterizing them when they were in use,but hive minds are awesome, and their tragic backstory (which I will elaborate on if asked) had the opportunity, imo, to be very compelling.

Gleam is the funnest. I really like those kinds of villain so much, and even though they can be really hard to play effectively, if you do its delightful.

Tuon is the one who I'm currently most interested in writing for. (I also have plans to maybe kill him with an ion cannon once he completes his arc, because I like making people suffer >:3)

I like Blake for the pure thrill of literally never rolling below a 20 on telling if someone is lying.

[highladyluck]

The Finn stole my baby AU

ok FINE you can all have the Eelfinn Stole My Baby in outline form

I've never pinned down the details on this, because I think it would be most interesting as an installment in a larger series and a lot of the details would be determined by the needs of the overall storyline, but this is the vague outline:

1) Fortuona has just found out from Min that her kid's going to be a marath'damane. Because a) SOME IDIOT (maybe Mat, maybe Berelain if they're on speaking terms, there's some other options depending on the scenario) made the mistake of telling her about Sindhol in some way that makes her actually believe in it, b) she's a slut for prophecy and always has been, and c) she wants to explore all her options, she wants to go to Sindhol to get some answers from the Aelfinn. The questions she intends to ask vary by setting but it's something along the lines of how to survive the current situation/protect her marath'damane child/solve the sul'dam problem/ensure stability of the Empire in the westlands/how best to reconquer mainland Seanchan. You know! #FortuonaProblems. Mat eventually agrees to escort her; both to get in, since the only way in right now is the Tower of Ghenji, and to get out.

2) But because they're going in outside of treaty rules and Mat's there, the Eelfinn are the ones waiting for them and they won't let Fortuona go see the Aelfinn (maybe they say that they won't see Mat, but they will see her, if she agrees to be escorted alone. Mat's almost like "oh, over my dead body" but catches himself just in time.) Whatever deal Fortuona makes with the Eelfinn involves something she can use to solve her existing political problems (not sure what this is but it could be something horrible, like a better male a'dam), and something for Mat (maybe a magic replacement eye?). The third item is either something else for her, something else for Mat, or a very thoroughly rules-lawyered escape clause, depending on how confident Mat was/she is about being able to escape with the ashandarai. In exchange, they take her about-to-be-born-child, which she either explicitly names as the price, or is counting on them taking as the price.

3) At least they're not gonna eat the kid; the Eelfinn want a human child who can channel to build them new treaty doors someday, and if the human child is raised by them and therefore on their side, so much the better. They're also thrilled to get another piece of Mat. I figure the Eelfinn would want the savor of Mat and Tuon fighting about this, so while there's a possibility that the world's least hygenic c-section happens before Mat cottons on to what Tuon just bargained away, I think it would be more likely that they don't strike until the price is explicit or Mat has figured it out.

Tuon's like "I understand that you're upset but it's better this way. I came to solve a problem. It's not solved the way I intended, but it's solved and I got you an incredible boon in the bargain. We can always have more children."

Mat's like "Yeah, well, you aren't having them with me! You're a monster for unilaterally trading our child to my eldritch enemies."

She's like "If I'm a monster, so are you. As soon as you found out she would be marath'damane you began setting plans in motion to take her from her destiny. From the empire. From me. Don't think I haven't noticed. At least in this situation, I'm getting something out of it that benefits both of us."

4) I honestly don't entirely know what happens next, but it's bad. Unstoppable force (Mat's desire to rescue women & his love of Tuon) meets immovable object (said woman/Tuon just betrayed him and his innocent child to his worst enemies). Would he just leave Tuon there? (maybe?) Would he try to trade Tuon's life for the baby's? (I like this because I like pain and I think he might be deranged enough in the moment to do it) Would he try to trade his life for the baby's? (maybe, but they wouldn't accept it.) Would he try to kill all the Eelfinn? (yes, and they'd still take the baby.) Like how the fuck do you recover from any of that? And the worst part is you can like… sort of see where Tuon is coming from, if you enjoy women's wrongs? And she really just wanted to meet the Aelfinn and it's Mat's fault that it isn't going as planned?

