#mat and rand are narrative gold together

[butterflydm]

wot reread: a memory of light (chapters 17-23)

spoilers for a memory of light, the final book.

Mat wakes up to find Fortuona listening to a report from one of her guards, still naked, and when he calls her ‘Tuon’, she chastises him under threat of execution if he does not show ~proper respect~. Interesting. I wonder if he'll actually stop calling her "Tuon" or not.

Part of my brain wants to compare the earlier Rand & Aviendha wake-up scene to this one, so I’m going to poke at that for a moment:

Rand & Aviendha have a pre-sex mock-threat scene where the Maidens teasingly threaten Rand before he and Aviendha sleep together; Mat has to deal with actual potential death from Tuon’s slaves (Selucia almost shooting him; the guards subduing him)

Rand & Aviendha and Mat & Fortuona are two extreme ‘culture clash’ relationships (Perrin and Faile are also a fairly extreme culture clash, but they’ve pretty much worked that out by now)

They’re also both ‘enemies to lovers, destined to be together due to a prophecy’ pairings, except Aviendha and Rand were 'enemies-to-lovers' in the loosest possible sense of "Aviendha has taken against Rand but doesn't really have any reason to hate him" while Mat got his compassion surgically removed in CoT so that he wouldn't judge Tuon for being a slaver.

Aviendha has done her best to teach Rand Aiel ways but seems to accept now that he will always be a wetlander at heart vs Fortuona expecting Mat to flip a switch and be a devoted Seanchan slave citizen and telling him that if he fails to conform, she may have him executed.

idk it’s ~interesting.

Tuon does make it clear that Mat is never going to have sex with her in private -- at least one of her guard-slaves will always be present.

2. Rand shows up -- Mat notes that he is dressed down, comparatively-speaking -- “no gold or jewelry, no weapon at all”.

Tuon, who is terrified of Rand, immediately freaks out, calling for damane to come and protect her. This scene is... *sigh* yeah, idk. It’s weirdly balanced, I guess I’d say. The narrative has done such a thorough job in trying to shield Mat from the truth about what the Seanchan have been doing recently, and from his own failures and the deaths that are on his head (he is complicit both in the attack on the White Tower -- because he let Tuon go back to her people to continue her invasion -- and the attack on Caemlyn -- because his mistrust of Aes Sedai meant he was unwilling to read a letter; and yet the narrative has hidden both of these failures from him completely). So it just feels like Mat’s perspective on the events here is so clouded by his ignorance of recent events. And that just makes it a weird scene.

When Mat gets trussed up by the Power, he first assumes that it’s Rand but when Rand tells him that it isn’t, he realizes that, well, he must be missing his medallion if he’s being held by the One Power, and he immediately looks towards Tuon who, yep, has the medallion. Guess you should have kept your dad's advice in mind and braced yourself for your trading partner to try to steal your horses, Mat.

This is that ironic moment that I was thinking of back in ToM -- Mat had wanted to freely give Tuon a medallion to protect her, but she betrayed him and stole it instead (and he didn’t even know that she knew it existed, so this is a double-betrayal -- Tuon betrayed him and so did Setalle Anan)

But this balance here, where Mat thinks that Rand is trapping him and then realizes that Tuon is the one who betrayed him... this is the first moment that probably couldn’t have existed without the reality-warping teleportation trip that Mat took down to Ebou Dar. But there’s immediate payoff from it, at least not that I can see -- one of the most frustrating things about Tuon’s horrible actions in CoT & KoD were that they never had any effect on Mat’s opinion of her, because he had a five-second memory in those two books, so I'm concerned that this will go the same way. Ah, I will remember this moment and see if it affects anything in the future.

3. Also, Mat should still have one of the copies of the medallion in his bag? He had both his original and one of the copies, per Elayne’s PoV earlier in the book, so even though Tuon stole his medallion, he does have the inferior backup.

I guess this “oh I ran away here to escape you, Rand, specifically because of The Fear” is supposed to be our explanation for why Mat changed his motivations between books? lol, what? That's a throwback to TSR/TFoH Mat except that TSR/TFoH Mat never actually ran away; he just talked about it a lot and then always ended up helping out anyway. So I guess that's where a lot of my frustrations with this reunion come from -- the parts that aren't weirdly competitive still feel... weird. (plus we still have never gotten the 'how' explanation for how Mat is in Ebou Dar -- fear alone does not catapult a person hundreds of miles in a single night)

Anyway, Rand’s reactions here really do make a lot more sense when I think about everything that Thom could have potentially told him -- the essence being “Mat accidentally ta’veren-trapped the Empress of the Seanchan into a marriage with him; maybe that will be useful”. He doesn’t really show any fear or worry for himself or for Mat, despite the potentially dire situation (though, you know, if he’s only shielded by a single damane, he can absolutely break free and... I don’t think damane can link together in a circle because they’re already in a forced-link using the a’dam? Or did my brain make that up? It does make sense though).

4. otoh, Mat just feels like he’s... taking all of this so unseriously? I can understand why he’s not truly worried here that Rand might hurt ~his slaver bride~ (because despite his bluster about Rand going mad, he’s shown instinctive trust in Rand when the going gets rough) but given that Tuon is having Rand shielded and her desperate panic the moment that she saw him and all the guards... he could show a bit of concern for Rand!

But Mat is just a wet noodle during this entire scene and it’s so bizarre. His marriage was so useless on every possible level and it feels absolutely pointless that it happened. And it didn’t have to be that way! The Mat & Tuon relationship could have been written in a way that made the readers really believe that Mat HAD to marry her in order to fulfill his destiny and make it so that the Seanchan would fight against the Dark One during the Last Battle. But as it is... Rand could have just shown up in the palace and done this entire scene without Mat, because Mat contributes absolutely nothing useful to the discussion at any point.

5. So, here’s the thing about Rand and Mat’s reunion as a whole: in isolation, it doesn’t bother me. It’s a relatively shallow conversation but that makes sense given that it’s occurring in the Seanchan stronghold -- Rand consistently does not want to show enemies the depth of his feelings about specific people, and Mat did his best throughout both CoT & KoD to keep the knowledge of his friendship with Rand away from Tuon (it was Talmanes who spilled the beans) because he didn’t trust her with that knowledge (which was, like, the one smart thing he did in the entirely of CoT & KoD, so I gotta give him credit for it), so it makes sense for them to underplay things in front of Tuon -- they are communicating information (hey, did you know I cleansed saidin? hey, did you know I saved Moiraine?) without communicating too many emotions. It’s something of a weird conversation for them, because the Rand and Mat friendship has never been particularly competitive, but it’s... okay. In isolation.

But I have to take into account that this is the only reunion scene that Mat and Rand ever get to have after they separate in Lord of Chaos, and that makes this scene an absolute narrative failure, because it is not enough to do their friendship justice.

And Sanderson was well aware of the importance of reunions... for other relationships.  And, specifically, among the three ta’veren boys:

Perrin gets a reunion dinner & a personal goodbye with Mat in ToM.

Perrin gets a reunion dinner & a personal goodbye with Rand in AMoL.

No reunion dinner and personal goodbye for Mat and Rand. Only Perrin gets such things.

All Rand and Mat get is this emotionally-limp dick-measuring contest, despite them spending large chunks of books 1-5 together and their relationship being a foundational emotional element in those five books, even when they are separated. Yet because Sanderson decided to yeet Mat down to Ebou Dar (despite it making no logistical or narrative sense for that to happen), this one meeting is all they get. And that just... sucks. Even back during the first time I read the books, when I did not yet ship Cauthor, I was so deeply disappointed by this reunion. It is such a betrayal of the complicated relationship between Rand and Mat.

Mat has spent every book since he and Rand have been separated having ‘return to Rand’ be his goal in some way or another, and that just gets wiped away between ToM & AMoL.

6. idk. Mat does... sorta try to contribute -- he offers to talk to Tuon on Rand’s behalf (”I’ll get us out of this”) -- but there’s also some real wtf thoughts going on in his brain. Like when Tuon threatens to take Rand back over the ocean to enslave him as her personal Dragon, Mat thinks “she made a good Empress”. lol, she’s literally just making the exact same threat that Elaida tries to get her embassy to carry out on her behalf back in LoC. Was Elaida also good Empress material, Mat? I mean, maybe this version of Mat also would have praised Elaida for the Box, who knows. Maybe post-canon, he’ll free Elaida and fall head-over-heels in love with her now that he’s attracted to petty tyrants who like to throw tantrums. Elaida won’t be interested back, but that could be a good learning experience for him.

On a more serious note, I think this is the beginning of some incredibly bizarre Seanchan-native style thoughts spawning spontaneously in Mat’s brain. It gets real weird at points, from what I remember (we'll see if my memory was correct!).

7. It is so bizarre that Rand does this huge display of power but then he... essentially rolls over for the Seanchan and lets them join the alliance against the Dark One without them needing to give up anything. His first offer is pretty much the rock-bottom “if worst comes to worst” terms that the Merrilor council was willing to give. That’s horrible negotiating! Always start high, Rand! Start off with “release all your slaves and go back over the ocean” and bargain down from there, rather than bargaining down from “you can keep the lands that you have now”. She's intimidated by you! Press your advantage!