5) If there's a sequel, it would be the fully grown child showing up in their world with a terrifying knowledge of esoteric ter'angreal construction and thoroughly socialized as a *Finn some improbably short amount of time later. Maybe when Elayne and Mat mount a rescue mission in a few months. Time runs differently in Sindhol if the *Finn need it to.

Bonus: I'm still debating adding a variant of this to the epilogue of The Fox That Makes The Ravens Fly- for one thing, I haven't decided yet if Tuon is pregnant, and if she is, by whom. If I do it'll be Rand who tells her about the Aelfinn & Thom who tells her about the Eelfinn, she'll go in with Thom and someone else (Elayne, I think, in exchange for access to the dice-ring ter'angreal that replicates Mat's luck, also Elayne would love to go on that field trip, although I could see Min being interested for the metaphysics of it all), and the ostensible point is to rescue Moiraine. I think instead of that, she negotiates getting Mat back, at the cost of leaving her baby with them, and resetting the timeline so Mat never died and the canon events where Moiraine gets rescued happen, but she remembers the old timeline. I have no idea if the *Finn actually get to keep her baby, who may or may not be a sparker in this scenario, or for that matter if they get to keep Moiraine, but I bet they'd take the bargain regardless because they invested a lot in Mat & also now Tuon has some weird fucking emotions about the entire life she didn't lead. Also they're the fae, the only thing they like more than bargain eyeballs is bargain babies.

[markantonys]

amol chapters 38-end. the final recap!!

egwene talking to rand 😭😭😭 “fool. her voice in his head. fond, but sharp. am i not allowed to be a hero too?” i cried! “let go, rand. let us die for what we believe, and do not try to steal that from us. you have embraced your death. embrace mine.” 😭😭😭😭

rand finally releases The List (which sanderson makes sure to tell us again is now gender-inclusive lmao) i always hated The List, but seeing it used in a meaningful way and transformed from a List Of Fridged Women For Manpain to a representation of rand learning to let people make their own decisions and not feel responsible for what they choose was Very Nice! “ilyena was last. we are reborn, rand thought, so we can do better the next time. [someone else speaking - egwene, i assume, or dare i wonder if it’s ilyena herself?] so do better.” 😭😭

“mat forced down his grief. that wasn’t what lan would have wanted. instead, mat raised his ashandarei. ‘tai’shar malkier!’ he screamed with all the force he could. ‘lan mandragoran, you bloody wonderful man! you did it!’” 😭😭

and i finally get to the iconic “it was not about me. it’s never been about me! it was about them all.” 😭😭😭😭 let’s break down the Them All that it was about.

“it was about a woman, torn and beaten down, cast from her throne and made a puppet - a woman who had crawled when she had to. that woman still fought.” genuinely absolutely no idea who this is referring to jkjfg my first thought was morgase but she doesn’t feel important enough to be included in this exclusive list. siuan? but rand might have seen that she’s dead and not still fighting. lord above let it not be tuon lmao

“it was about a man that love repeatedly forsook, a man who found relevance in a world that others would have let pass them by. a man who remembered stories, and who took fool boys under his wing when the smarter move would have been to keep on walking.” thom!

“it was about a woman with a secret, a hope for the future. a woman who had hunted the truth before others could. a woman who had given her life, then had it returned.” moiraine!

“it was about a man whose family was taken from him, but who stood tall in his sorrow and protected those he could.” upon first read i thought this one was lan and was laughing my ass off that perrin was not included in this list, but this could also be perrin i guess.

“it was about a woman who refused to believe that she could not help, could not heal those who had been harmed.” nynaeve!

“it was about a hero who insisted with every breath that he was anything but a hero.” mat! okay but rand calling everyone just “a man” or “a woman” but calling mat alone a HERO 😭😭 that’s his husband!

“it was about a woman who would not bend her back while she was beaten, and who shone with the light for all who watched. including rand.” egwene!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭

i really want that one to be lan and not perrin because god it would be so hilarious if rand didn’t even include perrin here, seeing as perrin is still sleeping jkjfkgj same energy as the end of that one lotr movie when all frodo’s friends are coming to his bedside and he beams and greets each of them by name and then legolas steps in and frodo just kinda stares at him and says nothing

“the son of battles. i will take him. i will take them all, adversary.” the dark one threatening MAT SPECIFICALLY in an attempt to scare rand 😭😭😭😭 everybody knows they’re married!!!! and then mat hears rand’s voice in his mind FIRST before everybody else on the battlefield is able to hear it!!! psychologically connected husbands!!!!!

lan is still alive [pretends to be shocked] man show-haters have absolutely NO call to be shitting on nynaeve’s “fakeout death” in 1x08 when the books have the following fakeout deaths and/or real deaths that were reversed by balefire:

mat (x3)

lan

moiraine

aviendha

galad

numerous forsaken

arguably faile in this book

arguably elayne after the gholam

RAND!!! (still to come)

and i’m positive there are more that i didn’t come up with off the top of my head

it’s at the point where there are so many fakeout deaths (in this book alone!) that i feel genuinely cheated that egwene’s and gawyn’s had to stick when no one else’s did! also, it feels kinda scummy to neatly kill off both of one married couple and everyone else gets to live and doesn’t have to lose their partner. not that i WANTED lan to die for real and devastate nynaeve, but it just feels...........i don’t know, kind of unfair. like some kind of reverse “pair the spares” jkjfg particularly since egwene/gawyn was set up as the only romance that wouldn’t follow the heteronormative Babies Ever After route and would instead remain focused on their careers. almost like their survival is not as ~important~ since they aren’t interested in settling down and starting a family and being parents (which is kind of exactly what nynaeve told egwene after her test for the shawl, that people who have families are more important/care more about the world). tho i guess lanaeve hasn’t really had any babies on the brain, besides during nynaeve’s accepted test, and perrin and faile haven’t really either, although in discussions of heirs they did make it clear they’re intending to have kids. aha, i’ve cracked it: it’s because all the other romantic relationships involve one or both parties being a monarch who requires hereditary heirs, whereas that’s not the case for egwene and gawyn. so they can both get killed off because they don’t need to live long enough to have babies 🙄

i, personally, love Babies Ever After and want most of my ships to have babies all the time, however, it just feels sus that the only major character deaths are also two halves of the only couple that wasn’t set up to have babies. i was so obsessed with the energy of gawene being a childfree power couple who dote on avirandlayne’s kids and give them the best presents (because they are the cool childfree aunt and uncle who are rich and travel a lot since they don’t have kids) but don’t want kids themselves. i want that vision dammit!!!!! what i would’ve done is kill off perrin but have faile already be pregnant so she can have her heir. single mom faile would’ve been incredible to see!

okay, back on topic

olver blows the horn. hmmmmm. it does seem that it would’ve been logistically impossible to get it to mat in time (tho they could’ve just had egwene bring it from the tower to merrilor in the first place. actually why the hell DIDN’T she do that?) and it makes decent enough sense that mat dying would’ve severed him from the horn. but it just feels super lame that “mat has to blow the horn at the last battle” has been A Thing for 13 books and then actually he didn’t have to lmao this is ALL the more reason to give the horn to perrin in the show since mat doesn’t even fucking do anything with it anyway! perrin saw them steal the horn in 1x08, he’ll be on the hunt for it in s2 while mat is doing his book 3 plotline instead, and he needs more to do while mat needs less (at the last battle specifically and also in general), so giving him the horn would be perfect. and would tie in nicely with faile being the one to fetch the horn in the last battle!

birgitte returns and saves elayne! i am getting tired of how many times elayne has needed saving in recent books, but this was a cool moment nonetheless.

when tam helps mat out during the battle “tam al’thor, mat thought, i’m going to bloody send you my best pair of boots. light burn me, but i will.” he loves his father-in-law!!

narishma is definitely on my list of “minor characters i’ll be disproportionately mad if the show cuts” jkfjg he’s the only asha’man i’ve ever cared about, i love him!

the heroes of the horn to mat: “it is fitting, as lews therin did save your life both times.” “remember him. i have seen you murmur that you fear his madness, but all the while you forget that every breath you breathe - every step you take - comes at his forbearance. your life is a gift from the dragon reborn, gambler. twice over.” ROMANCE!!!! the heroes of the horn ship cauthor!!