Though I really do think that a lot of flaws in this scene stem from having Mat desert the Last Battle and run to Ebou Dar. Because Mat is treating this situation like his parents are getting a nasty divorce and he's trying to get them to kiss and make up rather than the situation being his aggressive/fear-based slaver wife wanting to kidnap and enslave millions of people versus the person who literally is going to save the world. You can't 'both sides are valid' a situation like that.

There is no ‘both sides’ when one of the sides does not respect the humanity of the other side. That’s as true when it comes to the Seanchan as it is when it comes to the Dark One wanting to destroy the universe. Slavery is violence.

8. I will note that Mat is throwing ‘Tuon’ around a lot in this conversation, so he has not yet taken on-board her threat about having him executed.

Rand does try to bargain for the freedom of the damane -- Tuon says no deal if she doesn’t get to keep her slaves. Keeping her slaves matters more to her than preventing the ending of the world. I thought Perrin was bad because he was willing to let the world burn if it meant saving Faile, but Tuon would let the world burn before she would let a single slave slip through her fingers.

Ugh, honestly, comparing her to Elaida does Elaida such a disservice. Tuon is a much worse person than Elaida ever was.

And Mat says nothing to try to sway her. He spoke to her when it came to trusting Rand with the Last Battle (and that one quote, “you can trust Rand al’Thor with the world itself” is a nice one), but he has nothing to say about her expressed desire to enslave every woman who can channel. Which includes his sister. Which includes Elayne and Nynaeve and Egwene. Which includes Moiraine, who he literally just saved from a different kind of captivity.

Nothing to say on their behalf, Mat?

Nothing.

I will remember that in the future. That when you had the chance to say something to try to sway Tuon on the subject of slavery, you stayed silent.

9. I am going to note something very important here, and then explain why it’s important under some spoiler space for the ending of the book. Part of the bargain that Tuon agrees to (and then signs her name to) is this: “Taking any [damane] afterward [meaning after the Last Battle] who are not in your own land will be seen as breaking the treaty and attacking the other nations.” *

And non-spoilerly side note: yeah, apparently this deal does mean that crossing the border into Seanchan territory means that they can hunt you down and enslave you without penalty. Yikes. Hope you weren’t planning on ever seeing your sister Bode again, Mat, because she can’t come visit you (lol, not as if she’d want to, I suppose).

10. So, overall... the bargain that Sanderson made, where he violated both logic and the narrative itself to ship Mat off to Ebou Dar... I do not understand why he thought it was worth it. Again, this scene with Rand, Mat, and the slaver empress isn’t complete trash -- there are some good moments in it -- but actually having Mat finishing out his narrative arcs in Merrilor/Caemlyn would have been so much better. And most of this scene still could have played out similarly if Mat had come here on purpose.

I think probably the worst part of this scene is Mat obediently trailing after Tuon when she leaves. Ugh, it’s so frustrating that Mat ended up being the General of the Slavers rather than the General of the Light -- that he comes to the Last Battle as Tuon’s slave-husband rather than someone who is actually invested in the fight in his own right. He ran away from the battle but now is willing to fight that same battle on behalf of the slavers? Yikes, what an ugly message. There’s a lot of Unfortunate in those Implications. When it was just the Westlands facing the Last Battle, Mat ran like a coward but now that the SLAVERS are involved, Mat will without hesitation dedicate himself to saving the world again? Yikes, yikes, yikes.

But the stupidest part of this is that Mat had already accepted, for books!, that he would need to be at Rand’s side during the Last Battle. He has spent books trying to get back to Rand to give him additional resources for the Last Battle. But now he’s apparently only willing to risk his neck if his wife-owner is involved. I mean, I guess this has to be why the story got changed and Mat teleported to Ebou Dar -- so that Mat would be part of the Seanchan Contribution to the Last Battle rather than being there because “it’s what had to be done” aka the right thing to do aka his previously established character motivations that were in play as recently as the final chapter of Towers of Midnight.

So, yeah, the portion of Mat’s characterization re: Tuon specifically is not awful but, holy shit, everything related to his relationships to every non-Seanchan character got shredded to an unrecognizable mess. I am really hoping that gets better in future chapters but... yeah, yikes.

11. Like Perrin and Elayne, Gawyn has also been fighting for a week as of right now. So a week has passed in the Caemlyn area and the staging area near Shayol Ghul but only a handful of hours passed between when Perrin said Mat was in Ebou Dar (before the fighting began) and when Rand went to visit Mat.

12. As a whole, I'm good with a lot of what Sanderson has been writing in AMoL! But there are definitely a few big issues have been sticking out:

everything with Mat is a logistical nightmare, even if you discount the awful impact it had on his characterization

everyone Just Knows about Rand's three girlfriends now, without ever reacting to the information

which I guess also falls under the banner of: important character moments keep getting skipped

Rand and Elayne avoiding each other at the start of this book is a weird mirror to how Rand and Aviendha were avoiding each other in TGS, aka it doesn't really make sense why they would do that

13. Anyway, I suspect that my posts are going to be able to cover more chapters now, because I never really have a lot to say about battle scenes and we just started this chapter off with one, and I suspect there will be many more in the future. But we'll see!

14. Gawyn makes sure that Egwene is getting enough sleep and not overusing the Power and he realizes that he no longer has any anger when he thinks about Rand al'Thor. Good for him! On both counts. It won't help anyone if Egwene exhausts herself. That being said, I went "yikes" at hearing that Gawyn is barely sleeping and Egwene is "washing away" his exhaustion because I feel like Moiraine says in the first book that that doesn't actually fix your exhaustion, it just masks it and lets you work through it. Let me check.

Oh, boy, yeah, I'm sorta right (It's Lan and not Moiraine who tells them, and specifically he is telling Mat, Rand, and Perrin about it while Egwene is off with Moiraine doing something else):

"They will run at their fastest, if we let them, right up to the second they drop dead from exhaustion they never even felt."

15. Leilwin née Egeanin has some nerve trying to argue with Gawyn that Egwene shouldn't hold the crimes of the Seanchan as a whole against her as an individual when she has owned a damane herself!

"I did not" - yes, you did! Egwene cares about more than just her own skin, so it would matter to her that you de-personed other people and not just if it was herself. I'm glad that you came around and decided to start treating channelers like people but this is absolutely a crime that you own. You owned damane, even after you met Elayne & Nynaeve and saw that marath'damane were not the monsters that your government tries to teach you that they are. You went back to your people and accepted becoming a member of the Blood, giving up an artifact that you had agreed to dispose of (where was your honor then, when your own skin was on the line?), and only left the Seanchan when you realized that one of the Seekers was on your trail and it was only a matter of time before you were discovered anyway. Saving her own skin has been Leilwin née Egeanin's priority for the vast majority of the time that we, the readers, have known her as a character. Not her honor.

I do like Leilwin née Egeanin as a character -- she's the most fully-realized and complex Seanchan character that we've met, I would say. But, yeah, she owns this crime and Egwene is fully in her right to hold it against her.

16. Mmm, we get a reminder here that the Bloodknife ter'angreal are personally handed out by the Empress. More interesting to me is that Leilwin née Egeanin is able to cut off her instinctive "may she live forever" after mentioning the Empress half-way through the words. Gawyn learns here that it is blood that activates the rings, but he convinces himself that he won't need to use them -- he can protect Egwene as a Warder. And she's winning her portion of the battle, so things are going well for them.

17. Rand is remembering seeing Trollocs for the first time, back in the Age of Legends, when they only knew them as "Aginor's experiments". Yeah, that had to be so mind-blowing (in a bad way), the first time that they were seen. Have I mentioned recently that I do really like that we're back in Rand's head for this book? Cutting us off from Rand's PoV was the biggest mis-step of ToM, imo.

After fighting on behalf of Elayne's armies wearing the face of Jur Grady, so that the Forsaken do not know that he's there, he reveals himself briefly with his own face and power level to give a morale boost to the troops, then returns to Merrilor, where Min is waiting to immediately clamp onto his arm.

18. Though Min has been a silent presence in some of the Rand chapters of the book, this is the first time she actually speaks in this book. Page 353 in the hardcover version. "You look sad."

lol, yeah, Sanderson 100% had no clue how to balance the Rand x Min relationship with the Rand x Elayne x Aviendha relationship, to the point that Min had to become a background element for the chapters during which Sanderson focused on Rand & Aviendha and Rand & Elayne.

19. Rand thinks here that he would have fallen "for sure" if Min hadn't been there during those "months of darkness". Bro. Bro. You did fall. That was a thing that absolutely happened on the page. We literally watched it. It was a whole plot point. You almost destroyed time and the universe because of how dark and cold your interior world had gotten, and it wasn't Min who stopped you from doing it; it was reaching inside yourself and finding hope. All of that was literally on the page.

But giving Min credit for things she never did or that never happened is pretty much the main pattern when it comes to Min, so I guess... here's another one of those moments, lol.

20. So, I think I'm parsing the grammar of this correctly and Cadsuane is saying that both Aviendha and Min got jewelry, yes?

"A sword for your father, a ter'angreal for the Queen of Andor, a crown for Lan Mandragoran, jewelry for the Aiel girl, and for this one." She nodded at Min.

Also, wow, "jewelry for the Aiel girl" -- Cadsuane did not even bother getting Aviendha's name. I wonder if she was pissed off when she realized that the horse that she was betting on to influence Rand for her (Min) wasn't the only voice in his ear.

Anyway, Rand is annoyed because she calls him out -- in front of Min -- in basically giving away sentimental "in case I die" gifts.