“we can fight for you because of [rand’s banner], gambler, and because the dragon leads you” power couple!!!!!!

noal is a hero of the horn and saves olver!!! i did not care about noal when he was alive, i did not care about noal when he died, but this moment got me!

“i’m not bloody staying behind now. the babes are all right. i’m riding. my soldiers think i’m dead. our lines are breaking, our men dying. they have to see me to know that there is still hope...if they have ever needed their queen, this is the moment. nothing short of the dark one could stop me from returning now.” 👏👏👏

“you’re not my warder any longer. but you’re still my friend. will you ride with me?” “stubborn fool.” “i’m not the one who just refused to stay dead. together?” “together.” ❤️

absolutely no idea why elayne uses a sword that she has no idea how to use to lead the charge instead of channeling lmao she’s like “oh it’s more effective for the soldiers to see my fighting with a sword” no???? them seeing her riding a horse and channeling, as she’d been doing for the entire battle, would be just fine. sanderson just loves to find excuses to make elayne look incompetent i guess.

mat makes use of the zombies from zombietown!! that was neat

the seanchan spy was actually moghedien in disguise, whoa!

“[the plants rand is making grow] had come right where [aviendha] needed them to hide her approach. happenstance? she chose to believe otherwise. she could feel him, in the back of her mind. he fought, a true warrior. his battle lent her strength, and she tried to return the same. determination. honor. glory. fight on, shade of my heart. fight on.” ROMANCE!!!!! 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️ rand makes plants grow for aviendha and sun shine for elayne, but he doesn’t do shit for min jkdjfgkh it’s ridiculous how irrelevant min and min/rand is in this entire book. like i was actually JARRED when she showed up at the end and was treated as part of elayne and avi’s Rand Love Interest Unit lmao

rhuarc (under compulsion) attacks aviendha and she kills him, alas!!!

“strength, aviendha. rand’s determination filled her, radiating from the bond at the back of her mind. she looked up and felt all fatigue leave her, all distractions vanish.” ❤️❤️❤️ that “strength, aviendha” is probably just her own thoughts, but i choose to believe it was rand talking to her in her mind.

“mat saw elayne’s banner glowing above them in the sky, crafted of the one power, and caught a glimpse of someone who looked like her riding among the soldiers, hair glowing as if lit from behind her. she seemed a bloody hero of the horn herself.” ROMANCE!!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ one last matlayne crumb for the road! one last elayne’s hair glowing in a conveniently-placed light source for the road! one last “tuon wishes mat would describe her like this in his narration” for the road! a bloody hero of the horn herself!!!! this man is IN LOVE!!!!!

“he did not go looking for [tuon], though. he had a feeling that she would expect him to perform his princely duties, whatever they might be. only...he did feel that strange tugging inside. getting stronger and stronger.” mat literally thinking “i do not want to go back to my wife because she will force me into the unwanted duties of my heterosexual marriage, and also i feel a tugging inside pulling me back to my very close male friend.” the “queer mat being forced through conversion therapy by tylin and tuon in order to make him a good heterosexual husband” interpretation of his arc simply writes itself!

“blood and bloody ashes, rand, mat thought. i’ve done my part. you do yours. amaresu’s words returned to him. each breath you take is at his forbearance, gambler...” my heart!! he decides to go help rand because of all the times rand helped him!!!!

mat deciding to go to rand: “my soul says i’m a fool” but he’s still going because his soul also says that rand is his soulmate!!

mat sends hawkwing to talk to tuon, but we don’t see the conversation, so i’m free to imagine that it went something like “what are you?” “an idiot sandwich” (although hawkwing did hate aes sedai and love conquering, so he might be down with the seanchan agenda for all i know smh)

perrin finally wakes up! last time we saw him was 200 pages ago, and even that was just the brief scene in the last battle chapter where he woke up in mayene and everyone told him to go back to sleep.

“if there was ever a time to push yourself, this is it...today, you just keep working until it’s done.” “but if i collapse...” “then you gave it your all.” “i could fail because i’ve run myself out of strength.” “then at least you didn’t fail because you held back.” this sets up perrin’s death perfectly! there’s a whole thing about how he always holds himself back bc he’s afraid of his own strength, so we could’ve had him finally go apeshit in this battle and then overexert himself and die heroically, having defeated slayer and protected rand/the cavern. at the end of the book he’s no longer ta’veren and feels already kinda like a loose end and not someone who will be of any importance in the next age, so he really should’ve been the one to die instead of egwene.

“the tugging was insufferable. bloody ashes, rand. leave me alone, you-” our Actual last cauthor ta’veren pull for the road (i believe) ❤️ it ended like it began, driving mat to distraction and consuming his every thought.

finally, someone (mat) rides a fucking dragon!!!! now he just needs to ride THE dragon and we’ll be golden

“he reached for the pack with rand’s banner, which he’d carried tied at his waist, but it was gone. panicked, mat looked about. ‘the banner! i dropped the bloody banner!’” rand’s banner is so important to him 😭😭

oh wait i think it’s because they need to be beneath rand’s banner to get the heroes of the horn to come to them djfkgjhkj i like my interpretation better though

alanna dies but releases rand’s bond first so he’s fine. so, okay, nynaeve healed her back to consciousness which DID save rand (so that alanna was conscious and could release the bond) but she dies anyway so nynaeve’s last battle contribution feels fairly pointless on the whole lmao

we get a brief mat-perrin reunion outside the cavern as they both protect rand! i DO finally get my fulfillment of the narrative promise that all 3 boys will need to be together at the last battle, but it still would’ve been better if they’d actually all SEEN each other and been in a scene together.

and we finally deal with slayer and padan fain, 2 boring and largely useless villains who lasted WAY too long. just the other day i saw someone propose that the show merge them and give fain slayer’s powers - i’m not sure how plausible that would be or if it would work, but i do think would be neat and a good way of condensing two underwhelming villains and thereby making them hopefully more effective/interesting. and like, mat just general-ed the ENTIRE LAST BATTLE so he really doesn’t NEED this one additional Final Foe Faceoff imo, and i think perrin’s defeat of slayer should’ve happened during the last battle proper instead of just making him be asleep the whole time. this quick little coda of perrin and mat defeating slayer and fain feels kinda silly and poorly placed.

but i love to see aviendha defeating graendal by unweaving a gateway!! which TPOD made a huge fuss of, and told us avi had a particular skill at it, and then we never saw it again! loved to see that come back and be relevant! avi’s whole battle against graendal was really great. she took out a forsaken, absolute queen!!!! but i wish we got a definitive answer about the injury to her legs - in the epilogue she can stand with assistance but can’t walk, and various healers give various opinions on whether she’ll be able to walk again. i need to know for fic purposes whether she’ll heal enough to walk or whether elayne and mat should invent a wheelchair for her!

the ultimate use of callandor is: rand tricks moridin into picking it up, and because of the design flaw, this allows moiraine and nynaeve to yank moridin (using the true power) into the circle and control him once there, so all 3 powers are used to defeat the dark one (as i predicted a few books ago!) rand claims that min came up with this idea. X doubt lmao every time we saw min think about callandor and the prophecies she was like “i have no idea what this means” and then other people figured things out without her help. sanderson was just desperately trying to give her one (1) contribution to the last battle.

elayne feeling rand channeling at this moment: “the feeling of supreme strength, the beauty of control and domination” one last Daddy Rand for the road! not even elayne, domme extraordinaire of all 3 of her partners, is immune!

“aviendha blinked at the light, and knew it was rand. it drew her back from the brink of darkness, flooding her with warmth. he was winning. he was winning. he was so strong. she saw the true warrior in him now.” ❤️❤️❤️

min also has a pov on this but it’s not important

logain did not die, unfortunately, but he seems to be set on a better path now that he sees people looking to the asha’man with gratitude and affection after they saved them and realizes that he wants the black tower to be a protector of the people. awww. i still don’t think he should’ve been the one to break the seals though. egwene, the watcher of the seals, whose breaking of them was narratively promised to us, should’ve survived the battle and broken them!!!!