21. So... Aviendha and Min are both here at Rand's main camp, but there's zero implication that they are getting to know each other the way that Aviendha wanted them to (and like they had the chance to do in TGS, but both of them avoided each other instead).

Stop skipping important emotional moments!

Also, I kind of have to laugh that... Min was apparently here the whole time, but Perrin didn't think to mention her when he was having his big goodbye scene with Rand. Aren't you two supposed to be friends?

22. Cadsuane insults Elayne to try to get a rise out of Rand but he refuses to respond to the bait. Yeah, between "the Aiel girl" and now insulting Elayne, I think Cadsuane was ticked off when the memo went out that the Dragon has three girlfriends and the trump card that she'd thought she'd held by cultivating Min was not as strong as she believed it to be.

Anyway, she tells Rand here that it's best if he doesn't go into the fight believing absolutely that he's going to die and... okay, I'm going to pop an addition to this thought at the end**.

lol Cadsuane tries to fish for a gift for herself and Rand shuts her down with "I'm giving them to those I care about." I really do find their interactions so funny now that Cadsuane can't successfully bully or bait Rand anymore.

23. Aviendha is going to lead those fighting against the Forsaken who will be popping up once Rand goes into Shayol Ghul. Elayne & Aviendha have both grown into such leaders. 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Rand also makes sure that Alivia is involved in that portion of the battle.

Cadsuane casually drops the news here that the Black Tower has freed itself -- to go back to my earlier Black Tower thoughts, I feel like this would be so much more impactful if Nynaeve were the one delivering this news because she was the one who helped liberate the Black Tower. Because as far as we've seen, the only thing Nynaeve has done in the last eighteen chapters is give Moiraine a hug. She had the time and the motivation to do the Black Tower plotline.

24. I love this scene with Lan, where he realizes that he has hopes for the future now and he wonders if Rand has any idea that he was part of the reason why Lan started looking beyond his own death. Rand and Nynaeve, tearing down his walls without even realizing what they were doing, just by being themselves.

"Rand al'Thor had begun to crack that shell, and then Nynaeve's love had torn it apart completely."

Wouldn't it be neat if this scene had happened right after Nynaeve had returned to Rand and told him that the Black Tower was no longer under Taim's control?

25. Just like the other captain over in Lan's front of the battle did, Bashere also made a bone-headed mistake in his battle planning here. I do feel like we're probably supposed to be picking up at this point that this is no coincidence and not just the captains being over-tired and not thinking clearly. But right now, Elayne is trusting Bashere because of how much trust Rand placed in him, even when Rand was at his most untrusting.

26. In a TAR visit with Amys, Melaine, and Bair, Egwene is told about a blackness that is showing in cracks between rocks, in the places nearest Shayol Ghul, then after a few moments the blackness fades and leaves behind ordinary cracks. The Wise Ones believe it is the Pattern pulling apart and think that it is due to how much balefire is being used during the battle. Egwene says that it is already forbidden to Aes Sedai to use the weave, but she will remind them, and pass word to their other allies. They also tell her goodbye, as soon Rand will go into Shayol Ghul.

27. When Egwene wakes up, it's to meet with Rand -- not as Amyrlin and Dragon, but as childhood friends. His sentimental gift to Egwene is a hair ribbon which she first takes as him implying that she's a child -- which kinda shows how far beyond the Two Rivers that she's gone, because she knows that's not what a hair ribbon means there.

But it's a sweet moment.

So, if Rand had been allowed to give sentimental gifts to Mat... and Perrin too, I guess. What would they have been? This newest version of Mat doesn't really deserve any gifts, lol, so that one is kinda tough. A geode, maybe, or a thunder egg? Mat used to like to collect little treasures.

I saw someone in the tags a while back talking about how refreshing it was that the friendships between women in the books are so vibrant in contrast to the friendships between men and... I also love how great those friendships are, but it really sucks that Jordan (maybe Sanderson too? it's hard to tell) seemed to believe that married men weren't allowed to have close male friends and were only supposed to confide in their spouse. And that's a part of toxic masculinity, the belief that your girlfriend/wife should be your emotional dumping ground while hanging with the bros stays shallow, competitive, and light. And we really saw that a lot with Rand during the darkest books for him -- Min was his emotional dumping ground, there to receive his trauma and not have any of her own (despite going through several traumatic events).

And that part of what's damaged about how the male characters relate to the world never really gets healed. Women can confide in their friends, but male friendships get hollowed out once the men start getting love interests.

(the books kinda lampshade this when they say that Aiel women adopting each other as first-sisters is much more common than men adopting each other as first-brothers -- so there's this implied idea that married men only relate to each other as co-workers or leader-subordinates)

Oh, yeah, and Rand realizes that the seals that Egwene is holding to wait to break for the Last Battle are actually fakes. I feel like nothing really happens with this plotline so I'm not going to get too invested.

28. Mat allows himself be dressed up as a doll for Tuon’s viewing pleasure. This is that other contrast against Elayne that I mentioned back in the post where I talked about Fortuona being a foil to Elayne -- where Tylin and Fortuona order Mat to wear clothes that please them; Mat requested that Elayne pick out someone to help him get better clothes (that were in the style that he would prefer).

Mat is SO MISERABLE in this scene. Why is he forcing himself through all this? Why didn't he leave with Rand?

He hates that the slaves won't look at him; he hates that he's being dressed up like a Seanchan; he hates the idea that everyone is going to be looking at him like this. He hates everything about this. Why is he doing it? If Mat's marriage to Tuon had been what sealed the deal for the treaty, then Mat pushing through even though he's miserable would make sense, but much like the entirety of this whole fucking relationship, Mat is turning his future into a misery for no apparent reason.

29. Of course, now that Mat has been (abruptly, off the page) cut off from all his other emotional connections except for Tuon, he's been locked in. I really do feel like Jordan (and now Sanderson) failed to give Mat enough of a reason to have *waves hands* all of this make sense. The general vibe is "better to stay in the worst marriage in the world than to have no marriage at all" but that is a bizarre storyline to give to someone who never showed any signs of wanting to be married.

But yeah, having servants/slaves undress him so that he can be dressed according to how his owner wants him to look is exactly what Tylin did. Mat thinks here, I won't be owned, but he's not doing a very good job of actually standing his ground. See, the thing is... if this was how Mat's story was going to end up anyway, I feel like Jordan might as well have just had Tylin sell Mat to Tuon back in Winter's Heart? Because that's where we've ended up anyway -- with Mat realizing that Tylin and Tuon are birds of a feather but... for whatever reason... sticking with her anyway, even though it actively makes him unhappy.

I can't think of any reason to have this scene except to remind us of Tylin? (in-world, I imagine that Tuon is having it done to show all the Westlanders that Mat belongs to her now, not to their side, because... she's extremely possessive and jealous -- and also to reassure her own side that she has thoroughly broken her new outlander mate to be loyal to the Empire)

Mat is able to negotiate slightly -- his clothes don't get burned and they're only making a military outfit for him right now -- but he was able to negotiate slightly with Tylin as well. It kinda feels like that's Mat's lot for the foreseeable future -- his life will mostly be a misery, with tiny patches of him being to negotiate a small bit of breathing room. A tiny bit of false freedom in exchange for his loyalty is probably seen as a bargain by Tuon.

30. Yeah, I'm not very happy with Mat's storyline in this book, at least so far. Which sucks because (except for the first chapter of TGS), I've been liking what Sanderson brought to the table for Mat in TGS & ToM. Especially after the trash-fire that was Mat in CoT & KoD (I genuinely dislike Mat as a character in CoT & KoD and it ruins those two books for me).

But it is an interesting illustration of... what parts of a character matter to different individual readers. Some people were never invested in Mat as someone who genuinely cared about doing the right thing even as he called anyone like that foolish, but it was such a vital part of Mat's characterization for me, all the way through Winter's Heart. And it's just gone in CoT & KoD, and losing that part of Mat makes me no longer like Mat as a character. But for some people... that just wasn't an important part of who Mat was to them, and they could shrug off the loss or not even notice it at all.

I've seen something similar with various posts talking about -- "is Rand still Rand if you remove the toxic masculinity portion of his story?" and various other debates about different aspects of his storyline. For some people, Rand being an exploration of toxic masculinity (by embracing Lan's advice) was a huge part of his character and helped them through their own issues with masculinity. For me, it is not that vital part of who Rand is, and if the show doesn't go that way -- if the list isn't gendered, if the focus isn't on "don't let any WOMEN get hurt or killed", I would welcome that change. But for a person who saw Rand's struggle in their own life, that change would feel like a loss.

So it's sad for me that Mat has been locked-into the Prince of Ravens story, particularly in this version of the story where the way they chose to approach the story was to dampen his empathy for the enslaved and shred his emotional connections to his former friends away as if they meant nothing. The parts of Mat that I cared about the most were the parts that were thrown away by the authors as if they were meaningless. And that sucks.

I've caught glimpses in the Sanderson books, of the Mat that I loved in the series from EotW-WH, but so far this version in AMoL feels like half the character that I cared about, with the other half ripped away.

I miss Mat. And it sucks so much more to think that during actual Mat PoV sections than to think it when Mat is missing or gone.

I miss the guy who cared so much about slavery that he risked his own escape plan to free the Windfinders.