“the way [nynaeve] folded her arms made her look as if she were holding herself together. wrapping her arms about herself to stop from crying. ‘who else died?’ perrin asked, bracing himself. it was obvious from her expression. she had lost one already.” one of her kids😭😭 nynaeve tells him about egwene. “i left...to save you. i only came along to protect you.” “you did, nynaeve. you protected rand so he could do what he had to do.” 😭😭😭

loial searches all over the camp for mat, but mat isn’t fucking there because he immediately ran right over to the seanchan camp!!! to put on a fireworks show for tuon whilst rand is on his deathbed!!!! i hate it here!!! this is our last mat pov ever and he has absolutely 0 thoughts about any of his randlander friends, just tuon!!!

tuon is pregnant, which she has learned from the walking pregnancy test, min. “mat felt a jolt, as sure as if a firework had gone off inside of his stomach. an heir. a son, no doubt! what odds that it was a boy? mat forced a grin. ‘well, i guess i’m off the hook now. you have an heir.’ ‘i have an heir,’ tuon said, ‘but i am the one off that hook. now i can kill you, if i want.’ mat felt his grin widen. ‘well, we’ll have to see what we can work out.’” note that it is mat’s FORCED grin that is widening - becoming more forced, i would interpret. not sure what to make of him hoping for a boy so badly. all i can think is that only women can sit on the crystal throne, so he hopes the baby is a boy so that tuon will need more babies and therefore need to keep mat around longer? but i don’t think it was ever said that men can’t sit on the crystal throne, just that none have in a long time, so idk. it IS kind of an interesting gender role reversal of like henry the eighth (and other monarchs in our history), where the king’s wife is useful only as a babymaking (specifically son-making) machine and he’ll dispose of her when she stops being useful in that way, but it’s just so sad that that’s the sort of life Our Mat ends up in. ugh!!!

also, mat hoping for a boy means it will absolutely be a girl, that’s just the rules of stories (also in avi’s rhuidean vision the ruler who succeeded tuon was a woman, so maybe her firstborn daughter). i first met mat in the show where he is a #girldad, so this baby has to be a girl because i want single #girldad mat to babynap his baby and flee back to randland to join up with avirandlayne raising their six (6) babies in caemlyn endgame. yes this is the premise of the fic i’ve had planned ever since i read the epilogue summary almost a year ago before i even started or planned to start the books (although my original thought was just cauthor, whereas now i know the galaxy brain endgame that is avimatrandlayne! tho i’ve written a bit of the fic already and am cutting avi’s quadruplets down to 1 baby because a) avi having quadruplets is absurd, b) i’d rather die than have to come up with names for 7 babies (including mat’s))

moghedien gets made damane, one last Fate Worse Than Death For Female Villain for the road 🙄 and the sul’dam is like “they said we couldn’t enslave any more AES SEDAI, not that we could’ve enslave ANYONE :)” which goes to show yet again that the seanchan are so not going to hold to this treaty.

nynaeve shares the news of rand’s death. at his girlfriends’ lack of reaction, some lords mutter to each other, “...expected the aiel savage to be heartless, and maybe the queen of andor, but the other one? not a tear.” you lords are dead to me, how dare you do elayne and avi like that and imply min was the one who loved him more! also, throughout the epilogue we have confirmation that absolutely everybody straight up knows that rand has 3 girlfriends, and NO ONE ever remarks on it or shows any sign that it’s unusual lmao that’s so weird!! would’ve made way more sense to keep all the relationships under wraps, i have no idea why (in universe OR narratively) the entire world was made aware of them.

avi says that with rhuarc dead, she thinks her rhuidean visions must be able to change and have already changed, phew!!

perrin, previously our most heterosexual and monogamous character, has some wildly bi and poly thoughts about rand and faile here: “how could i be expected to hold them both, then let one go?” “caemlyn, cairhien, dumai’s wells. here he saved one of them. cairhien, ghealdan, malden. here he had saved another. two forces in his life. each had pulled at him.” “he had wanted to be with his friend as he died. this time, he would be with faile where she had died.” like oh my god! put..........put perrin and faile in the polycule?? lmao

awww this moment of perrin finding faile in TAR and saving her life in the real world is so reminiscent of that moment in TDR ❤️❤️❤️

birgitte told olver to toss the horn away somewhere “preferably the ocean” WHAT IF THEY NEED THE HORN AGAIN AT THE NEXT LAST BATTLE AT THE END OF THE NEXT AGE????? IDIOT

birgitte is about to be reborn. maybe as one of melaine’s twins??? haha there’s no reason to think that, but melaine IS close to giving birth sooo