I miss the guy who sat quietly with Rand after Rhuidean, exactly the kind of comfort that Rand needed at the time.

His body is still walking around but the part of Mat that I loved... he's not there. He got in the way of the plot, so the authors elided those parts of him out of existence. But those were the parts that I cared about the most.

Yeah. Just makes me sad.

31. Ah, the surprise Sharan army shows up. Why would they hold back until now? The fighting has been going on for a week+ at this point. Hmm... my Doylist (aka author-based, as opposed to in-world) assumption is that the Sharans are showing up now so that it will actually feel like the Seanchan are needed when they show up, so the timing needed to be placed after the treaty with the Seanchan was signed. A whole random huge nation shows up at the fight with tons of channelers -- better throw a different random huge nation with tons of channelers at them! In-world... idk, probably just Demandred being dramatic. They attack on Egwene's part of the battlefield, so now all the fronts are in a bad way.

32. Aviendha is part of the advance group of scouts into the Blasted Lands (before they reach Shayol Ghul). They see Shayol Ghul and the forges where the Fade's blades are made.

I love her scene here with Rand. Aviendha realizes that she and Rand are more alike that she'd ever noticed before, and they stand next to each other, shoulders just barely touching. "He did not own her, and she did not own him. The act of his movement so that they stood facing in the same direction meant far more to her than any other gesture could."

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Aviendha says that taking the Dark One gai'shain would be a greater victory than killing him. I love her. So Aviendha votes here for Rand to imprison TDO rather than try to kill him. Rand says that he'd thought them finally being in a proper-type relationship would mean no more lectures on Aiel culture and Aviendha is just... so baffled. 🥰

So the plan is for Ituralde and the Aiel to hold this area right before Shayol Ghul, to give Rand time to go in and deal with the Dark One.

33. With the scouting done, they go back to Rand's camp to prep the forces for the assault, and Rand tells Aviendha that the dagger has been helping him stay hidden from the Shadow during the fight, just as she thought that it would. This knife really does feel like it symbolizes how connected Rand-Elayne-Aviendha are as a triad. Aviendha finds out what it can do and gives it to Elayne to protect her; Elayne gives it to Rand to protect him. Rand says it's going to make it easier for him to get to TDO before he's noticed. He calls the dagger "Artham".

Also: Rand tells Aviendha about the true seals going missing! Communication! Love to see it. He mentions that apart from the two of them, Egwene is the only one who knows that the true seals are gone.

Ituralde will be in charge of the troops during the Shayol Ghul assault but Aviendha will lead the channelers.

34. ...Min really thought there was a chance that she was going to go with Rand to face the Dark One? All she would be is a liability!

Anyway, okay, Rand actually does specifically send Min to Egwene to "watch the Seanchan Empress" so I'll keep that in mind. I'm not sure exactly what Min is supposed to do if things go poorly but keeping an eye on Tuon is part of the reason she was sent. (technically he sent her there to "keep an eye on both factions" but he knows he can trust Egwene, so the implied reason is Tuon & the Seanchan). How convenient that Rand is sending the Seanchan to the front that just got flattened by the Sharans, even though he thinks Egwene is "doing well". I guess that one we can say is ta'veren stuff.

Also, in this scene before Min gets sent on her way, she does not offer any last insight about Callandor. It's Moiraine and Nynaeve who talk to him about the flaw here.

35. I feel like this whole "Logain has grown darker" plotline could have been cut out. Not needed. Just let him lead the Asha'man into the Last Battle; there's plenty of glory in that.

36. Demandred shows up on the battlefield after the Sharans have flattened the Aes Sedai forces to grab one of them (it's Leane) to try to send her off with a message to Rand: it's personal and you better face me yourself or I will ruin everything you love (essentially). Yeah... your dramatic entrance a week into the Last Battle has kinda ruined your chance at Rand, I'm pretty sure. Because he's heading towards Shayol Ghul very soon. Too slow, ~dragonslayer~. Fancy title and no dragon around for you to slay.

37. Lanfear dunks on Perrin for not being able to kill Graendal (when he discovered her in TAR).

"I found [the inability to kill women] charming in Lews Therin at one point, but that doesn't make it any less a weakness."

Why is Lanfear helping Perrin out? I do not remember her goal here, if we ever find it out. But she basically handed him the dreamspike and now she's telling him that it's dumb for him to let Graendal get away just because she's a woman (Gaul also tells Perrin this: "A warrior who will not strike a Maiden is a warrior who refuses her honor"). She also straight-up tells him that Graendal is here to influence people's dreams. And Perrin saw Graendal messing around in war tents with maps.

... he does not put the pieces together at this point.

38. Okay, we get the low-down on the time dilation (thank you, physics researcher Mierin!) -- Shayol Ghul is what is distorting time. The closer you are to it, the more time distorts. "For every day that passes [to those close to Shayol Ghul], three or four might pass to those more distant."

In other words, this does not fix Mat's logistics problem, where he was able to undertake a weeks-long journey on horseback over the course of a single night in order to reach Ebou Dar around the same time Moiraine and Thom reached Merrilor, but then an entire week passed in Merrilor while only a handful of hours passed for Mat in Ebou Dar. Mat's logistics still do not add up.

Oh, Lanfear also tells Perrin that one of the people Graendal was influencing was his wife's dad, aka Bashere aka one of the generals of the battle.

39. Given what a dire situation Gawyn & Egwene are in, Gawyn takes the opportunity while scouting to slip on one of the Bloodknife rings and activate it. They're pinned down and trapped by the Sharan army so it makes sense that he's desperate enough to do this. They certainly have no clue that they're about to get sent an additional army on their own side.

It means that he can scout directly past the various Sharan sentries who are surrounding them (it is an incredibly dire situation). Not only does it let him travel with the shadows but he also notices that it lets him move faster as well.

Given that he already has the rings and what a terrible situation he and Egwene are currently trapped in, it would be pretty foolish of him not to use the rings at this time, tbh.

But it looks like when Leilwin née Egeanin said that the rings would eventually kill you once you'd activated them, Gawyn interpreted that as 'might'. And I think that makes sense -- Gawyn can understand on an intellectual level how disposable (non-Blood) lives are in the Seanchan Empire without being able to take it in emotionally. It's not intuitive for him, because he doesn't use people up and throw them away the way that the Seanchan do.

40. We get another pretty powerful flashback to Egwene's time with the damane, when she is temporarily captured by one of the Sharans while she is making her escape following Gawyn. It's actually pretty clever -- she deliberately is letting go of her Aes Sedai control so that her panic over the idea of being captured will draw Gawyn back so that he can help her.

But, yeah, having this vivid reminder of of Egwene's time as a captive of the Seanchan... it really does make the choices that Jordan & Sanderson decided to make with Mat's storyline so baffling. Mat genuinely cares about Egwene, about Elayne, about Nynaeve, about Moiraine, presumably he cares about his sister but I guess who knows. And yet Jordan has Mat laugh off the idea of Tuon attacking the White Tower (which she then followed through on and actually did and yet he does not know about it) and act like the sul'dam are more oppressed and in more danger than the actual slaves; and Sanderson has Mat run away from the Last Battle until the slavers are involved and then he's apparently willing to risk his life again. In the name of the slavers. Baffling writing choices all around.

Egwene on thinking what it would be like to be captured by the Seanchan again: "She would be nothing. She would have her very self stripped away. She would rather be dead."

41. But Gawyn is still too far away and it ends up being Leilwin née Egeanin who saves Egwene here. Together the three of them escape the camp, reunite with Bayle, and then Egwene is able to Skim them back to the White Tower.

42. Near Shayol Ghul, Aviendha and the channelers that she's leading clear the valley so that Rand will be able to approach. There's a pretty intense battle scene and then Aviendha takes charge of organizing all the channelers so that they will be able to hold the valley for as long as Rand's task takes him.

43. ...Thom and Moirine apparently also got married off the page? When did they have time? Did Mat perform a quick ceremony before he teleported himself on top of Pips' back and then teleported himself to Ebou Dar?

Hmm, I wonder (should we make it that far) if this will be Siuan being the watcher outside Shayol Ghul instead of Thom? It kinda would make more sense for that person to be a channeler anyway.

44. As they enter, Rand's wound from Ishamael begin bleeding. As per the prophecy. His blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul. He goes into the cavern holding Callandor and linked with Moiraine and Nynaeve.

spoilers through the epilogue

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(* Tuon’s people are violating the terms of the treaty in the epilogue. They comb the battlefield afterwards and are enslaving any channelers “who are not Aes Sedai”. That’s not the deal she made. The deal was they could not take “any who are not in your own land” and none of the fighting for the Last Battle took place in Seanchan-held lands. As of the epilogue, Tuon is already in violation of the agreement. And the sul’dam who takes Moghedien makes it clear that they’re snapping up any channelers that they suspect “won’t be missed”. There are many channelers among Rand’s allies who are not Aes Sedai -- Asha’man, Wise Ones, the Kin, the Windfinders. So, yeah... Rand isn’t getting his “hundred years of peace” because the Seanchan couldn’t last even a single day post-Last Battle without breaking their word.)

(** So... Rand is lying to Cadsuane and the readers in his scene with her, because he IS making plans to potentially survive the Last Battle -- we know that he has Alivia set up a 'post-death' escape plan for him. So this part is more interesting on reread, because Rand has to walk the line of not giving away to Cadsuane that he does hope to live, because part of his 'post-death' plan is retiring into obscurity. I don't have any issue with Rand lying to Cadsuane here, I just wanted to note it)

It remains so weird to me that Sanderson & Team Jordan decided to go the ‘deserter’ route rather than the ‘negotiator’ route with Mat. I’m honestly scratching my head to try to figure out the narrative benefits of doing things this way. Nothing about Mat’s approach into Ebou Dar requires him to skip Merrilor and abandon his people, and many things would make a great deal more sense if Mat had gone to Merrilor: Mat doesn’t seem to want to be here and yet he’s forcing himself to do it every step of the way, so it would make sense if something was actually driving him to take the actions that he’s taking (guilt over Caemlyn). He still could have easily had sex with Fortuona here if he’d been sent by the Merrilor council, so that’s not why we broke the story to get him here without letting him reconnect with his friends.

What could the motivation be? I am unlikely to ever get the chance to interview Sanderson or Harriet or anyone else on Team Jordan, and no one else appears to have ever asked him about any of this, so I am going to have to speculate.

What are the story effects of having Mat desert Team Light & the Band (off the page)?

It means that anything complicated about the Seanchan gets avoided for the first ten chapters and the focus is entirely on the Westlands' feelings and worries.

Mat's emotional connections appear to have been cut off or muted.

What does it gain to simplify and cut off Mat’s Westlands emotional connections?

Is it a case of ‘writing to the epilogue’? If I recall correctly, Mat doesn’t seem to care at all about his Westlands friends or family in the epilogue, so were his emotional bonds destroyed in-between books so that it wouldn’t be jarring that he doesn’t go to his friend’s funeral or that his only concern post-Last Battle appears to be his own skin and appeasing his owner-wife? But why not write that as part of the text? Why not show us the process of Mat disconnecting from his friends?

Is it another instance of Fortuona’s delicate toddler feelings being coddled (not by other characters but by the narrative itself)? If Mat comes to her still having other loyalties, then she definitely would be upset and would probably throw a tantrum, as we’ve seen from her before (she gets pretty close as it is). One of the largest annoyances of how Jordan (& now Sanderson) has written the story around Fortuona is feeling like the narrative itself is tiptoeing around her and bowing to her and trying to kiss her feet (if the narrative played fair with Fortuona & the Seanchan, they would be a lot scarier and a lot less annoying -- like they were all the way through Winter’s Heart, in fact, because Crossroads of Twilight is really when the narrative really started pulling its punches with the Seanchan).

For whatever reason, it remains such a baffling choice. Because all of Mat’s complex (and often ugly) feelings about his marriage and the Seanchan are still there, bubbling under the surface and poking out from time to time, but the heart of his character -- his relationship with any character other than Fortuona -- got strangled off-screen. Such a strange choice.

I do think that it’s likely that the show will do much better with this relationship, if they do decide to commit to it, because the bones of what Mat & Fortuona could have been are really fascinating. But wow, the execution just shits all over any of the better possibilities. What a waste of potential.

[butterflydm]

wot reread: the shadow rising (chap 34-chap 35)

spoilers through the end of the shadow rising

1. Even just reading the chapter title gives me goosebumps.

2. Rand really does know Mat so well. “Mat was a great complainer at small discomforts; if he was silent now, it meant he was in real pain.”

3. Rand wishes so much that he didn’t leave death and destruction behind him. oh bby. Rand thinks about how he wishes he could pay the price all himself, and spare others from paying along with him. He’s such a good person. He’s just... he’s really such a genuinely good person.

4. Even being kinda freaked out by the announcement of Rand as Car’a’carn, Mat still makes sure to share some water with him. #livecauthorupdates

5. Seriously, though, this is such a solid ship in this book. I have no clue why I thought that their book 1 roadtrip would be the highlight and that things would go downhill from there.Their relationship in TSR is actually incredibly intense (and given what we got in S1, I Have Hopes that Rafe will do justice to the Rhuidean roadtrip as well). They are Weird About Each Other, as the saying goes. Just comparing their friendship to either of their friendships with Perrin really makes it stand out how much more intense Rand & Mat are about each other. It’s funny how I forgot all this, but was left with a vague memory that Rand and Mat were definitely more important to each other than either was to/with Perrin. I mean, it’s true, but it’s also funny.

6. Rand is in such a panic over losing seven days to being in Rhuidean. He really feels like he constantly has to rush in order to outpace his enemies. It’s so stressful.

7. Rand is SO ANGRY that the Wise Ones can’t Heal Mat. I’m-

*wanders off into the desert*

8. Mat charms the Wise Ones while they’re helping patch him up the slow way. <3 Also, Rand noticing that Mat pronounces the Old Tongue words differently than the Aiel do. He also notices that Mat can translate the Old Tongue now, and he’s not confused by what he says anymore. Also: Rand worrying about Egwene noticing too -- he already thinks she’s spending too much time with the Aes Sedai (and thus begins losing trust in her), but I think she’s just worrying because of the talk she had with Mat back in Tear.

9. So the people who hear the story of Rand’s birth mom and dad (apart from Rand) are Egwene, Mat, and Lan. “I do not think she ever forgave herself for leaving the child.” Oh. Rand finding out he has a half-brother, somewhere out in the world. And he finds out that his birth dad was a charismatic peacemaker who mended feuds.

10. Putting aside Jordan’s gender essentialism nonsense, Mat is also the person who best comforts Rand after he learns about his parents. He sits with him in silence, which is what Rand wants right then, just the comfort of having another person there as support without talking about it yet. Mat stays there with him all day, even after everyone else has left, just existing in comfortable, comforting silence.

11. lol, Rand finds Aviendha’s dislike of him somewhat comforting because she dislikes him for person-to-person reasons, not Big Prophecy reasons. I understand, but also it’s funny. And he’s sad when he thinks that she’s seen the past in the glass columns and now hates him for the reasons that so many other people do. And Mat doing his best to look out for Rand and give him a warning. I am DELIGHTED by pretty much every Mat and Rand interaction in this book. 

12. Rand teasing Mat that he’ll be happy about what Rand plans to do next because it’ll mean breaking the rules and Mat just wants Rand to finally have something to eat and getting a little freaked out when Rand can’t stop laughing, THESE BOYS. Mat is just trying to take care of Rand, even when he’s still kinda freaked out by what some of Rand’s stuff means. He’s a such a sweetheart and deserves to be with someone who appreciates him as a person.

13. Ah, this meeting between Egwene and Elayne in TAR would have been... a good opportunity for Elayne to ask Egwene to clear some things up with Rand for her. But I’m guessing Elayne’s pride is still in the way. But she’s so happy when she thinks about how Rand send Juilin after her, to help her out, and then she just... doesn’t go the next step to ask Egwene to reassure Rand that she cares about him.

14. Honestly, letting Rand also meet with Elayne in TAR would fix so many issues people had about them not getting enough narrative time together.

I think this is also something that gets accentuated by how the series lengthened over time against Jordan’s original intentions, ending up in an uneven balance of page time concentrated in that late-middle portion.

15. lol, Elayne being amused about ‘Thom and Juilin’ not knowing where to look on the ship because of all the bare-chested Sea Folk women. We were in your PoV, Elayne. We know that you had far more issues with it than Thom did (though Juilin is a fair point).

16. Egwene tells Elayne literally everything that she heard, including about Rand’s birth parents. Didn’t... didn’t ask Rand’s permission first, I’m guessing. Egwene is Bad at Boundaries.

17. Elayne is so understanding and aware of the political world that Rand has to operate in now, even though Egwene is all but saying that Rand is acting like a terrible person because he’s thinking tactically about people. Elayne and Rand... they fit each other so well. Pls give them more screen time together, show. She just gets him, when the ‘oh no women and men don’t understand each other’ misunderstanding plotline isn’t being actively focused on.

18. Egwene realizing that Sea Folk and Aiel have both integrated their channelers into their society much better than the Tar Valon-surveyed area of the continent has done, and that they are also much more respected, without needing to take the Three Oaths.

For me, the White Tower is kind of the middle of the spectrum of how poorly channelers are treated. The Seanchan and their horrible treatment of the damane is on one side of the scale, while the Sea Folk and the Aiel, who have them fully integrated into their society as respected members who use their gifts for the good of all, being on the other side. And the WT is in the middle, feared and mistrusted by much of the population and, essentially, half-leashed by their own choice with the Three Oaths. The WT kinda reminds me of the Hayes Code, in a way, a group regulating itself because it fears that regulation by their greater society would be even harsher on them, but that can easily become its own trap.

If it were up to me, I’d dissolve both the damane system and the White Tower. Obviously, the damane system is so much worse, but the WT isn’t great and is often actively damaging.

19. Oh, no! I spoke too soon. Elayne actually does try to tell Egwene to let Rand know that she meant what she said in the first letter, but Egwene is pulled out by the Wise Ones before she can finish. She tried! Full points to Elayne, for trying.

20. Amys and Egwene’s conversation is pretty intense. Amys’ frustration is based very strongly on a. Egwene lying to her and breaking her word and b. Egwene doing things that could very likely get her killed while she’s Amys’s student. And we get here the reversal of the TR tradition -- braids meant being a woman in TR society and mean being a child among Aiel society. So I am once again curious about Egwene’s hair situation in upcoming seasons, since she hasn’t unbraided her hair in the show yet. Egwene does grow up later, at least in terms of keeping to her word, I think. Here, she clearly doesn’t believe that a promise is worth keeping and can be discarded whenever it becomes inconvenient, which is something that Amys finds both distasteful and childish.

21. And this is when Aviendha gets assigned to spy on Rand for the Wise Ones. She’s horrified by the idea and grasps onto the idea (offered by Egwene) that she’s doing it ‘for Elayne’ like a lifeline. Oh bby.

[butterflydm]

wot reread: crossroads of twilight (prologue - chap 9)

spoilers through... mostly crossroads of twilight (I have to admit that my brain is not certain where CoT ends and KoD begins; they kinda blur together).

wish me luck.

1. The opening quotation literally sounds like Jordan is saying to us all: Slog Time is in full swing! “The right hand falters and the left hand strays”. No, this is the tenth book in the series why are you doing this to me. That being said... I guess I will say that Perrin is the hand that falters and Mat is the hand that strays, even though it should be the other way around because Mat was absolutely Rand’s right-hand man.

2. So, imo, one of the main issues that happened during the Slog was that Jordan started these new subplots back in LoC/ACoS and then... lost sight of what the narrative PURPOSE of the subplots were supposed to be and started just writing them for their own sake, as if they were the main plots. Perrin’s ‘kidnapped wife’ subplot straight-up shouldn’t have happened at all but, if it did, it should have been wrapped up in a single book. What his actual plot should have been about was the tension of killing or not killing Masema, which is a question that actually goes to the heart of Perrin’s characterization and his place as one of Rand’s childhood friends!

Is it okay to kill a dangerous man who isn’t a threat to you personally but has caused enormous destruction in his wake? Very relevant question, because lots of people want to kill or control RAND because he’s a dangerous man who brings destruction in his wake. The only Perrin pages that I will consider relevant are the ones dealing with this issue, thanks! Everything else can (and should, in the TV series) be tossed away.

3. Mat’s subplot losing its way is actually worse, because Winter’s Heart gave us some strong narrative promises about him and left him off on a relatively exciting note... and then we immediately slow everything down in this book when his plot would have been much better served by a quick pace, focusing on the elements that Winter’s Heart told us would matter: Seanchan characters questioning their empire, the issue of the sul’dam, and the future slaver empress being a woman who is capable of channeling but being destined to marry a man who (last book) despises slavery and is wary of women who can channel, literally her two main things. In Mat’s storyline, I’m also going to be keeping an eye on characterization reversals from previous books.

4. We basically skipped Egwene last book, so this should now be the book where she does the siege of Tar Valon; this is also the book where Elayne is going to defend Caemlyn against a mysterious army. Those are the two things that the narrative told us last book would happen. I feel like Elayne probably holds up her end of the narrative deal; she usually does. But we’ll see! CoT & KoD really merge together in my brain and I’m not certain what happens in which of the books. But both Elayne and Egwene have kept their eyes on the prize so far -- Elayne on securing rulership of Andor and Egwene on securing rulership of the Aes Sedai, both tasks that need to be accomplished for the Last Battle, so honestly they both get gold stars simply because they haven’t gotten distracted away from the main plot of this story: defeating the Dark One at the Last Battle.

5. We don’t know what Rand and Nynaeve’s plans are for after the cleansing, only that they were both really tired and Cadsuane was being creepy and possessive of Rand at the end of Winter’s Heart. Their storyline moved ahead of everyone else’s at the end of the last book, so we will also see everyone else catch up to them in this book, probably.

6. And now we dive into the prologue. This is the other place where the Slog comes into play: too many random PoVs. Some of these are worthwhile and some of them just felt kinda pointless. Though, ironically, all of them are probably better (and much more succinct) than Mat and Perrin’s plotlines in this book, lol, which I’m basically tossing in the bin.

7. Rodel Ituralde has received his letter from his King via “Lady Tuva” which is actually from Graendal. What happens: he’s waiting. We do learn some info about how he is trying to hold Arad Doman together by the skin of his teeth. It’s been “less than a month” since the weather changed. We learn that he’s been getting odd orders from the King (who is in hiding) for months. How many of those orders were actually from Graendal, I wonder. Yeah, it sounds like pretty much all the orders were from Graendal, as Ituralde thinks with despair, “the orders the King sent could not have been better written to achieve chaos”. This is the fruits of Graendal’s labor during the LoC-WH era.

8. Ituralde has taken the letter as an opportunity to meet under a flag of peace (the “White Ribbon”) with Lord Shimron, who used to be one of the King’s advisors but turned Dragonsworn and sits high among the Dragonsworn in Arad Doman (and the Dragonsworn rule by council, which is interesting). He wants to set against his differences with the Dragonsworn to unite against the Seanchan invaders. Oh goodness, yes. I absolutely approve. Please unite against the Seanchan. Would love for Arad Doman to be a bulwark against them going any further to the north, just as Rand is holding Illian to stop them going any further east. Ah, the exact words of the letter are to ‘gather as many men as he can and strike against the Seanchan’. I am assuming Graendal did NOT think he would consider offering truce to the Dragonsworn and was just hoping to feed the Arad Domani army into a meatgrinder. The Dragonsworn here are both Arad Domani and Taraboner and the ones from Tarabon are VERY unhappy about the puppet King and Panarch that the Seanchan have placed on the throne in their home country. This is a good section. Worth all 15 pages. I also really appreciated us getting a chance to see Dragonsworn (who aren’t under Rand’s direct control) who also aren’t cultists like Masema’s people or using it as an excuse to be bandits. Lord Shimron and the people with him are shown to be very principled; they’ve just decided that following the Dragon is a higher calling than following their King.

9. Valda PoV and catching up with the Whitecloaks. This is literally just reminding us of things we already know about Valda and the Whitecloaks. Unnecessary. 5 pages we didn’t need. He’s bitter about the Seanchan taking the Fortress of Light - yeah, duh, of course he is. I just kinda assumed that.

10. And we’re with Gabrelle and the Black Tower now. We don’t learn anything particularly new. Taim and Logain are still at opposite sides of the Black Tower conflict. Only two weeks have passed in this storyline since we last checked in with Toveine. We could have covered this in maybe 3 pages, for the new info about Logain going recruiting.

11. Yukiri in the White Tower. The rumors are all worrying Yukiri, one of the Sisters in the White Tower, especially the ones about Rand vanishing (she wonders if Elaida’s proclamation is to blame). Anyway, Yukiri is one of the Sitters who was drawn into the Black Ajah Hunters plotline, so I’m inclined to like her part. She’s working now with one of the Gray sisters who was sent back to the Tower to spread the rumors about the Reds having raising up Logain as a False Dragon. Things have gotten even worse in the Tower, with sisters not leaving their Ajah quarters alone and always wearing their shawls. They have three names of other Black Ajah sisters from Talene: Atuan (Yellow Ajah), Galina (Red Ajah; in charge of Rand’s kidnapping and now a slave to the Shaido), and Temaile (Gray; left the Tower with Liandrin’s bunch,  currently in Caemlyn). Of them, only Atuan is in the Tower still. In order to figure out why everything Elaida knows is also known by the Black Ajah, Yukiri asks the sister to renew her old (30 years ago) friendship with Elaida. We also learn that Alviarin abruptly left the Tower yesterday. Most of this section is good and useful; I would take out the scene about the “weird Sitters” mystery.

12. Gawyn with the Sisters in the village outside Tar Valon. Gawyn is aware that standing aside the way he did and letting Rand be hurt is something that Egwene would need to ‘forgive’. Gawyn thinks about how he should have gone home (to Caemlyn) once he returned to Tar Valon and found all his Younglings expelled from the city proper. Yes, that would have been a good idea. Your loyalty is supposed to be to Caemlyn and your sister, and you know that wherever Elayne is and whatever she’s doing, she is NOT in the Tower and neither is Egwene. In fact, your most recent news for BOTH of them is that they’re loyal to Rand (since Gawyn doesn’t about Amyrlin Egwene yet). Yet he tells himself that MAYBE Elayne IS in the White Tower and arrived while he was gone, despite there being absolutely no reason for him to think that. Ah, the rebel army has arrived at the threshold of Tar Valon, we learn. And Gawyn straight-up learns from one of the newly arrived Tower Red sisters that Elayne is on the same side as the rebels and yet... stays to hear Elaida’s orders for him instead . I need @markantonys here to explain to me what goes on inside this man’s head. Because he believes that he must be loyal to the White Tower for Elayne and Egwene’s sake even though he now knows Elayne is ‘with the rebels’ and was last aware that Egwene was with Rand (or I think she left him a letter, so he probably knows she had a ~mysterious task~ but she was definitely on Rand’s side so)... I just don’t understand how this leads to “obey Elaida’s orders”? Is it decision paralysis? He can’t make a choice so he just defaults to the thing that’s in front of his face?

13. Bashere outside Caemlyn with the Legion of the Dragon. He’s studying the newly-erected camps of that army that Elayne was warned about last book -- he can spot soldiers who belong to both of the two main rival claimants to the throne of Andor, Neaen and Elenia but, more intriguingly, the banner being flown near the banner of Andor is one for a lady named Arymilla, who wasn’t considered a serious claimant. Oh! The spy-glass that he’s using was a gift from Rand. That’s sweet. I actually do think Bashere makes for a good general for Rand, but he was also good as a co-general with Mat, from what we saw of the Sammael plan, so I do really mourn that he basically ended up being Mat’s replacement*. But as an individual character and for what he brings to the story, I appreciate him a lot. But, anyway, Caemlyn has been surrounded by this army, with all the main roads out of the city covered. It’s actually an interesting narrative reversal of what we should find in Egwene’s story, once we get there! Elayne is being besieged and Egwene is besieging.

* technically, Mat is replaced by the combination of Bashere + Min, I would say. Bashere for the general expertise and being a “man Rand would trust with his life” and Min for being the person who is there for Rand emotionally (and to carry a lot of knives on their person). Though as my reread has shown to me, Min is TERRIBLE at this job, with all her secrets from Rand and spilling Rand’s secrets to other people and her ominous visions of the future. Hilariously, Mat - who has an undeserved (at this point in the story) fandom reputation for having ‘abandoned’ Rand - was much better at being a friend, a confidant, and a comfort to him than Min has been shown to be. Maybe because he wasn’t just pretending to be Rand’s friend in order to try to angle his way into Rand’s bed. Maybe because Rand understood Mat well enough from their years of friendship that he rarely took Mat’s outer shell as seriously as most of the other characters do. Probably some of both. But Mat actually kept Rand’s secrets for him, provided comfort in the way that Rand told us he preferred at the time (sit quietly next to him as he processes and let him work through it), and, though he grumbled and complained, he always did his best to be there when the chips were down.

14. Bael is annoyed that the Legion of the Dragon and the Aiel forces are just being straight-up ignored by this army, and Bashere reminds him that Elayne doesn’t want them to interfere, which means Rand doesn’t want them to interfere. Which means that the heads of Rand’s armies here both know that he has feelings for Elayne. I kinda assume they must also know that he’s sleeping with Min but they don’t reference her at all, so I wonder if Min being openly Rand’s mistress is just straight-up a Cairhien-only affair and none of his people in Caemlyn know about it. And the Wise Ones, of course, know about Aviendha/Rand/Elayne due to the first-sister ceremony, given that Aviendha and Elayne openly talked about their feelings for Rand in the ceremony. Again, Min is left out of the matter here so... hmm. Let me double-check something in Winter’s Heart. Yeah, they don’t mention Min in their first-sister ceremony when talking about Rand. It really does feel like there are two entirely separate sets of relationships here: Rand/Elayne/Aviendha and Rand/Min.

15. Bashere thinks about how this sort of civil war, even a bloodless version, wouldn’t be possible in Saldaea, due to the Blight always being over their shoulder. Better a tyrant than civil war, is the way that thinking runs in Saldaea, because the country has to stay united in order to fend off Shadowspawn and the Blight to their north. We have seen inklings of this kind of thought appearing earlier in this prologue, with Ituralde reaching out to the Dragonsworn because the danger of the Seanchan is so great. Better unite with Dragonsworn, even if that costs his king his crown, than allow their country to be taken by the Seanchan.

16. Bashere comes back to his tent to learn that his wife, Deira, has just survived an attack. He notes that they’re considered odd among Saldaeans because they rarely shout at each other. Then why does Faile... moving on. Anyway, they tease each other a lot, mostly, and talk lightly of serious matters. But, yes, an assassination attempt on Bashere’s wife. Then he, mysteriously, tells Tumad to go to the “man who came to me yesterday” and tell him that Bashere agrees to whatever it was that he’d asked. Clearly something related to why someone tried to kill Deira. This is also a good section of the prologue.

17. Before I even read this next section, I am going to say that 30 pages given to one of Cadsuane’s companions is just TOO MANY. This is too many pages of a side character’s PoV! Anyway, Cadsuane “left a week ago” so Rand is currently still in Far Madding during this section of the prologue. Samitsu’s purpose in Cairhien is to keep an eye on the politics. Nothing in this is relevant at all until Loial and Karldin show up: we know that Dobraine is keeping an eye on Cairhien for Rand. I don’t care what Cadsuane’s flunky thinks about the situation. Dobraine is literally doing exactly the job that Rand set for him -- running the city and making sure that there’s enough support for Elayne that her claim should settle into place easily once she makes it. I approve of Rand choosing Stewards for the cities under his rule but this one should have been Berelain. She was doing a GOOD JOB and she got kicked out because Rand started to feel too much lust for her now that he had an on-site girlfriend, so he demoted and dismissed a good proxy ruler for being too pretty and replaced her with a man. I will never not be mad about this plot/character development. #BerelainDeservedBetter

18. Okay, Loial comes back into the story, along with Karldin. They went off to let the steddings know that the Dragon Reborn wanted all the Waygates possible to be sealed, because the Shadow is using them to move troops. The PoV character is still Samitsu, but one of Rand’s oathsworn Aes Sedai is also here to talk to them, Sashalle, who is Red Ajah and was one of the three sisters stilled by Rand at Dumai’s Wells and then healed by Damar Flinn. Sashalle sounds like a true believer in Rand now (potentially helped along by Verin’s Compulsion).

19. Loial and Karldin are looking for Rand, of course, and worrying over the tales about what happened to the Sun Palace. They’re able to get some reassurance from Samitsu and Sashalle on that regard -- Rand has left but he is not the one who destroyed the palace. We then find out from the servants that Lord Dobraine was murdered. The group of four investigates. He’s almost dead but there is a faint flicker of life, Normal Aes Sedai healing would kill him from the shock of it. She is able to heal him enough to close the worst of the wounds without the shock of healling killing him, but he will need to heal the rest of it the normal way. It looks like the people who tried to kill Dobraine were planning to steal something that he was keeping (probably for Rand?) and might have successfully stolen it, as Loial and Karldin wonder if there were more than two attackers (there are two bodies). We end on the news that a group of Sisters and Asha’man have entered the city, led by Logain.

It does sound like every single PoV in the prologue has been pre-cleansing. Honestly, most of these PoVs were pretty useful, though a couple seemed pointless and several could have been shorter. Maybe the prologues in The Slog got a bad rap and it’s really all Mat and Perrin dragging everything down.

20. Now we enter the book proper and we are in Mat’s PoV. As a reminder, these characters were established as strongly ANTI-SLAVERY/Anti-Seanchan in Winter’s Heart:

Mat (one of his main pieces of characterization in WH)

Setalle Anan (one of her only pieces of characterization in WH)

Juilin (mostly for the sake of his ladylove)

Noal (believes slavery is worse than death)

Teslyn, Joline & Edesina (for obvious reasons)

Thom (helps Beslan plot rebellion against the Seanchan)

Beslan (despises the Seanchan for invading his city). he’s not present but he’s also not dead, so I’m including him

These characters are strongly Oh Shit, Gotta Save My Own Skin/It’s All About Me:

Renna, Seta, & Bethamin (slaves if the Truth Were Known)

Egeanin (same but for her actions and not inherently who she is)

Domon (wants to be free to marry Egeanin)

These characters are strongly pro-slavery:

Tuon (dormant marath’damane)

And we have Selucia, who is a slave. Because Tuon was allowed to bring her slave along with her, which was our first hint on-page that the narrative planned to pull its punches with Tuon, back in WH. Why would you bring her slave along with her? Literally only to coddle her. Why are we coddling the slaver? The narrative doesn’t get into it enough in Winter’s Heart for it to stand out what a bizarre choice it is for Mat to give Tuon the indulgence of bringing along her slave during her kidnapping when he’s actively helping freed slaves escape at that very moment, but it really stands out once we get into Crossroads of Twilight.

Characters who didn’t express strong feelings about slavery in WH:

Olver (only cared about boobs the entire book; did not appear to have noticed that Ebou Dar was ever invaded at all)

Mat’s remaining Band members (mostly just yes-men at this point, sadly)

21. I am not going to go over the majority of Mat’s chapters, since this is a pointless side-quest, but I am keeping tracking of certain items -- every time Tuon refuses to use Mat’s name, every time she acts like a spoiled brat, every time she reminds us that she’s a slaver, and every time one of the actual good things from Winter’s Heart (or previous books) is undermined or reversed. Apart from that, things of note in the first four chapters:

It’s been six days since the night of the escape.

Mat has been thinking a lot about just taking a horse and riding away from the circus as quickly as he can manage it.

He’s depressed about how many Atha’an Miere were killed or recaptured by the Seanchan.

“Oh no one has cut off slaves’ feet for hundreds of years... well, not many people currently cut off their slaves’ feet and we frown at them for doing it. We don’t punish them but we kinda frown.” (paraphrased)

No alarm was raised for Tuon’s disappearance.

Mat still doesn’t want to be married.

Why didn’t Mat and ALUDRA pretend to be lovers instead of Mat and Egeanin? I guess Aludra was already with the circus but still. Didn’t... didn’t the circus see him coming to visit her before? Hadn’t he ALREADY made an arrangement with Luca?

Olver shows a single vague hint of concern that the Seanchan might catch them, so he is aware that they are not on the same side as the Seanchan, at least.

Utterly UTTERLY bizarre that Mat thinks of Selucia as a ‘lady’s maid’ when he knows damn well that she’s a slave. I guess we’re supposed to assume that he’s in denial that his future wife is a slave-owner who actively has a slave with her right now? But if that’s the case, then the narrative needs to have him confront that denial at some point.

Tylin is dead! 💖 It was a horrible and painful death! 💖💖 Best thing that’s happened in this book so far. I’m glad she was an exception to Jordan’s Can’t Kill A Woman thing.

Why does the book act like Joline hasn’t had a collar on her? She had to be collared in order to escape the city; this fact was repeated earlier in Mat’s recap. Sure, it wasn’t the same, since she knew (well, ‘knew’) that she would be let out again, but she HAS been collared and linked to a sul’dam. iirc, I remember that Nynaeve wanted to sick up the second she put on the bracelet on and wouldn’t let Elayne wear the collar even as part of a plan, even as a fake, back in TGH.

...does Mat not know about the sul’dam secret? It kinda seems like he doesn’t. Rand didn’t seem to know it back in TPoD either. The Wondergirls have known since book TWO, this should be common knowledge among all their allies! Lack of communication kills! I love the Wondergirls but they really only are good at communicating with each other and don’t tell anyone else shit.

Ah, we get fixed in time again: Joline wanted to talk to him because they can feel immense amounts of the Power at work and they’re certain it’s the Forsaken: the cleansing is happening. Mat isn’t worried though because after she mentions it, he gets a vision of Rand (and Nynaeve, but Mat only picks up on the fact that it’s Rand and the other person is just the figure of a woman) and he wonders if maybe it was RAND who made the dice stop this time, not Tuon. He doesn’t say anything to them about it being Rand tho.

I don’t care about Tuon’s sob story. We heard her backstory in Winter’s Heart and that was fine, but now I only care about the person she currently is, not the child that she was once upon a time. Every one of the damane was also just a little girl, once upon a time, but none of them get a chapter expounding on their backstories and trying to get us to see them as ~innocent little girls~. I think Alivia got, like, two sentences.

22. And we’re back with Perrin’s subplot that shouldn’t exist because the Shaido should not still be a problem. Five chapters. Things of note:

We start with Perrin dreaming of being a wolf. I do like when we get wolf-related things. Sadly, the wolves are of no use to Perrin when he’s awake. why is perrin trapped in a subplot where his wolf-friends are useless? (why is mat stuck in a subplot where he has the shittiest luck in the world?)

Perrin thinks about how he is absolutely willing to abandon Rand and the Last Battle if it comes now, because he has a greater duty. Oh, I guess he IS the left hand who strays after all, making Mat the right hand who falters. That kinda makes sense, since Mat has just been chilling in the circus next to the city and not ACTUALLY escaping despite that being his entire goal last book.

Faile has been gone for 22 days.

Perrin has finally figured out that Masema is trying to avoid returning to Rand for as long as possible.

Perrin finds the tracks of a pack of Darkhounds and follows it until he detemines that it went off hunting in another direction.

Berelain discreetly gives Perrin proof that Masema is dealing directly with the Seanchan -- High Lady Suroth (Darkfriend).

Why doesn’t Perrin immediately take this to Rand, showing him that there’s no point in trying to take in Masema under his wing? He doesn’t even have to break off his search, just let one of the Asha’man go. But that would require thinking about something other than Faile, so it’s out, of course.

The Shaido have taken an entire TOWN. Ridiculous. They shouldn’t even still be around. Ten thousand Shaido? Ridiculous.

Berelain mentioned that Neald or Grady could fetch more jewels from Mayene for them to sell to potentially buy back their people from the Shaido. Or. Here’s a thought. Have them try to find out where Rand is? Like, they wouldn’t actually be able to find him right now given where we are in the story but they should at least TRY. And if they tried and failed, at least that would be an excuse for this plotline to continue.

We find out that Darkhounds can eat wolves’ souls. That’s creepy. I’d like more wolf-lore and less... any of the rest of this.

Elyas was there during the Blood Snow, apparently. I assume as a Warder?

While Perrin is studying the town where Faile is being held captive, he has a whirlwind of colors in his head and he doesn’t just see Rand but also Nynaeve. It’s not about Faile so he forces himself not to think about it. He does let the people with him know that the big surge of saidin & saidar was Rand.

note: I think both Mat and Perrin made the right call here when it comes to whether or not they talk about this being Rand’s work -- Mat is among near-strangers; he shouldn’t tell them that Rand is doing something important; Perrin is among Rand’s allies; reassuring them is a good thing. But Mat also knows how to keep his mouth shut, so there’s that, too.

New things I’m keeping track of for this book! Now, Tuon is only in Chapter 3 of Mat’s section here, a total of 14 pages.

Tuon refuses to use Mat’s name, calling him ‘Toy’ instead:

Chapter 3: 13 times

Tuon acts like a spoiled brat:

she refuses to use Mat’s name

throws pottery at Mat because she’s annoyed at him

she’s jealous of another woman wanting to have a conversation with Mat

Tuon reminds us she’s a slaver:

she refuses to use Mat’s name

talks about turning Mat into one of her slaves (da’covale), possibly a cupbearer

she gives Mat a “hard rap” on the head to chastise him over being “superstitious”. I guess we can also add her to the list of women who are violent to their ‘romantic’ partners. Not a surprise from her, of course. We know that she’s ordered her slaves beaten before.

Something from Winter’s Heart (or previous) is undermined (I’m kinda using this section to rant about the things that are pissing me off; so skip if it doesn’t appeal):

last book, Noal was very anti-slavery and said it was a fate worse than death. This book, he tells Egeanin that he’s sure her slave misses her too (and Mat thinks he sounds sincere), and that he’s seen worse in his life than damane and da’covale.

most of the Windfinders that Mat helped free were killed or recaptured

previously anti-slavery & anti-Seanchan Setalle Anan is buddying up with a slaver and helping her throw pottery at Mat and being AMUSED at Mat getting a temper tantrum thrown at him by a slaver who has invaded her home and whose forces she is currently attempting to escape. She’s acting like she needs to protect Tuon from Mat, because she apparently has forgotten everything that happened LAST WEEK. Why is Anan coddling Tuon like she’s another one of Tuon’s slaves?

instead of having sympathy for the Aes Sedai, like he did last book (which was a week ago!), Mat is now forcing them to share a wagon with the sul’dam to “keep them out of his hair”. He is forcing women who were SLAVES to share a wagon with former SLAVE KEEPERS.  Teslyn is being forced to share a wagon with the woman who ordered her punishments & trainings redoubled in an attempt to crush her spirit! WTF! (That’s Bethamin btw)

The vast majority of the progress that Egeanin had made seems to have vanished, unfortunately. Tuon’s very existence made her remember that she’s Seanchan to the bones, I suppose. Shame. Does she find her backbone again later on? I hope so. She was already kinda on thin ice for me in Winter’s Heart, tbh, finding out that she gave up something dangerous to Rand to the Seanchan (and someone that the readers know is a Darkfriend) in order to save her own skin. Egeanin may vaguely believe the damane are people now but the only person she really cares about at this point is Egeanin, it feels like.

The Mat-Tylin ‘romance’ gets buffed up in retrospect after we find out that she’s dead. It’s honestly (and unfortunately) easy to see why someone reading Mat’s storyline with a casual eye (especially a privileged man who isn’t as aware of how rape trauma can present) would come out of CoT thinking “oh yeah, Mat genuinely liked Tylin and clearly everything in ACoS & WH was just a sexy game” because that is how the narrative is currently treating that storyline. There’s a single line that alludes to the true horror that we saw in their relationship (Mat thinking about how he’d wanted to get away from her) but the rest is forcing us to watch Mat mourn her and feel guilty about ‘getting’ her killed and Tuon praising Mat for his loyalty to his rapist (while also trying to encourage him to move on and transfer his loyalty to her).

Mat briefly considers allowing the sul’dam to abuse the Aes Sedai because he’s finding them annoying right now.

The three sul’dam themselves also seem profoundly worse as characters this book than in Winter’s Heart -- very certain of their superiority to the Aes Sedai who are marath’damane and not a hint of the concern and worry and doubt that we saw last book about the fact that they are all capable of being held by the a’dam themselves. Maybe that’s because this is all from Mat’s PoV but, again, that’s on Jordan for deciding to craft his narrative in a way that prioritizes the slavers over everyone else. Last book, whenever we went into the Seanchan PoV, it highlighted the dysfunction in the empire, but this book... we get a whole fawning chapter about how Tuon's horrible personality and pro-slavery attitude is forgivable because she was a tragic little girl once upon a time. Again, I ask, what on earth happened to Jordan in between writing Winter’s Heart and Crossroads of Twilight that made him abandon was seemed a very clear and obvious plot-thread set-up about questioning the empire and instead meander onto... this mess of a plotline?

Mat also seems less insightful in this book so far? In Winter’s Heart, he figured out on his own that the Return was a settler invasion that would be much more difficult to dislodge than a normal invasion, but here he has to have Egeanin explain it to him all over again like he’s a child. Why not just have Mat think about it in his internal narration? Honestly, I kinda feel like most of the things people hate about Sanderson’s Mat are already beginning to be on display with Jordan’s CoT Mat. Qualities it feels like Mat somehow lost between WH & CoT: insightfulness, empathy, independence. And he’s also definitely continuing to get more sexist as well. It’s been a week.

People that Mat thinks about:

Rand x3

Perrin x1

Unnecessary scenes:

young Sitters ‘mystery’: 1 (5 pages)

too many random PoVs: 1 (5 pages), 1 (6 pages), 1 (13 pages)

Mat’s side quest (tuon): 4 (91 pages)

Perrin’s side quest (shaido): 5 (123 pages)