“elayne took her arm, eyes watering. ‘love and peace, birgitte. thank you.’ birgitte smiled, then closed her eyes, and let herself drift away.” ❤️❤️❤️

tam pov at rand’s funeral 😭😭 the plants growing at shayol ghul: “is this your gift to us, son? a final one?” “the aes sedai were planning an elaborate memorial for egwene; tam preferred a quiet affair for his son. rand could finally rest.” “tam looked at the corpse, gazing down into his son’s face by the fire’s light. he did not wipe the tears from his eyes. you did well. my boy...you did so well.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

IT IS LITERALLY EVIL THAT NO ONE TELLS TAM THAT RAND IS STLL ALIVE!!!!! and nynaeve and perrin and mat!!!!! more on this in a bit

elayne, avi, and min say that they have to make sure everyone believes rand is really gone. which you’ve accomplised so far by having no reaction to his “death” and making everyone weirded out and suspicious lmao great job guys.

me reading the epilogue summary a year ago: huh, i wonder how rand switches bodies with moridin

me reading the epilogue after having read all 14 books: huh, i wonder how rand switched bodies with moridin

lmao i was expecting we would see it happen onscreen, i was expecting some sort of magic ritual with alivia’s assistance, but nah! no explanation! at least not one obvious or clear enough for my dumb ass to pick up on. also i can’t believe the narrative went through all the trouble of randomly introducing alivia, a hyper powerful channeler, and telling us she was gonna be soooo important, and then all she does to “help rand die” is give him money and clothes so he can sneak away and start a new life! lame!

the horse he leaves on is dappled. jeade’en is also dappled according to wot wiki!!!! it says that this horse is a gelding but wot wiki says jeade’en is a stallion, but i don’t care, that’s jeade’en in my heart!!!!

and cadsuane is the new amyrlin seat. SIGHHHHHHHH. insert all my complaints in past posts about how egwene symbolized the best of the aes sedai institution and cadsuane symbolized the worst, so it makes no fucking sense that we would end the series by killing off the symbol of progress and improvement of the institution and replacing her with the symbol of The Old Ways That Are Demonstrably Bad.

what the fuck is going on with rand’s pipe!!!! what the fuck!!!! what’s happening!!!!!

also, i’m so mad that he can’t channel anymore. characters losing their powers after saving the world my detested!!!! i get that not being able to channel helps him sink into anonymity and live a normal life, but he struggled with saidin for so long and hated himself for being a channeler for so long and then FINALLY came to terms with it - at the beginning of this book he was thinking how he wanted to learn all the things and channel as much as he could and learn healing and good things the power could do! - so it feels............cheap somehow, or like undoing that part of his character arc, to have him end unable to channel AND RELIEVED ABOUT IT.

and he’s still like “gosh i just can’t choose between 3 women, how bad of me!” we have BEEN OVER THIS SOOOOO MANY TIMES, RAND

and so rand leaves ALONE telling NONE of his loved ones that he’s still alive and is pumped to spend the rest of his life WANDERING the world ALONE with NONE of his loved ones. okay i will admit that “rand wants nothing more than to settle down in a home with his loved ones” is mostly a show construction and not something that we really saw with book!rand, but still!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he has a second chance of life, why would he want to spend it by himself just wandering around rather than being with all his loved ones!!! i am PRAYING that he’s just taking a lil sabbatical (which he does deserve) and will soon return to elayne and avi and their six (6) babies in caemlyn, because otherwise, what the fuck!!!! the show ABSOLUTELY has to change this ending for rand, it would feel incredibly ooc and unsatisfying with the way s1 set up his character. the show should end with a timeskip where rand rolls up to caemlyn in time for the twins’ birth and then he gets to hold his babies and be at home with them and his wives, it would be such a beautiful full circle moment from his 1x08 dreamworld that he had to reject, now he gets to have it for real!!!

overall, i wish the post-last-battle segment had been longer. i could’ve used 30% less battle scenes and 30% more aftermath! but i know that rj wrote the epilogue (or most of it), so the book kinda had to end right there, even if i would’ve liked sanderson to add an epilogue of the epilogue showing where everyone was a year later or something. and hey, ending so abruptly after the last battle with so little info about what people are going to be up to allows more freedom for post-canon fics!

okay, book’s over! let’s rate some of the character endgames:

rand: 5/10. thrilled he’s still alive and gets a second chance at life, but pissed that he *is relieved* to have lost his channeling ability (losing it is one thing, but being relieved to have lost it is the real sticking point for me) and that he just fucked off, abandoned his partners and babies, and let his dad and friends all think he was dead. if i choose to believe that he will soon return to all his loved ones (which i DO, dammit), then his fate is 9/10.

mat: 1/10. and that one point only because he’s alive and so there are opportunities for fics to get him out of tuon’s clutches and back to the westlands.

perrin: 6/10. idk perrin’s ending is Fine. nothing unsatisfying about it (besides that i still think he should’ve died instead of egwene), but nothing remarkable about it either. he’ll be miserable married to the queen of saldaea, though, that’s for sure. he still just wants a simple life and will never be able to have it.

egwene: 2/10. went out like a badass and had a very powerful and emotional death scene, but should have lived because everyone’s toast without her in the fourth age.

nynaeve: 9/10. taking a point away bc she didn’t get to do much in the last battle, but otherwise her ending is nice!

elayne: 10/10. she’s got both her thrones, she’s got her babies, she’s got her girlfriend, she knows her boyfriend is alive, she is the only one willing to fight the seanchan, and she’s become a badass leader and had a fulfilling character arc. as always, she’s perfect.

now let’s do some overall series stats and superlatives!

book ranking from favorite to least favorite:

the shadow rising (my brain has willfully forgotten the perrin plotline of this book and chosen only to remember stone of tear everyone in the same place my beloved, the waste plotline my beloved, and the tanchico plotline my beloved. if you’d asked me mid-series, i would’ve put LOC first and this second or even third.)

the fires of heaven

lord of chaos (retroactively lost some places because, while it was my favorite immediately after reading, as i kept on i realized it had set up some plotlines and character separations i would end up hating)

the dragon reborn

the gathering storm (it’s only this high because i’ve given more weight to the awesome second half than the awful first half. would be even higher if i could discount the first half altogether. the “rand and avi are together in arad doman but narratively forbidden from interacting and so rand/min continue to act like a monogamous couple right in front of avi’s salad” situation makes me angrier than almost anything else in the entire series except for tylin/tuon/seanchan-related things jkfgh)

a crown of swords (again, has one of the most horrible and infuriating plotlines of the whole series, but i absolutely loved the rest of the book)

the great hunt (this and ACOS are pretty flexible)

eye of the world

a memory of light

winter’s heart

path of daggers

towers of midnight

crossroads of twilight

knife of dreams

top 9 characters (in alphabetical order) because i could only think of 9 off the top of my head so i’m leaving the 10th spot open for any other beloved character i might be forgetting at the moment because there are too many goddamn characters:

aviendha

egwene

elayne

faile

gawyn (fight me)

mat (pre-COT. i don’t know COT-AMOL mat)

nynaeve

rand

verin

fuck it actually the tenth spot goes to lini, she’s an icon

ship rankings (including a select few non-canon ones):

godtier: rand/elayne, rand/aviendha, mat/rand, mat/elayne, elayne/aviendha

good tier: egwene/gawyn, lan/nynaeve

mid tier: perrin/faile, moiraine/thom (it’s random and makes no sense but i don’t actively hate either party, which puts it above shit tier lmao)

shit tier: rand/min, mat/tuon, siuan/bryne, morgase/tallanvor

i was going to try and list out some favorite scenes or plotlines but there are just too many to think of looking back on all of them lmao you all who have been reading my recaps already know which parts were my favorites anyway! these recaps started as silly little shitposts for me to list out gay ass cauthor moments in TSR but then evolved into Serious Bookclub, all because you guys were always engaging with my observations and thoughts and sparking fun discussions! thank you all for tagging along on this journey!!!! i will close with my first ever recorded book thought, which remains a mood: