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imreallyhereforkataang · 4 years ago

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On The Southern Raiders

Several months ago, a fellow ATLA-consumer asked me the following in reference to TSR:

I came across a post (on tumblr, what a surprise!) the other day saying that Aang never seemed to care about Katara’s feelings revolving around her mom. […] Do you think people genuinely interpreted Aang’s actions like that? Simply by watching? Or are they purposely misconstruing it?

I responded with the vast majority of what follows. It was a while afterwards that I rejoined the fandom for long enough to see the massive spectrum of takes on The Southern Raiders that continues to be put out on the daily.

There seems to be this recurring idea that Aang’s actions in TSR demonstrate that, not only did Aang “never care about Katara’s pain” regarding her mother, but also that he was “forcing his morals on her,” etc. On the topic of whether people honestly believe this to be in Aang’s character or see him this way deliberately, I think sometimes they jump to the conclusion that Aang didn’t care because it stems from a misconstrued interpretation of Aang and Katara as individuals and their dynamic as presented in the show, which may extend to the belief that Aang doesn’t give back what Katara gives to him. In general, I can see how someone might form that impression, but they’re missing some key contextual pieces.

Just a quick disclaimer: This is (obviously) a look into TSR and dives into Katara and Aang, both as individuals and together. I try to make this fairly objective while relaying my own opinions, but this will subsequently hold pro-Kataang rhetoric, platonic or no. Additionally, because this is TSR we’re talking about, I do allude to elements here that mold into what I see as ‘specific common misconceptions about Z*tara’s romantic compatibility based off this one particular episode.’ Why are these relevant? Because there is a clear trend where the people trying to put Aang down or even demonize him for this episode are often pro-canon!Z*tara advocates. To be clear, I don’t have an issue with people who ship them for fun outside of canon, so if you like romantic Z*tara but also appreciate Aang, any perceived digs are not directed towards you! But I think some of these things are worth mentioning here in the interest of examining TSR and Aang-bashing.

(Also fair warning that this is nearing 7k words.)

So, with that out of the way:

I briefly mentioned how people can misinterpret Katara and Aang’s back-and-forths in terms of emotional support, and I feel like that starts with Katara.

Katara is a naturally caring person and earnestly reaches outward to empathize with people. She’s extremely perceptive when someone is hurting (the only one to look concerned when Aang showed gripes about killing Ozai in The Phoenix King) and is often seen as the nurturing character who will coax others to talk about their inner struggles (she does this with Toph in The Runaway and Zuko in The Old Masters, for instance).

Time and time again, when Aang has struggled on his Avatar journey, Katara has been the one to get him to open up and articulate his turmoil, ultimately supporting him or convincing him that there is still hope for better days. She’s been there for him at all times, from The Storm to The Avatar State to Bitter Work to The Serpent’s Pass to The Awakening and beyond, exercising patience and care. It’s a role she undertakes, and as Aang is our main character and undergoing, arguably (I guess? But to me inarguably), the most of everyone in the gaang, it makes sense that Katara, given her empathetic nature and their strong bond, will often be the one expressing true concern for Aang.

So we know that when Aang struggles, which we understandably see a lot of, Katara is his rock. But what about giving back when Katara struggles?

When it comes to Katara’s share of turmoil, the death of her mother and how it continues to impact her is one of her greatest sources of pain. Honestly, it might be one of the only times we actually watch her struggle on her own, as Katara tends to be a powerful self-advocate (see: The Waterbending Master). The thing is, even though Katara has mentioned losing her mother several times throughout the series, and of course she always sounds regretful when it’s brought up, she tends to keep the rawness of her associated sorrow bottled up. Almost every time Katara mentions the death of her mother, it’s been, in very Katara-like fashion, to express understanding towards others. With the exception of @Zuko in the crystal catacombs and TSR, she only brings up her own grief to empathize (@Aang in The Southern Air Temple to prepare him for the genocide and show understanding when he grieves, @Haru in Imprisoned when Haru talks about connecting with his father, @Jet in Jet when he talks about losing his own parents to the Fire Nation, and @Hama in The Puppetmaster when talking about losing members of the Southern Water Tribe). Really, The Crossroads of Destiny and TSR are the only times Katara actually brings up her own pain for the sake of bringing up her own pain, and it’s not often that we see her physically break down over it like we do in the former.

Katara isn’t the sort of person to bring up her turmoil simply for her own needs, or because she realizes it’s weighing on her heavily in that moment. It’s a sore spot that’s changed her behavior (as Sokka explains in The Runaway), making her grow up faster, and that she’s continued to carry for years and years. And yet, again, before The Southern Raiders, we never watched her actively cry over her mother except for when she was alone in The Swamp and with Zuko in The Crossroads of Destiny (and also perhaps when she was alone in The Runaway).

Thus, The Southern Raiders is an interesting episode because it’s where those feelings Katara has been harboring are fully brought to the surface and, in extent, it’s the episode where we see Katara at her lowest point. All of that pain is made fresh and present, the murder no longer feeling like something that happened long ago with, as she believed, no available ends to tie (“Now that I know he’s out there, now that I know we can find him, I feel like I have no choice”), and it causes her to lose sight of herself. That’s not only starkly reflected in her decision to bloodbend, but also in how she doubts that anyone understands her pain.

Katara undermines Sokka’s hurt at the same loss she’s experienced and forgets all the struggle that Aang has had to endure from the start. Not only does he know how it feels to lose a parental figure (Gyatso) to the Fire Nation and not have been able to help (“My people needed me and I wasn’t there to help”; “I’m not the helpless little girl I was when they came”), but he also knows how it feels to lose an entire culture (something only Katara and Hama have similar experience with). And Katara knows this – she’s the one he’s expressed the most of his grief to, and yet here she forgets that. So we can already see how this opportunity Zuko has given Katara, the chance to find her mother’s killer and the anticipation that she feels from it, is bringing out a darker side of her that, unlike the Katara we know and that she wants to be, does not empathize or pause to understand. She’s so engrossed in her own pain, for the first time in so long, that she can’t see beyond it.

In consequence to this episode being about Katara’s emotional journey, I think The Southern Raiders is the most opportune time to observe who will give Katara what she has always displayed towards others. When a character undergoes the level of hurt Katara expresses here, it’s usually she who reaches out to that person, but now it’s her turn to be emotionally compromised. Now we get to see who steps up to the plate.

A lot of people conclude that this person is Zuko. That he’s the one who will reach out to her and connect with her emotionally to help her deal with that pain. I do agree that Zuko played a vital role in Katara’s emotional journey here – he was the catalyst for it. He had an established motivation to get off her bad side and onto her good side, a possible solution alluded to him, and knowledge that comes with hailing from the Fire Nation to go forth with his idea. And he does, and he’s physically there to help Katara through its execution.

However, Zuko making the effort to give Katara this opportunity does not reflect a lack of effort on Aang’s part. Firstly, because, as explained, Aang didn’t see how raw this pain still was to Katara. At this point, Zuko had been on the receiving end of two beratements where Katara angrily mentioned her mother’s death. Aang was not, nor did he witness these incidents. Aang understood the significance of her necklace (Bato of the Water Tribe) and looked concerned for her when she mentioned her vision (The Swamp), but Katara never seemed to express to Aang just how raw her mother’s death still felt, just as Sokka never did. She mentions it in The Southern Air Temple, but their topic of discussion was the Fire Nation killing the airbenders, and Aang was trying to fend off the idea that they might have committed genocide against his people. Considering context, there’s no reason to fault Aang for any of the things he did on this issue, or a lack thereof.

Just as Katara and Sokka thought, Aang probably believed it was a concluded topic in terms of active response. It was something that happened years ago, Aang was in an iceberg at the time, and neither Katara nor Sokka nor Aang thought it was something to go back on and revisit. When Katara yelled at Zuko, she never suggested looking for the killer. And again with that quote, “Now that I know he’s out there,” I don’t think hunting for the man was on anyone’s mind. As a viewer, it was never on my mind, either.

What Zuko had that the rest of Team Avatar did not was direction and knowledge on how they could potentially track down this specific Fire Nation military official. Even Sokka, who could remember the emblem of the Southern Raiders and underwent the same loss Katara did, not only seemed to have no intention of tracking his mother’s murderer, but also took Aang’s side when Zuko and Katara explained what they were planning to do.

Which supports the next point – regarding how Aang responded to the idea once it was out there.

Quick tangent, but it’s a scene like this that shows how Aang’s feelings for Katara have matured. The way he reacts to Katara in The Southern Raiders conveys how he knows she’s not perfect, he knows she can make mistakes, and even if, to some, he comes off as trying to hinder her on this sensitive topic, he overtly wants what’s best for her.

Aang recognizes the change in Katara’s demeanor when she approaches him about borrowing Appa. He seems to notice that something is off about her energy, probably to this extent for the first time, just as for the audience, and his instinct is not to step out of her way and “stay on her good side,” but to try and assess the situation before he lets her go in the condition she’s in. Katara is undeniably not thinking clearly during this scene, nor for much of the episode’s proceedings, given her tone, expressions, words, and intent. She’s undergoing, just as Aang says, “unbelievable pain and rage” (callback to The Avatar State; “for the people who love you, watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary”). Aang understands where Katara is coming from, and he offers her his two cents, but he doesn’t “force” them on her, either.

Watching how Aang’s expression changes between looking at Zuko and Katara, he appears intent and almost stern towards the former. But for Katara, he’s first treading the waters, then concerned and earnest. Aang doesn’t shame Katara for her dark rhetoric or tell her what she should or shouldn’t do, but tries to help her regain some control of her emotions (“Katara, you sound like Jet” – he knows this side of Katara isn’t truly her, or who she wants to be, and this comment might serve to give her insight as to how she sounds) and then offers Katara a choice. Aang makes light of an option that she’s overlooked upon having this opportunity, and he tries to explain why the road she’s going down, the way she’s choosing to handle the situation, is self-destructive. All in all, he’s looking out for her. In his own way, he’s doing for Katara what Katara would have done for him.

I think it’s made fairly clear that, had Katara killed Yon Rha, (who, while, yes, is vile and got away with murder, was also defenseless against Katara by the time she caught up with him), she would’ve regretted her decision. The frightening thing is that I don’t believe she would have accepted that regret from herself, either. It would always remain a blemish in her energy (mind you, not because murder will inherently do this to everyone in ATLA, but it would to Katara specifically given her nature), something that would make her forever carry a bit of that darkness we so rarely see from her, much heavier and more permanent than withholding forgiveness, instead of following “Let your anger out, and then let it go.”

Here’s the thing people seem to forget about TSR: Canon shows us that Aang’s method for handling the situation is beneficial to Katara. It’s true that Zuko was the catalyst for this journey and he was there to help Katara see it through, but it isn’t true to say that Aang didn’t do her a favor by reaching out and being honest with her before they left. Remember the ultimate note on this side story: “You were right about what Katara needed. Violence wasn’t the answer.” The narrative teaches us that Aang was correct on this front – maybe not for everyone, but he wasn’t trying to nudge everyone. He was trying to nudge Katara.

I recently acquired the official DVD commentary for The Southern Raiders. I’ve transcribed relevant points on the end of this post if you’d like to read them in full, but Bryan and Andrea Romano (voice director) talk about how “even though Aang is sort of not in this story very much, to me his presence is in all of these scenes ‘cause you know he’s like, the little angel on her shoulder”; “I agree with you, he is with her through this entire journey she goes through.”

The fact that what Aang said resonated with Katara when it mattered – Katara, who becomes stubborn when she feels strongly about something, who doesn’t let anyone stop her when she disagrees with them, who is going through the most raw, emotional turbulence we have seen her in throughout the show –, the fact that Katara ultimately agreed with Aang’s words, that his words were the aid she needed in realizing there was a decision in either killing Yon Rha or sparing him, hugely states that Aang was there for Katara. Aang helped her see she had a choice for her own sake when her mind was clouded by pain and rage. You don’t need supplementary commentary to see that – Katara was seriously considering revenge, Zuko was leaning towards punishing Yon Rha but, for the most part, staying out of the decision (though based on the two back-and-forths he had with Aang before they left and his reaction to Katara walking away from bloodbending the wrong man, he didn’t realize how detrimental to Katara killing Yon Rha would be – his intention when giving Katara this opportunity was ultimately to gain some ground with her, and while he shares a sense of her pain, he doesn’t foresee what the nature of this journey will do to impact Katara specifically, which I get since he hardly knows her), and so it was ultimately Aang who helped Katara find her path even when he wasn’t there with her physically.

People can argue that Aang was forcing his morals on Katara, but he wasn’t. He was offering valid wisdom, yet pressing enough to hope that she’d actually listen and maybe react, as she did, rather than Aang simply standing back. It would’ve been easy for Aang to do nothing (like he said) and not risk coming off as unconcerned about her feelings, like he did to some viewers, because we know how Aang feels about Katara and that he doesn��t want to create rifts between them. But he risked stirring them, in her volatile state, in order to get his point across, if it meant that in consequence there would be a better chance Katara wouldn’t make the mistake that he knows would haunt her after this foreign mood of hers has passed. Aang isn’t about to let her go without trying to help her, even when she seems to not want help. It’s not in Katara’s nature to seek emotional support, and the audience has never seen her like this, but Aang recognizes that she needs the nudge (which, had her mind been clearer, she’d apparently agree with over her idea of revenge) and gives it openly and hopefully, even when she isn’t in a receptive state (or so it seemed). Again, Aang’s “morals” in this case of murder turned out to be, as he suspected, compatible with Katara’s as well as Sokka’s, so clearly he did a good thing there.

I think some people believe that Aang “forces his morals” on Katara because they’re under the impression that Aang’s concern is the general idea that she will kill somebody, the persons involved being irrelevant. That he’s acting selfishly and, in the interest of aligning with his own ideals, doesn’t want the girl he loves to be “corrupted.” This sort of mindset that “he’s against killing, so he won’t let Katara have this” leads to the conclusion that he’s not giving her the free reign to make her own choice.

However, this idea is debunked again and again in the episode. Aang says, clear as day, “I wasn’t planning to [try and stop you]. This is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man. But when you do, please don’t choose revenge” as Katara turns away from him to go, and Aang stands back and watches with concern. He’s not being “forceful” – he’s being honest, like Katara’s been for him, and even supportive. If Aang really wanted to ensure that Katara followed his own morals, if he were actually not giving her free reign, he would’ve either disallowed Katara and Zuko from taking Appa or gone along with them. Aang could’ve justified joining the mission – it is his bison and that would split up the gaang evenly. He could’ve forced himself on this journey and used the time before meeting Yon Rha to monitor Katara like a chaperone, believing he’s just trying to help and making sure she doesn’t get hurt.

And yet he doesn’t. He lets Katara do this, and his parting words continue to be what he hopes she’ll choose. But his final action, letting her set off with Appa and leaving him behind, means that he’s leaving the decision up to her.

I feel like people completely forget some segments of the episode. Like how Sokka says “I think Aang might be right” and doesn’t go on the journey that he has as much reason to embark on as Katara does. Or how Katara literally says right before departing, “Thanks for understanding, Aang.”

Aang’s stance on Katara getting revenge goes beyond Aang just being against killing – he’s not voicing his opinion out of defense of Yon Rha or because he doesn’t want to love someone who went against his morals. He’s doing it because he knows what Katara’s going through and he doesn’t want her to have to face the consequences of letting the pain get the better of her. He’s trying to help her from going down a dark road, not for himself, but for her, because he knows her and knows this is something she would regret.

So when Katara tells him later that she didn’t forgive Yon Rha, Aang doesn’t push her or ask questions. He’s glad – and proud – that she didn’t do something that would’ve permanently hurt her, and beyond that, she could dissent from his morals as she liked. When Aang saw Katara after her trip, the first thing he did was run to her purely to ask if she was okay, not to discover whether she killed; he already knew from Zuko.

Bottom line is that Aang cared about her feelings. Particularly the feelings of the Katara she normally is, the Katara she means to be, the Katara who doesn’t bloodbend or unempathize, the Katara who’s hurting and whose pain is getting the better of her. Aang saw what was happening and did what he could to help, nudging her on the path she needed when her vision was clouded (sounds like Katara helping Aang when he’s in the Avatar State. Again, The Southern Raiders provides an instance of Aang giving back to Katara what she’s given to him, like with The Desert/The Serpent’s Pass, his pain from which Aang pointed out in “How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa?”).

Overall, people might honestly interpret Aang as being unsympathetic this episode, and I can see how from a superficial standpoint. But by doing so, they’re missing the significance of Aang’s choice to reach out and the importance it played in helping Katara conserve her own image of herself. She bloodbends someone – not even confirming that it’s the right person, first – in a rush of pain and rage after practically swearing it off less than ten episodes ago, so she clearly loses some semblance of herself during this episode, and it’s Aang who makes the most effort to help her find balance without getting in the way of her search. Ultimately, Aang’s role in TSR demonstrates how well he understands her personally, as well as his ability to step back and let her make her own decisions while still offering a viewpoint that her pain prevents her from seeing.

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Okay, big breath. Halfway through. I’d like to talk in more depth about how Aang understands Katara’s position.

I was thinking once again about Aang saying, “I do understand. You’re feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?” As presented to us, those two incidents had several things in common.

Aang went into the Avatar State due to intense emotion, as opposed to a life/death situation, and caused mass destruction that risked placing harm on others. And both of these times, Katara was the one to pull him out of that state. An important thing to note is that there’s one other moment very similar, but not identical, to these, which took place in The Avatar State. Just like in The Southern Air Temple and The Desert, Aang entered the Avatar State due to intense emotion, out of anguish when losing Katara. But the difference here was the amount of destruction caused. When Aang lost control of himself, he went through with hurting the people in his vicinity, and when he came out of that state, he hated to see what he’d done. Aang told Katara that he hoped she’d never have to see him like that again, and he hoped it for himself, too (but, of course, she did see him like that again in The Desert).

What I’m trying to show here is that Katara losing herself to her “pain and rage” in The Southern Raiders parallels Aang losing himself to his “rage and pain” in The Avatar State, not just in The Southern Air Temple and The Desert, as he directly references. But why am I so adamant about The Avatar State as opposed to those other two episodes?

Because we saw the lasting effect that The Avatar State had on Aang. There are many analyses out there that explain how Aang has had to struggle with control over his vast power, oftentimes depicting it as something he’s afraid of. For so long, Aang fears the Avatar State, what he’s capable of while in it, and how he can’t regulate his actions when it occurs. This conflict comes up time and time again, and a huge part of his character arc is involved with that struggle.

But again, for the significance of The Avatar State episode specifically, I was thinking about chakras in The Guru. From his Earth Chakra, we see that Aang continues to fear himself in the Avatar State, and from his Water Chakra, we see that one of his two greatest sources of guilt is that he lost control of himself in The Avatar State due to his rage and pain, lamenting that he “hurt all of those people” (the other being that he ran away, which, as mentioned before, is tied with his guilt at not being there to help and isn’t unlike the anguish Katara must feel now at not having been able to help her mother, get her father’s help fast enough, etc.). Pathik tells him that, in order to open his Water Chakra, to absolve the guilt and let the pleasure flow, “you need to forgive yourself.”

So here we have this idea that forgiveness is the key step to opening a person’s Water Chakra. Water, symbolizing pleasure and healing. “It’s easy to do nothing, but it’s hard to forgive.” “Forgiveness is the first step you have to take to begin healing.” These things Aang says in The Southern Raiders reflect what Pathik taught him about the Water Chakra.

Forgiving oneself is (obviously) different from forgiving your mother’s killer, but with this insight it’s clear that Aang personally understands how it feels to let your pain and rage get the better of you, and how it hurts deeply to face the consequences of your actions once the moment has passed. He recognizes that Katara is in a state not unlike the one he’s in when he loses control (“I do understand”) and he doesn’t want that for her. He wants Katara to be able to regain control of her actions and navigate out of her clouded vision so that she can make the choice that’s right for her. Aang is trying to help Katara see the pieces she’s missing, like how Katara does for Aang when he’s in the Avatar State.

Forgiveness is a necessary step in order to heal, and maybe it wasn’t a choice Katara ultimately made, but that was a decision Aang accepted. She didn’t kill Yon Rha, she didn’t have to now struggle with guilt or having to admit to that guilt, and she didn’t have to be faced with the strenuous task of forgiving herself for something she definitely would not have wanted to admit needed forgiving for. She saved herself from the pain that could have resulted from her own actions, because Aang helped her see she had a choice. When it mattered, when she was about to deliver the final blow, Aang’s words helped her pull out of that emotion-induced near-equivalent of an “Avatar State.”

To me it’s really fascinating to see the connections between these incidents – The Southern Raiders plus the three episodes where Aang enters the Avatar State out of emotion/rage (almost four if you count The Storm, but he manages to contain it when Katara calls out). The way these arcs parallel each other (“I went through the same thing when I lost my mom”; “How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation?”; “Watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary…I can’t watch you do this to yourself”; “As you watch your enemy go down, you’re being poisoned yourself”) and ultimately culminate in acts of mercy. It’s incredible how Aang and Katara are able to reach each other when they’re in their emotional states, and know what the other needs and who they are when they lose themselves.

In addition, I also think Andrea’s point about how Aang “teaches” Katara is further reflective of the impact Aang has on the people around him. I’ve seen many circulating posts about how Aang hailing from the time before the war and being raised by the Air Nomads allows him to bring a unique, positive influence to those around him who, in contrast, grew up in war-time and were most likely (Bumi is an exception) never alive in the time of the Air Nomads. However, along with the lightheartedness and fun (see: The Avatar Returns and The Headband), this also includes the specific wisdom and peacekeeping ways of the airbenders that became lost in the war, and that Aang symbolically ends the war with: An act of mercy, thus showcasing the survival and triumph of the Air Nomads as well as the Avatar. In TSR, Aang shares this wisdom with Katara – that the choice exists, and there is strength in not choosing revenge and electing forgiveness if she so resonated with it.

[Click here]

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Back to the original question –

It may be possible that if someone were to overlook some characterizations and watch The Southern Raiders episodically, as opposed to as part of a whole arc, then they might genuinely form the impression that Aang is in the wrong here. I think I myself might’ve been a bit surprised by his approach when I was younger (though Katara’s attitude was also very surprising and even unsettling), but that was also at an age where I didn’t really understand the severity of the situation and just how much Katara was drifting from herself, or what killing Yon Rha could do to her, or, simply, in that volatile state, what she needed to hear.

I’ll be honest (drawing from personal experience, not sure if others relate) – I think as a child, one may not see the episode as intended because, unlike many other episodes, the takeaway lessons in The Southern Raiders are either expressed through words or an instance of not doing something (the instant where Katara doesn’t kill Yon Rha, since not doing something is less stark to a child than doing something). It’s a gray story in terms of right/wrong, and when you’re young, I can see why those lessons are misinterpreted because the viewer gets so caught up in the adrenaline rush of the action in this episode, the stealth, the bloodbending, the frightening amount of anger in Katara. It consumes most of the viewing experience, and within all that, the ultimate big lesson that “Violence wasn’t the answer” might get missed because violence or violent intent constituted almost all of the runtime. I see people who don’t remember this episode as a commentary on vengeance/forgiveness/the middle ground, but as “the one where Katara and Zuko got super badass."

Getting older, The Southern Raiders is such a gruesome episode. I now see the crucial, ‘quieter’ points that I overlooked as a child. Things like Sokka siding with Aang, Katara thanking Aang for his understanding, Zuko ultimately agreeing with Aang’s assessment of what Katara needed. Sad thing is that some people don’t appear to see this episode the way it was intended in time. TSR requests a perceptive mind from its audience, and some people don’t seem open to that.

I feel that this episode is often treated as shedding light on canon romantic Z*tara for similar reasons as to why people might miss the lessons – Zuko and Katara look cool and badass, on their way to kill a man. It’s exciting to see them working together, the nature of the mission is intriguing, but understanding subtext means acknowledging the tragic underlining of the episode, that it’s painful, that it’s Katara’s journey. It’s disappointing to me when some people chalk up Zuko and Katara’s relationship to being “badass” and “sexy” as a result of The Southern Raiders. It feels out-of-context, caught up in the “coolness” of this episode and misinterpreting physical synchrony as emotional, especially since their dynamic changes anyhow after Katara forgives him.

The episode presents very clearly that Zuko wasn’t right in his assumption about what Katara needed. Again, not necessarily his fault, although his comments about "Air Temple preschool,” “Guru Goody-Goody,” and forgiveness being “the same as doing nothing” display his skepticism of going the peaceful route (though this is curious to me given how often he showed mercy towards Zhao). He honestly didn’t realize the implications this journey would have on Katara, but by the end of the episode, I think it’s safe to say Zuko learned that Aang knew what he was talking about. Aang, whose whole nation and father figure were killed, and yet was able to forgive. Who could see how Katara was responding to the information Zuko gave her.

That’s not to discount Zuko’s role here. Maybe Katara did need closure, and Aang did say “This is a journey you need to take” (although, I do wonder, as Aang asked originally, what it ultimately accomplished. I get that Katara felt like she needed to take the opportunity once Zuko handed it to her, “Now that I know we can find him,” but if Zuko had never brought it up, would things be different? I hope it accomplished something in regards to Katara’s turmoil – perhaps she was able to forgive herself in that she could finally confront the man who did this, when all those years ago she came back with help “too late” – but at least she forgave Zuko in consequence), but this journey was so emotionally turbulent for Katara, heavy to the point where she wasn’t even herself anymore (as said in The Avatar State, “I saw you get so upset that you weren’t even you”).

Therefore, I personally find that simplifying TSR into “Katara and Zuko being cool” to the point where people glorify the way Katara acts in this episode insulting to her character, simply because I don’t enjoy watching deep pain morph Katara into becoming something she dislikes (see: Bloodbending and how it’s often glamorized in fandom). To me, it’s not as if she’s honing something akin to her inner strength. Katara is an extremely powerful character, which is shown time and time again, and her power comes from her physical capabilities as well as her inner strength. “Hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.” Bam, Katara right there. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m too weak to do it or if it’s because I’m strong enough not to.” As is a theme in this show, there is a strength in restraint.

In her right mind, Katara would be horrified by her actions in The Southern Raiders, or at least what her ultimate intention was, and if people more closely understood Katara as she is, then I feel like they’d agree. As Aang did.

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Do I think there are people out there who deliberately reimagine TSR as ‘the episode where Aang was a “self-righteous prick” to Katara’? Yes, absolutely. As for motivation, I can’t really think of any reason for trying to make Aang look bad besides trying to make him look bad in comparison to another character (i.e. Zuko here), or maybe people have their own personal reasons for disagreeing with Aang’s sentiment while forgetting that Katara ultimately does not (in regards to the killing). Or maybe people just dislike main characters who manage to uphold their morals and it goes in-hand with those who think Aang should’ve killed Ozai.

—-

Honestly, there’s a lot more that can be said on the topic in regards to what Katara learned about herself in TSR, as such might be reflected in her active choice to spare Azula in Avatar Aang (which Bryan notes in his commentary: “Katara also finding a peaceful means” in reference to Aang), but frankly I’m kind of exhausted so I’m gonna leave this half-baked copy-and-paste from something I wrote earlier this month:

I feel like the only people Katara has harbored legitimately murderous thoughts towards have been Yon Rha (her mother’s killer) and Zuko and Azula (Aang’s killers, indirectly and directly), indicated by that unique energy she’s carried around those three that we don’t see a lot from her, where her voice becomes lower and the weight of her words more threatening (also the fact that she issued clear death threats to the first two).

For the final Agni Kai, Zuko planned on ending Azula. He goaded her into using lightning and intended to redirect it at her (he didn’t want to, of course, as Bryke noted, but that was the decision). So it’s striking to me when Katara, despite having a very opportune chance to end Azula and knowing Zuko wouldn’t have judged her for it since he was about to do the same, makes the active choice to keep her alive. Katara could have unfrozen herself and gotten to Zuko immediately, but instead she took the time to restrain Azula and allow her to live. And I do believe that a part of the decision was made clearer to her after the events of TSR. Katara realized, subconsciously or no, what she isn’t, and that she’d try to preserve Azula if she could despite how much she might hate her for what she did last season.

—-

DVD Commentary for The Southern Raiders

[…]

Andrea Romano: This is where she does bloodbending, right? So scary!

Bryan Konietzko: It’s this dark skill that she reluctantly learned in episode 3x08. And there’s another important lesson – it’s like, once you have power over someone, are you strong enough not to use it? Or, use restraint in life?

Dante Basco: […] The thought of bloodbending is an idea that – it’s just crazy! Like, the average television or Nickelodeon show […] is not thinking about bloodbending. But yet it’s a very possible situation in this world, and I think that’s what makes it so exciting for people who watch the show.

Michael Dante DiMartino: Yeah and it’s not a skill that they take very – or certainly that Katara takes – lightly. It’s a very serious proposition to do that on somebody.

AR: And it’s not treated lightly. Here she is, she’s so close to being out of control. And that’s what adds so much to the drama of it, is, we think, she could really lose it here and really do something that she regrets for the rest of her life. But she manages to hold herself.

[…]

BK: We see that she’s unbalanced emotionally, and so that’s what’s coming out.

AR: […] But we can only hope she’ll make the right choice. (Imploringly) Use your powers for good!

BK: I love that, even though Aang is sort of not in this story very much, to me his presence is in all of these scenes ‘cause you know he’s like, the little angel on her shoulder-

AR: Absolutely, yeah.

BK: -y'know, that she’s ignoring at this time. And so, to me it really is a story about Aang because it’s like, it’s just about him trying to have influence over her actions from afar – just, by not telling her what she has to do, but just by gently suggesting what she try to achieve with this journey.

AR: It really is a juxtaposition there, where the young Aang sort of tells her, like a parent, go ahead, go out and do what you have to do, but please, I hope that you choose forgiveness rather than revenge. And here he is the young one, and she is the older one who should be, sort of, teaching him and in fact they switch and he teaches her. So I agree with you, he is with her through this entire journey she goes through.

BK: I think it’s also interesting that, if you look on paper, Aang has lost a lot more than Katara has, and he sort of gently reminds her of this. He’s like, 'Hey, my whole culture was wiped out. Everyone I’ve ever known was wiped out.’ And uh, but as we all know in real life, you can’t really quantify suffering. It’s really a personal thing and everybody…everybody’s situation, when your own world kinda crumbles, it seems like the whole world’s falling apart. You can’t really equate these things. And so, we just see Katara lost in a very human moment in this episode.

AR: I love that scene. So dramatic. You just go 'Oh no – don’t do it! Don’t do it!’

[…]

—-

DVD Commentary for Avatar Aang

[…]

Bryke: It’s sort of like a multi-stage thing. He releases his emotions, these raw feelings of anger and wrath, and then learns to control them and rise above them. […] We obviously wanted a cool moment of Aang in the Avatar State, and it was kinda finding that right story beat for him. And in this case it was him being the totally wrathful, vengeful version of the Avatar […] But it’s really not Aang. It’s really this energy that has kinda taken over him. He’s not in control at this point. […]

So, can kind of recognize this Kung Fu move he’s doing. It’s what he was having nightmares about in 2x01, as he feared being this sort of wrathful, y'know, Hand of the Avatar. That was that same kind of […] chopping motion in those 2x01 nightmare scenes. […]

I feel like that’s his defining moment. That’s why we call this episode Avatar Aang. […] He’s finally learned to control the energy. […] He’s controlling it, he’s not letting it control him. […]

#atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #the southern raiders #aang #aanglove #katara #kataang #kataangtag #sorry for reposting #anti zutara #i hope it's not that bad but this way you can filter if you want

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neuxue · 6 years ago

Text

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 37

Two words: Natrin’s Barrow

Chapter 37: A Force of Light

That sounds almost positive, so it probably isn’t.

Oh it’s a Min POV! I’ve been wanting one of these.

I like the way the POV is shifting in this book so far, bouncing off of Rand to other characters briefly, then coming back to him on the way to another character, touching sometimes on his own thoughts and sometimes on those around him. It’s a change from the previous few books, and adds to the sense that we’re drawing closer to an ending; everything is being pulled tightly around him as he stands at the centre of this storm.

The previous few books, we’ve seen more of things falling apart, divisions growing, unity failing, the right hand falters and the left hand strays – reinforced by the way POV sections were grouped by character, so you’d see one character and one storyline for a few chapters, and then either not at all or maybe only once or twice before the next book. The stories were separate, the characters were separate, and the impacts of the Dragon Reborn and the impending Last Battle and everything that goes with it were being flung across the world. Now, there’s a sense of pulling that back in, and so it becomes tighter, faster, and yet at the same time slightly more chaotic and frantic.

And Rand stands at the centre, but he still has relatively few viewpoint chapters of his own; often, now, he is narrated by one of those near him. Because while he is the point around which everything turns, he inhabits a slightly different level – partly out of his own doing, deciding that the Dragon Reborn cannot be truly human, giving himself to his role and duty and leaving nothing for himself, writing out his own agency in a way; and partly out of the role he is given.

Anyway, let’s get to the actual chapter, shall we?

These opening paragraphs, with Min watching Rand dress in meticulous detail, sharp and tense and exact, remind me a great deal of two other scenes. The first is Rand preparing to go to Caemlyn to face Rahvin at the end of TFoH, where he thought about how he needed to be cold, with no mistakes, and Aviendha watched him. The second is Min watching Rand prepare to go to Illian to face Sammael. There’s a trend here, is all I’m saying.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

Rand did not turn from the mirror. “About what?”

“The Seanchan.”

“There will be no peace,” he said, straightening his coat collar. “I have failed.” His tone was emotionless, yet somehow taut.

“It’s all right to be frustrated, Rand.”

“Frustration is pointless,” he said. “Anger is pointless.”

Tuon left that meeting and immediately declared herself Empress and war on the Tower (like my zeugma there?). Now, I think, we’re seeing Rand’s version of that. Two leaders walk away from a ruined attempt at peace and set their held plans in motion, cold and clear and ruthless.

The air shimmered above Rand, and a mountain appeared there. Viewings were so common around Rand that Min usually forced herself to ignore them unless they were new – though she did spend time some days trying to pick them all out and sort through them. This one was new, and it caught her attention. The towering mountain was blasted out on one side, making a jagged hole down the slope. Dragonmount?

Finally someone says it. Dragonmount’s been hanging over Rand for…well, technically his whole life I suppose, but in the last few chapters those hints have been getting heavier than either duty or a mountain.

It was cloaked in dark shadows, as if shaded by clouds

Or by metaphor.

That was odd; whenever she’d seen the mountain, it had reached higher than the clouds themselves.

With your self-taught philosophy, Min, I trust you can work this one out without too much difficulty.

Dragonmount in shadows. It would be important to Rand in the future. Was that a tiny prick of light shining from the heavens down onto the point of the mountain?

A memory of light, even?

He will stand on his grave and weep, laughter and tears, death and rebirth, memory and shadow and light…

Lews Therin killed himself in a blaze of light on what would become Dragonmount, and it would be fitting, would it not, for Rand to at last choose life in the very place his past self chose death? A fitting way to answer the question he has been struggling with since learning who he was: does sharing Lews Therin’s soul mean sharing Lews Therin’s fate?

My question is how. How does he get to that point? What would drive him to Dragonmount, and what would compel him to such a choice, as far past the edge as he is? It seems so perfect, so fitting; I can’t see what else all of this could be leading to, but nor can I see how we get there.

She’d begun to think of herself as a last defense for Rand.

Ah, Min. And she has been – her bond with him and her love for him have been among his very few anchor points for so long. But he is absolutely his own worst enemy right now – the external threats pale in comparison and they’re not insignificant – but it’s hard to defend anyone against that level of commitment to self-immolation.

Min had discovered just how useful she was as a ‘line of defense’. She’d been about as useful as a child! In fact, she’d been a hindrance, a tool for Semirhage to use against him.

Yeah, I knew she must have her own reasons for not pushing to accompany Rand to the meeting with Tuon. And of course it’s not quite the same reason Rand assumed. But why can he not feel this through the bond – her frustration with herself, her growing sense of helplessness? Or if he can feel it, why does he not think about it?

(Yes those questions are mostly rhetorical).

So she studied and tried to stay out of his way. He’d changed on that day, as if something bright had turned off inside of him. A lamp flickering out, its oil gone, leaving only the casing. He looked at her differently, now. When those eyes of his studied her, did they see only a liability?

It’s not a lack or a diminishing of love, but it is a…distancing…between them. Yet another anchor Rand is slowly losing, because now there is this thread of uncertainty and fear and doubt and misunderstanding between them, even if each reads a different reason or cause into it. And the fact that this is happening even with Min, who has been closer to him than anyone for a very long time, is indicative of just how far gone he is.

“You’re going after her, aren’t you?” Min found herself asking. “Graendal.”

So she’s not the only one getting a sense of déjà vu from this scene.

“Fix the problems you can, don’t fret over the ones you cannot. It was something Tam once told me.”

Okay, Rand, that’s good advice and all, but I’m fairly certain Tam al’Thor did not intend it to apply to this particular situation.

“Don’t think you can leave me behind!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said flatly.

Maybe Nynaeve can dream of it on his behalf.

Too soon?

Once, he would have done everything in his power to persuade her not to. But now, the possibility of her death is something he has…accepted, in the cold way he accepts anything and everything he must do or sacrifice. It would be just another wound to carry until he can die.

From the night stand he picked up the statuette of a man holding aloft a globe. He turned the ter’angreal in his hand, inspecting it, then looked up at Min, as if in challenge. She said nothing.

He does not challenge her decision to accompany him, so she does not challenge his decision to bring the nuke along. (Great).

It all adds to this very well-executed sense that something is very, very wrong here. He’s so different, eerily so at times, and so the characters around him are caught in this…dance, almost, of trying to figure out how to get him to respond, trying to either unsettle or provoke him or get any sort of reaction from him at all besides this terrifying calm.

He glanced at the pair of Maidens guarding the door. “I go to battle,” he said to them. “Bring no more than twenty.”

However misguided his earlier attempts were to keep them from the fighting, this is more frightening by far, because it’s not him. It doesn’t come from a place of finally understanding and accepting their choices; it comes simply because he’s stopped caring – or at least, stopped acting on his caring – about any of the things he once did. He is a different person, and all can sense it, and it comes across so exquisitely in the narrative, and it’s both beautiful and terrible, and filled with this sense of foreboding, of calamity on the horizon.

He had rushed off like this to fight Forsaken before

And that’s always worked out so well. He wins, but there’s always such a high cost to pay. Rahvin, maybe, was the one where the scales tipped the most in his favour, but even that had its price.

He seemed like a thunderstorm, contained and wrapped up, somehow bound and channelled towards a single goal. How she wished he’d just explode and lose his temper, the way he used to! He’d exasperated her then, but he’d never frightened her. Not as he did now, with those icy eyes she couldn’t read, that aura of danger.

More than most, she sees the depth of the changes in him. It’s an excellent description, and she’s not wrong to be afraid, though it’s heartbreaking to see that she is.

One of the interesting things here is the comment about his temper. Because in the early-to-middle books, he and others thought about how that was a change in him; how he’d never shown much of a temper before. And he didn’t, until TDR/TSR. But now, this lack of a temper, this complete failure to explode even when pushed to what should be a breaking point, doesn’t feel even remotely like the gentle shepherd he once was. It’s not a return to or a remembrance of that. Instead it’s a warped, twisted reflection of it, the way so much about him now is. There are echoes of the person we first met, and yet they’ve been distorted, given these harsh edges, taken too far and reached from the wrong direction.

Since the incident with Semirhage, he spoke of doing ‘whatever he had to’ regardless of cost, and she knew that he must seethe at having failed to convince the Seanchan to ally with him. What would that combination of failure and determination lead him to do?

YOU AND ME BOTH, MIN.

I’ve been wondering that pretty much since The Last That Could Be Done, because that was the crossing of his personal threshold, but you don’t have a character become unfettered in their own minds without then giving some…outward indication of that. Rand is cold and terrifying and not at all like himself, but he hasn’t yet crossed that line externally. And I think so much of the tension from his last several chapters has been a result of that sense of waiting for him to do exactly that. It seems an inevitability, and because there are no limits it’s just a question of when – because it could be any time. It could be anything. So the reader and the other characters alike are walking on eggshells here, because he’s already at that point, he doesn’t need to be pushed, he just needs to decide something is necessary…

And we’re heading for Graendal’s hiding place. Bets on this ending well? Anyone?

Speaking of ending well…there are those arguments that crop up periodically in this genre that anything not ‘gritty’ or grimdark or ‘anyone can die’ is boring because you know it’s going to end with good triumphing over evil and minimal major deaths. And I think this serves as a good illustration of how that’s not at all true. I am 99% sure this series will end with a victory for the Light, that Rand will remember laughter and tears before the end and will rise from this low point, that most if not all of the main cast will make it out alive. But that doesn’t make the story less compelling, or this current darkness of Rand’s arc less tense or frightening. It just shifts the focus. The question is not who will win and who will die (to paraphrase a certain proponent of the other side of this argument), but how they will win, and what the cost will be, and how far they will go and what that will do and how they will find a way back and a way forward and what that future will look like, with ‘the battle done, but the world not done with battle’.

This chapter – Rand’s whole arc this book – is filled with a sense of foreboding, a sense of the true darkest hour, and the almost certain knowledge that he will somehow come through this doesn’t make that tension any less. I’m still waiting to see him do something catastrophic, and throughout the books leading up to this I was watching him break slowly, and it wasn’t a question of whether he would survive, or even whether he would fall to darkness, but of what he would do in order to endure. It becomes not an exploration of simply life or death, of failure or success, but of the difference between hardness and strength, of the balance of desperation and hope, of identity and duty and power, of the limits of endurance.

And I don’t think that’s boring. Because it’s not about how it ends, really. It’s about how the story gets there, about watching these characters walk these paths, wondering what it will do to them, wondering how they will reach their destinations and how much of themselves they will leave behind, or perhaps discover.

Don’t get me wrong: I also enjoy stories that do have the potential to end in true darkness, or in failure or death, and where those are the main uncertainties. But sitting here, reading as Rand prepares in calm cold apathy to eliminate one of his enemies and holds the power in his hand to destroy the world, sure this can’t possibly go well, I don’t feel like that sense of dread and anticipation and excitement is in any way lessened by the probability that eventually, he will come through this.

Once that would have made him smile. She kept forgetting that he didn’t do that anymore.

It’s so casually phrased that it’s funny until the meaning hits and it’s not funny at all.

Instead of smiling Rand decides to give us all a lecture on the history of Natrin’s Barrow. I suppose having a lifetime of memories from three thousand years ago, but nothing between then and now, would give some people an interest in history. And send others running for the hills.

“Tell me this: How do I outthink an enemy I know is smarter than I am?”

With a long-range sniper and very good aim.

The actual answer to this is to not try to outthink them, because you won’t. Don’t try to outplay a master of the game but don’t refuse the invitation; take the first steps as expected and then ignore the rules completely, and in the most erratic or unpredictable – and preferably final – way possible. Move your pawn and then flip the table over and start shooting. Don’t engage in the game of wits and strategies. Go for simple, and for overkill, as far outside the rules as you can. It helps not to care about consequences or collateral damage.

As for why Rand is asking this of Ramshalan, idiot and worst fashion disaster since Tylin had control of Mat’s wardrobe, I have no idea.

“I…My Lord, if your foe is that clever, then perhaps your best course of action is to request the aid of someone more clever?”

Rand turned to him. “An excellent suggestion, Ramshalan. Perhaps I’ve already done just that.”

He’s mostly mocking Ramshalan without Ramshalan noticing, because that’s a fun cruel game, but there’s a possible double meaning here because…Lews Therin. He has the memories of a man who by all accounts was a great strategist.

“I’d make an alliance, my Lord,” Ramshalan said without pausing for another second. “Anyone that powerful would make a better friend than foe, I’d say.”

Yeah that worked out so well for Sammael. It’s not a bad idea in theory, but only if you’re certain you would hold the upper hand in that ‘alliance’; in a problem such as the one Rand has posed, where your enemy is the cleverer strategist, this would fall squarely into the category of playing their game, allowing them to determine the rules, and then having to try to outthink them where they are at their best.

And now Rand’s just sending him off through a gateway, presumably to Natrin’s Barrow, as his ‘emissary’…this feels quite a lot like moving that first pawn. So what does flipping the table over look like?

What was Rand’s game?

Sha’rah, technically.

“Go in my name and seek those who rule the keep. See if they are willing to support me, or if they even know about me. Offer them rewards for allegiance; since you have proven yourself clever, I will let you determine the terms.”

This is also clever, because by leaving a lot of the specifics of whatever encounter takes place up to Ramshalan, he adds another layer of uncertainty and thus unpredictability.

Min found herself feeling sorry for the man.

Yeah, life’s hard on pawns sometimes.

“Graendal understands people better than anyone. Twisted she may be, but she is crafty, and should not be underestimated. Torhs Margin made that mistake, I recall, and you know his fate.”

Min frowned. “Who?” she asked, looking at Nynaeve. The Aes Sedai shrugged.

Insert ‘margins of history’ pun here.

It’s odd that neither Min nor Nynaeve seems to pick up on what’s happening here, though. They both know about Lews Therin, and by extension about Rand having knowledge that does not come solely from this lifetime.

“You’ve obviously already decided what you intend to do. Why ask me?”

“Because what I am about to do should frighten me,” he said. “It doesn’t.”

Oh.

I…okay, yeah, wow, give me a second here because there’s a lot in that.

We’re there, aren’t we? At the last line I’ve been waiting for him to cross; he’s crossed his own last threshold, so now we need to see what that actually means. It’s one thing to see it in his mindset, in what he says, even in walking away from a peace accord. But all of that feels like the build-up to something. And now this…seems like it. Whatever it is that he’s about to do.

Which brings us to the other part of this: he knows it should frighten him. He’s so cold, so calm, so apparently unfeeling, and yet even through all of that he knows that whatever it is he is walking so calmly towards should frighten him. But it doesn’t. And that’s the truly chilling part.

He knows on some level that the fact that it doesn’t frighten him is wrong. Which means he can tell, on some level, that what he’s about to do is worthy of that fear. He just can’t let himself feel it, but that he even knows that, that he voices it and it clearly worries him even through that layer of ice, the fact that he even says this, as if he’s reaching out to two of the last people he trusts and begging them to stop him, conveys a staggering sense of magnitude here, in scale or in horror or simply in how far across that line it is. And so there’s this sense that some part of him – a part he can no longer acknowledge but that same place from whence came the quiet warning “He named you friend. Do not abandon him…” – is screaming. But without any way to be heard.

It’s a hell of a line.

But neither of them says anything to him because what can you say to that? He’s reaching out so desperately for help he could never accept, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him at this point. And so whatever small part of him is still truly him has to just…watch.

I feel like there’s some small element of symbolism to the fact that he steps through a literal gateway – across a threshold, if you will – right after he says this.

The mountain air was more chilly than the breeze had indicated.

Colder than the wind, hmm?

Atop a ridge of its own, high above the water, was an impressive white stone structure. Rectangular and tall, it was built in the form of several towers stacked atop one another, each one slightly thinner than the one beneath. That gave the palace an elegant shape – fortified, yet palatial. “it’s beautiful,” she said breathlessly.

Nice palace you have there. Would be a shame if something happened to it.

The palace was distant, but not so distant that Min couldn’t make out the figures of men walking the battlements on guard, halberds at their shoulders, breastplates reflecting the late sunlight. A late party of hunters rode through the gates, a fine buck deer lashed to the pack horse, and a group of workers chopped at a fallen tree nearby, perhaps for firewood. A pair of serving women in white carried poles, bucket at each end, up from the lake, and lights were winking on in windows the length of the structure. It was a living, working estate bundled up in a single massive building.

Thanks for the census there. How many civilians, precisely? And do tell me, what colour shirts are these numerous people wearing? Because it’s sounding a hell of a lot like red.

And now Rand’s stroking the statue again (there’s no clean way to say that; believe me, I tried).

I have a very, very bad feeling that I know what’s about to happen here.

Not sure what Ramshalan’s purpose is, though. Rand seems sure Graendal will get the whole conversation they had from him, which implies he wants her to – which means she’ll know about Rand asking how to beat someone cleverer than you are, which means she’ll know Rand is looking for a way to defeat her, which would put her on guard…or maybe make her think she has the upper hand? Seems like a risk regardless, but perhaps she’d have found out anyway, and this way Rand can control to some extent the delivery…

“You make it sound as if you can’t win,” Nynaeve said, frowning. […]

“We can’t win, you say?” Rand asked. “Is that what we’re trying to do? Win?”

Ah, Rand. Wise of you not to try to beat her at her own game, but the mindset behind this is…troubling.

Nynaeve raised an eyebrow. “Do you not answer questions anymore?”

Did he ever?

Rand just does that new staring trick of his and Nynaeve is thrown by it and every time he does it it’s still kind of chilling. Especially when it works on people like Nynaeve, who have never truly feared him before.

They waited quietly on the mountain ridge as the distant sun made its way toward the horizon. Shadows lengthened

And so the pathetic fallacy continues. I honestly love this. The Dragon is one with the land, after all…

More lights had been lit in the fortress windows. How many people did Graendal have in there? Scores, if not hundreds.

Why does this sound so much like a pre-emptive tally of collateral damage?

Oh hey Ramshalan’s back.

Oh.

“Is he infected?” Rand asked of Nynaeve.

“By what?” she asked.

“Graendal’s touch.”

He was literally just a canary in a coal mine, wasn’t he? To make sure Graendal is actually there. While Rand still stands at a distance. On a ridge. Looking down at the mansion. Full of collateral damage people.

It was growing dark

Yeah no kidding.

And yet this chapter is called A Force of Light. I’m…Concerned.

Besides the dim evening light, the only illumination came from the still-open gateway behind them. It shone with lamplight, an inviting portal back to warmth, away from this place of shadow and coldness.

There is no light ahead, only vanishing sunset and darkness. The only light and warmth is behind, back across that gateway, that threshold. Light only if you look back, but none ahead, not this way, not on this path…

“Rand,” she said, touching his arm. “Let’s go back.”

“I have something I must do,” he said, not looking at her.

Something that should frighten him. Something that does not allow him to look back, towards light and warmth, but only ahead, towards growing darkness and lengthening shadows and cold and a fortress full of people and his enemy. Oh, Rand, no.

His face was clasped in shadow, but as he turned toward her, his eyes reflected the light from the open gateway.

Shadow ahead, consuming him, but as he turns towards her, towards Min, towards one of his last anchors even though she’s not enough to hold him back now, there’s a remnant of light there. But that’s all it is. A reflection, a remnant, a memory if you’ll pardon my extreme overuse of that particular pun.

The sun set; Rand was now just a silhouette. The fortress was only a black profile with lanterns lining the holes in its walls. Rand stepped up to the lip of the ridge, removing the access key from his pocket. It started to glow just faintly, a red light coming from its very heart.

As ominous and frightening as this is, it’s also an absolutely lovely image. Everything in silhouette, Rand merely a shape, an outline, a space in the world rather than a person. A role that must be filled, a silhouette that shows no human features, no identifying marks. Just a shape, a darkness against the setting sun. A fortress that, too, is no more than a shape, an outline, a representation rather than a reality.

And then just this glowing light of power. Outlines and representations and roles, and power, and all else fades. It’s terrible but it’s so, so lovely.

He’s going to destroy it isn’t he?

“Neither of you were there when Callandor failed me,” he said into the night. […] “Cadsuane told me that the second failure came from a flaw in Callandor itself. It cannot be controlled by a lone man, you see. It only works if he’s in a box. Callandor is a carefully enticing leash, intended to make me surrender willingly.”

Okay why are we talking about Callandor now? No doubt because he’s holding the access key, but still. Does it have to be a willing surrender? And Rand, it’s need not be a box, or a leash. Willing surrender has its place; trust has its place. But he cannot do either anymore, and after the Domination Band is it any wonder he would see Callandor as simply a more elaborate trap?

The access key’s globe burst alight with a more brilliant colour, seeming crystalline. The light within was scarlet, the core brilliant and bright.

Light – strong, brilliant, bright light – but terrifying. Light against the shadow and darkness of night, but there is no sense of warmth or comfort to this.

“I see a different answer to my problems,” Rand said. Voice still almost a whisper. “Both times Callandor failed me, I was being reckless with my emotion. I allowed temper to drive me. I can’t kill in anger, Min. I have to keep that anger inside; I must channel it as I channel the One Power. Each death must be deliberate. Intentional.”

Once, you tried to use Callandor for life rather than death…but of course the solution is to be colder, to be harder, to turn inwards rather than to surrender and rely on trust, or to care about the outcomes.

This whole passage is chilling in that quietly escalating way horrifying things are. The way the light from the access key keeps growing as Rand speaks, the way we’re given this alternation between descriptions of it and Rand’s calm, emotionless words against that escalation of building power and brilliant light and yet nothing but cold…it’s so well done, and the sense of anticipation and dread is excellent.

Min couldn’t speak. Couldn’t phrase her fears, couldn’t find the words to make him stop.

There are no words to make him stop, Min, and that’s what makes it both so terrifying and so heartbreaking. Even he couldn’t find a way to make himself stop; he knew this should frighten him. But it doesn’t, and if they cannot stop him, none can. Nothing can. There are no limits, no restraints, and this is what that means.

His eyes remained in the darkness, somehow, despite the liquid light he held before him.

That says it all, really, doesn’t it? Despite the brilliant light he holds, despite all this power, his eyes are in darkness, because that’s all he can see before him now.

That light hurled shadows away from his figure, as if he was the point of a silent explosion.

The only light is from the gateway behind him and he cannot look back; the only light is from the immense power he holds but he cannot let himself feel, and so all is in darkness though he is the champion of Light, holding light and wreathed by light, yet all he sees is darkness, and all the light does is throw more shadows. A brilliant light, but the shadows it casts from him…a force of light, and yet who stands to gain? A champion of the Light, and yet with this cold, unfeeling, unfettered power, which side does he truly serve?

And Min and Nynaeve are just watching, because what else can they do? What can anyone do?

When he’d been so close to killing her with his own hand, she hadn’t feared him. But then, she’d known that it wasn’t Rand hurting her, but Semirhage. But this Rand – hand aflame, eyes so intent yet so dispassionate – terrified her.

Oh Min. She has stood by him through so much and never turned away, never flinched, never feared him. No matter what he did, or what people thought he had done, or what so many feared him capable of. Always she stood by him in love, and if she was afraid it was for him, never of him. Now even she fears him. And still nothing is said of the bond between them, of what she feels through it or perhaps what he does.

“I’ve done it before,” she whispered. “I once said that I didn’t kill women, but it was a lie. I murdered a woman long before I faced Semirhage. Her name was Liah. I killed her in Shadar Logoth. I struck her down, and I called it mercy.”

It was mercy. A painless death, ‘gone before her agony began’ as I think it was phrased, or the torment of Mashadar? There’s no question.

He turned to the fortress below.

No.

Oh, no.

“Forgive me,” he said, but it didn’t seem directed at Min, “for calling this mercy as well.”

...

That sound you might have heard was me literally, quite literally, gasping out loud.

It is, perhaps, the most perfect line that could have been written there—

Something impossibly bright formed in the air before him

—because this is unforgivable; this is not mercy; he knows it, and does not expect the forgiveness he asks for. Just as he knew this should frighten him but it did not. There is nothing for him now, nothing to hold him back, and there will be no forgiveness but he believed that the moment he reached for the True Power, the moment he killed Semirhage, the moment he stepped across that line. He asks forgiveness here the same way Lews Therin cried for Ilyena’s forgiveness: with the assumption – no, the certainty – that it could never be granted, that there will be no absolution.

The air itself seemed to warp, as if pulling away from Rand in fear.

The world afraid of him. The land is one with the Dragon and yet now even the wind pulls back from him, turns away from him, fears him.

Min could no longer make out Rand, only a blazing, brilliant force of light.

Before, he was a silhouette. Just a shape in the darkness, to be filled in. Now…similar, and yet opposite. Not a person, still, but a shape made of light. The Light’s champion, the Dragon Reborn, a being of sheer power and light rather than flesh and humanity.

Light, but terrifying, because there is no humanity to it, nothing of Rand in that shape of power, nothing to contain it and direct it. Unfeeling light, that could burn anything it touches, with no sense of meaning. Rand is gone, subsumed by this force, by the outline of what he must be, by all he has let go of himself, to feed this force of light until it is as destructive as any darkness could ever be.

This is light unfettered, and it’s terrifying. He has gone too far; he is too far gone, and this is what it looks like when that is unleashed.

In that moment, she felt as if she could understand what the One Power was. It was there, before her, made incarnate in the man Rand al’Thor.

Except there’s nothing of Rand to it; he has emptied himself of that, to become little more than a vessel for this power and for the duty and role he must take on, because that is the only way he could find.

It’s still beautiful, though. Despite what he is undoubtedly about to do, despite what this power is building towards, despite all its destructive potential.

And then, with a sound like a sigh, he released it.

Ahhhhhhh this is perfect.

All this power, this blazing force, this sense of something bursting to light, of power that can barely be contained…and then this breath of softness. With a sound like a sigh. The contrast of force and gentleness, of furious power and a soft sigh, so much destructive potential and energy and very likely death, released so gently, so quietly. Easily, almost. So light, for such a weight. This is absolutely gorgeous.

Just a sigh. Just a breath. That moment of almost quiet, of gentleness and softness and simplicity before…well. It’s almost long enough to forget where this is leading, almost enough, with the paragraph before it of pure light and power and Power, to make this only a moment of beauty. Except.

A column of pure whiteness exploded from him and burned across the silent night sky

And here is the violence. There’s the gathering of power, the potential, then that sigh of gentle release…and then it all hits. It’s like that effect you sometimes see in movies where everything is slowed, everything is quiet, and then just at – or sometimes just after – the moment of impact, sound returns and everything is jolted back to its ordinary speed and that brief moment of soft waiting out of time is lost.

The stones came alight, as if they were breathing in the force of the energy. The entire fortress glowed, transforming into living light, an amazing, spectacular palace of unadulterated energy. It was beautiful.

It is beautiful; this whole scene has been beautiful, but. It’s balefire. It has to be; he knows now that nothing else can absolutely kill the Forsaken beyond the possibility of resurrection.

So.

It was beautiful.

And then it was gone.

Yeah. That.

He just.

This is the thing I’ve been waiting for. The point where he crosses that last line, not just for himself but for all to see.

Well, those few remaining who matter, anyway. Those who have – had? – not yet turned away from him.

Burned from the landscape—and the Pattern—as if it had never been there. The entire fortress, hundreds of feet of stone and everyone who had lived in it.

Yeah.

It’s such an exquisitely done scene, the quiet but inexorable approach, the ‘forgive me for calling this mercy as well’ and then the sense of simplicity and silence, and yet immense gathering power, and then that single quiet moment of release, the whole thing beautiful and lit only by the fading light of the sunset and then the brilliant light of destruction, silence and beauty and power. And then devastation, but even in that, silence. Nothing remains; there is no visible destruction, no visible harm, nothing to draw feeling or pain. There’s just…nothingness. Emptiness. Void. (The Dragon is one with the land…)

Something hit Min, something like a shocking wave in the air. It wasn’t a physical blast, and it didn’t make her stumble, but it twisted her insides about. The forest around them—still lit by the glowing access key in Rand’s hands—seemed to warp and shake. It was as if the world itself were groaning in agony.

And this is where reality returns, where that silence and softness and beauty is broken, where the true force of the devastation hits. Because there is damage; there is pain. The world itself has been shaken here, the Pattern torn. There’s no visible damage, but beneath that, reality itself is being pulled apart. It’s not a quiet, beautiful, consequences-free display of power. It’s not mercy.

So this scene echoes something of his own state of mind, gives us an outward expression of just how far he has gone, of what he is doing not just to himself but to the world he is meant to save. That’s what this is here for. This is the cost, of what has been done to him and of what he has done to himself as a result. This is where we stand now.

This is a lot.

And one of the things that’s so well done about it is this sense of…not numbness, quite, but of delayed impact. Of understanding without feeling, of observing what is happening as it happens, yet in such a way that the description doesn’t quite allow for horror until afterwards, and even then…all of it is softened; it’s presented clearly, and there’s no blurring of details, but that sense of quiet and gentleness and beauty, the focus on the power itself rather than on its effect until later, the way we just get ‘It was beautiful. And then it was gone.’ with none of the signs that would ordinarily be associated with violence or death or destruction; just beauty and then nothingness…it conveys, wonderfully, the state of mind in which this was done. The emptiness, the sense almost of surreality even as what is happening is all too real. And then it’s done, it’s gone…and then we get the horror, as the impact hits Min and the world shakes and the full truth of this strikes home.

It’s not the immediate shocking ‘no’ or ‘it is HIM’ of The Last that Could Be Done. It’s a different kind of horror, a different kind of realisation, a different kind of impact. And yet they are inextricably linked; that is what led us here. (That, and everything that came before it).

“What have you done?” Nynaeve whispered.

Yeah.

It’s…yeah. A Force of Light indeed.

And again, the pacing here is excellent, in the way that we’re given such a long, almost gentle scene of the buildup and the actual releasing of the power…and it’s not until the moment that it strikes that everything snaps back into place, and we’re brought back to something like normal speed as the impact hits, and now we’re back to reality, after that long dilated moment that seemed to hang suspended. And so now all the realisation is happening, all the reactions you’d expect, and that comes through to the reader as well, with this sense of ‘wait this actually just happened’.

Rand didn’t reply. Min could see his face again, now that the enormous column of balefire had vanished, leaving behind only the glowing access key. He was in ecstasy, mouth agape, and he held the access key aloft before himself as if in victory. Or in reverence.

Only now, now that we’ve had the chance to take in a little more of what has just happened, now that we’ve felt that resulting impact and taken a second to understand the enormity and the truth of it, now we get to see Rand through a slightly different lens, see what this actually looks like, and see not the soft, silhouetted emptiness or power or bright pure light, but the horror behind it. This image isn’t beautiful or gentle; it’s jarring and terrible. He’s just destroyed a city, burned it out of existence, but all we see is ecstasy, a man almost consumed by this power that just moments ago seemed beautiful.

Or in reverence. If that had come earlier, when he was just a figure of light and power, before all of it was unleashed, when it was still a force of light and frightening in its way but beautiful, that line would read very differently. Yet instead it’s here, where the sheer wrongness of it comes through, where it feels jarring and warped and ominous.

Then he gritted his teeth, eyes opening wide, lips parted as if he were under great pressure. The light flashed once, then immediately vanished. All became dark.

The light vanishes immediately now, after…that. And once more we’re in complete darkness, which again feels like a revealing of the truth.

Had he really done what she thought he had? Had he burned away an entire fortress with balefire?

Yes. Yeah. He did that.

Yeah.

And again, it’s paced so that only now do we get the stark statement of it, as part of this growing horror of realisation.

All those people. […] They were gone. Burned from the Pattern. Killed. Dead forever. […] So many lives, ended in an instant. Dead. Destroyed. By Rand.

Now it’s all short, fragmented sentences, or even single words, as reality has hit and she’s trying to encompass it, trying to put it to words but it hardly even goes.

It’s not as if Rand hasn’t caused death and destruction before. But in a world where rebirth is a guaranteed part of life – and when the continuation of that cycle is a large part of what he’s supposed to be fighting for in the first place – this is different, because he’s taking even that away.

And it’s also just the way approached this. This wasn’t desperate self-preservation, or a battle, or a war. This wasn’t even losing control of his power and killing his own people as a result. This was planned, calmly and coldly; he stood on a ridge and looked down at this palace and wiped them from existence without a sound, without a fight, without warning or care.

I suppose whether or not that makes it worse than what he’s done before depends on whether you consider intent or only outcome in your morality, but it is undeniably a different situation.

Strategically, it was clever. How do you beat someone who is smarter than you are? Refuse to play the game, and then destroy it completely. Send in a pawn, then stand on a ridge and wipe the gameboard from existence. It’s a good solution.

It’s just also…well. That.

A light appeared from Nynaeve, and Min turned, seeing the Aes Sedai illuminated by a warm, soft glow of a globe above her head.

It’s fitting, that she is the source of light here. A gentle, soft light, so unlike the power Rand just unleashed. A guiding light, a beacon of sorts if only he could follow it.

“I do what must be done,” he said, speaking now from the shadows.

Speaking now from the shadows indeed. I see what you did there.

And now he just wants her to see if the Compulsion is still present in Ramshalan’s mind, because still he’s the canary here.

“I hate what you just did, Rand,” Nynaeve snarled. “No. ‘Hate’ isn’t strong enough. I loathe what you’ve done. What has happened to you?”

Nynaeve, who has always seen him as Rand al’Thor before the Dragon Reborn, who has never truly stopped seeing him as the boy from her village, even as she has recognised the changes in him. Who reached out to try to heal him, after he faced Rahvin and told her he wasn’t sure how human the Dragon Reborn could afford to be. Who linked with him to cleanse saidin, and who never hesitated to scold him when she thought he needed it. But now she’s seeing him differently, because this is so much different from any of what she’s seen before. This is too far; this is across that last line.

Before, he was irredeemable mainly in his own eyes. Now…

(‘Dream on my behalf, Nynaeve’)

“Before condemning me, let us first determine if my sins have achieved anything beyond my own damnation.”

Wow okay that’s a line.

Ends before means. But he knows, without any doubt, that he has damned himself. He cannot see any possibility for redemption, is certain he will not be forgiven, knows this is an act to condemn. He just…sees it as an inevitability, and thus as something to simply accept and let go. He is damned; so be it. What more does it matter? And so it’s all about the results now; the methods no longer matter because what more could be done to him, that he has not done to himself already?

Only it’s not just about him, it’s about the entire world; he could end existence and carry all of them into this damnation he has already accepted for himself as a guarantee.

Okay the Compulsion is gone but I’m not quite as sure as Rand is that Graendal is dead. The evidence would point that way, but we didn’t see her die and there’s no corpse and in this genre, that spells ‘suspicious’.

Min felt at her neck, where the bruises of Rand’s hand on her neck hadn’t yet faded.

Yikes.

Min, too, looks at him differently now. This has made her do that, when nothing else he has done ever has. This is where he crosses the line.

And has he? I live for this sort of thing, for watching as characters are dragged to moral event horizons and made to do cartwheels on them, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying this, awful as it is. But I’m also fascinated by where those lines are drawn and how they can be manipulated and how characters can be pushed across or pulled back from them, and at what point a character truly tips into irredeemability. I think it’s different for every reader, and depends on all kinds of other factors, but that’s part of what makes it interesting.

So where is Rand, with respect to that line? We watch this scene through Min’s eyes, as even her view of him is forced to change. We see Nynaeve struggle to express how much she hates what he’s just done. And so as a reader it puts us in the position of wondering much the same thing – how far is too far? Is this too far? Can he come back from this and if so, how?

“How do you fight someone smarter than yourself?” Rand whispered. “The answer is simple. You make her think that you are sitting down across the table from her, ready to play her game. Then you punch her in the face as hard as you can.”

Well. I can’t really argue with that, as it’s very close to the way I answered that question earlier. And he’s not wrong, strategically speaking.

It’s just that the reason it’s a good strategy is because it’s so far beyond what anyone would even fear to expect. Because it’s so far across that line. Especially with no threat, no warning. Just zero to balefire in a few seconds, because it’s the only way to completely annihilate the game and opponent.

(I’m probably not the only one thinking of certain…decisive actions taken near the end of the second World War here.)

And then he just turns and walks back though the gateway, calm and without looking back. It’s done; time to move on.

“What you have done is an abomination, Rand al’Thor,” Nynaeve said as soon as the gateway was closed.

But all he does is justify it. Calmly. Last time they spoke, her words reached him on some level and he told her to dream on his behalf and there was just a hint of Rand still there. He dismissed her concerns, but he also agreed with them, and there was that moment of…not vulnerability, or even emotion, but a sort of wistful echo of both, a handing over of the hope he could no longer let himself hold.

Now, though, it’s just flat justification. And it’s different as well because this isn’t Nynaeve telling him that he’s destroying himself. This is Nynaeve being forced to consider that he’s destroying other people, destroying the world perhaps. It is an abomination; this isn’t about concern for him anymore. It’s now about facing someone who has done something monstrous, and she can’t get through to him.

He knows it’s an abomination. He just doesn’t…think that matters anymore.

Which is horrifying.

As Nynaeve is realising, I think.

Though it’s telling that she even tries to confront him, rather than simply walking away. That’s not her way. This is abhorrent on every level, and she doesn’t know what to do with that, but still it’s not in her nature to just give up. But it’s…different from when she just wanted him to stop hurting, wanted to help him, or wanted to protect him.

“I did them a favour.”

“A favour?” Nynaeve asked. “Rand, you used balefire! They were burned out of existence!”

“As I said,” Rand replied softly. “A favour. Sometimes, I wish the same blessing for myself. Good night, Nynaeve.”

Um.

Second of all, that…sounds perhaps like Moridin, which is a whole lot even on its own, but first of all…um.

I just…

I don’t even think I can summon a ‘this is fine’ because this is so far away from fine it’s in another dimension entirely and ‘as I said, a favour’ and he does hate what he’s done, hates it and hates himself enough that he wants to be wiped from existence and thinks he deserves it, but…it’s not enough to stop him. Because what’s the point?

A favour. A mercy.

It’s…he is coming very close, with this, to a ‘wouldn’t it be kinder, more merciful, to just end it all?’ sort of moment. Which is rarely the province of heroes, but that’s where Rand has been driven. He wants to die, and he no longer lets himself care about costs, and he believes he is damned and that there is nothing he can bring to the world but more destruction, and even a fragile peace is doomed to fall apart at his death anyway so what does it matter; he wants to die and he shares a link with a man who seems to want existence itself to be destroyed, and how far is he from looking at that and calling it mercy? It’s so much easier to burn everything with cleansing (bale)fire, to put an end to pain, than to find a way forward, a way to rebuild. To break the cycle rather than embrace it. It’s easier to end the suffering by an ending, rather than by continuing. There are no beginnings or endings to the Wheel of Time, after all, so providing an ending…

It would be a victory for the Shadow, but how far is Rand from seeing it as a…force of Light?

Until that moment, [Min] hadn’t realised just how drained she was. Being around Rand lately did that to her.

Oh Min. I feel like it would be laughable at this point to point out that that’s not exactly the sign of a healthy relationship, but she doesn’t even consider abandoning him. Still, their relationship is more…strained, now. She still loves him, and he her, I think, but it’s…harder, now, than it once was.

“I wish Moiraine were here,” Nynaeve muttered softly, then froze, as if surprised to have heard herself say that.

Pretty much speaks for itself. It’s a nice way to close that arc that began almost at the start of EotW. I hope Nynaeve and Moiraine have a chance for a reunion, to truly bring closure there, but there’s so much growth and understanding in just that simple statement.

“What if he’s right?” Nynaeve asked. “Woolheaded fool though he is, what if he really does have to be like this to win? The old Rand could never have destroyed an entire fortress full of people to kill one of the Forsaken.”

“Of course he couldn’t have,” Min said. “He still cared about killing then! Nynaeve, all those lives…”

“And how many people would still be alive now if he’d been this ruthless from the start?” Nynaeve asked, looking away.

That seems…huh. I was about to say that seems very much out of character for Nynaeve, the one who almost always chooses compassion over pragmatism. But I wonder if that’s kind of the point; it’s out of character for her because he has absolutely no idea how to confront what just happened, how to process it or make sense of it.

And so maybe because she’s trying to look at it through something more like Moiraine’s pragmatism, or maybe just because she’s…lost, and grasping at anything at all, trying to put all this horror into some kind of coherent picture, trying to find a way to…not quite deny it, but make it make sense. I don’t know how much she truly believes any of what she’s saying here.

“Can we dare send a man to fight the Dark One who won’t sacrifice for what needs to be done?”

Min shook her head. “Dare we send him as he is, with that look in his eyes? Nynaeve, he’s stopped caring. Nothing matters to him anymore but defeating the Dark One.”

“Isn’t that what we want him to do?”

(Isn’t that what we’ve asked him to do? Isn’t that what the world itself has demanded he do?) There’s an element almost of realisation in that question, of the enormity of the task he has been set. Of the fact that he is doing all this because of what they – the world entire – want and need him to do.

“Winning won’t be winning at all if Rand becomes something as bad as the Forsaken…We—”

“I understand,” Nynaeve said suddenly. “Light burn me, but I do, and you’re right. I just don’t like the answers those conclusions are giving me.”

Yeah, that feels like Nynaeve. She agrees with Min, and knows she does, but that’s a harder truth to face.

And apparently it comes with Cadsuane attached. First Moiraine, now Cadsuane…Nynaeve’s making all kinds of strides today.

“I dislike the woman, and I suspect she returns the emotion, but neither of us can handle Rand alone.”

I’m so proud of you, Nynaeve.

“Handle” Rand? That was another problem. Nynaeve and Cadsuane were both so concerned with handling that they failed to see that it might be best to help him instead. Nynaeve cared for Rand, but she saw him as a problem to be fixed, rather than a man in need.

I’m actually not sure I completely agree with Min here. I think the focus on handling rather than helping him is true of many, and probably more so of Cadsuane than of Nynaeve, but even Cadsuane I think does want to help him, for himself as well as for the world. She’s more or less said as much. Still, I’ll grant it with her; she’s tried too hard to manipulate rather than simply aid, and it has cost her.

Nynaeve, though…yes, she’s spoken sometimes of handling him, or of trying ot get him to do what she thinks he should, but it’s always seemed more like a holdover from when she was his babysitter, and now something of what she has become as an Aes Sedai. That’s just who Nynaeve is, to some extent. And the rest of their relationship really has been about her trying to do what she can to help him. She followed him and the others from Emond’s Field to try to protect them. She captured a Forsaken and went to Caemlyn in a dream just to have a chance of helping him in some way when she knew he could be in trouble, and at the end asked ‘at least let me heal you.’ She linked with him to help him cleanse saidin and has stayed by him since to try to help as she can and to protect him from what she sees as threats, and has tried at every possible opportunity to heal him (“how can it be enough, when you’re still bleeding?”). And then recently, in that conversation they had…she just wanted to get him to stop doing this to himself, because it’s destroying him. So yes, she’ll stand up to him and contradict him and push him. But she’s there, in the end, to try to help him however she can.

He’s just at a point, now, where he isn’t letting himself accept the help she or Min or anyone else can give.

Nynaeve stepped up to the front and knocked on the sturdy oak door; it was answered shortly by Merise. “Yes, child?” the Green asked, as if intentionally trying to goad Nynaeve.

“I have to speak with Cadsuane,” Nynaeve growled.

“Cadsuane Sedai, she has no business with you right now,” Merise said, moving to close the cottage door. “Return tomorrow, and perhaps she will see you.”

“Rand al’Thor just burned an entire palace full of people from existence with balefire,” Nynaeve said, loud enough to be heard by those inside the cottage. “I was with him.”

I have to laugh; I do love these kinds of moments, where one character just drops a truth like a bomb on everyone around them. That’s definitely news that will get you in to see Cadsuane at midnight.

And so Cadsuane and Sorilea and the others get the story, because this is not a time for withholding information or pettiness of any sort.

Oh, Rand, Min thought. This must be tearing you apart inside. But she could feel him through the bond; his emotions seemed very cold.

Mention of the bond, finally. And…there’s effectively nothing there. I think Min is right to some extent; it probably is tearing him apart inside, but he’s shut all of that off so completely that he can’t actually feel it, and so it’s just another necessity, just another reason to hate himself and reaffirm his belief that he deserves annihilation. There’s no more that can be done to him, so it’s just another thing.

“You were wise to come to us with this, child,” Sorilea said to Nynaeve. “You may withdraw.”

Nynaeve’s eyes opened wide with anger. “But—”

“Sorilea,” Cadsuane said calmly, cutting Nynaeve off. “This child could be of use to our plans. She is still close to the al’Thor boy; he trusted her enough to take her with him this evening.”

Okay, so maybe there is still plenty of space for pettiness. Not that Sorilea or Cadsuane would see it as such, but this is not a time for dismissing Nynaeve, or keeping things from her. They may not see her as Aes Sedai or as anything more than a child, but this is not a time to try to simply use her.

Though perhaps they’re giving her a chance:

“But can she be obedient?”

“Well?” Cadsuane asked of Nynaeve. They all seemed to be ignoring Min. “Can you?”

Nynaeve’s eyes were still wide with anger. […] Nynaeve tugged on her braid with a white-knuckled grip. “Yes, Cadsuane Sedai,” she said through clenched teeth. “I can.”

For this, she can. For this, she can swallow her pride and agree to obey even Cadsuane. That’s how important this is. It’s not about her pride or her assertion of authority or any kind of rivalry she has with Cadsuane for any reason. This is about what may be a last chance.

Come on, Cadsuane, the least you could do is reward her with the whole plan. But she won’t, and Nynaeve accepts even that. And for Cadsuane’s part…it doesn’t seem like she’s giving much, but Cadsuane is not a woman accustomed to making compromises. But there’s an element of grudging respect between them now; Cadsuane is testing her, but from her that means she’s giving Nynaeve a chance to prove herself, rather than dismissing her entirely. It is, in its own way, a kind of trust.

“Your part,” Cadsuane continued, “is to find Perrin Aybara.”

…What?

Why Perrin?

Does she intend to find Mat as well? Could this be anything at all to do with Verin’s letter to him? Trying to bring all three ta’veren together for some reason? It has to happen eventually, but how would that help with Rand’s whole…uh…inability to be a person right now?

Or maybe it’s about Perrin’s whole group? People from the Two Rivers, maybe? People from Rand’s home, to try to make him remember—oh. Tam is with Perrin. Or was, last we saw Perrin. Could that be part of it? His friend, his old village, his father…hmm.

Whatever the plan, someone would need to watch out for Rand. His deed this day would be destroying him inside, no matter what he proclaimed.

Destroying him, as he just destroyed. Tearing him apart, as he just tore at the fabric of reality. Fisher King indeed.

There were plenty of others worrying about what he would do at the Last Battle. It was her job to get him to that Last Battle alive and sane, with his soul in one piece.

Somehow.

No easy task. But she has not turned away from it, nor from him. She still wants to help him, still wants to look out for him and help him, still worries more about what he’s doing to himself than anything else. And she may be the last, or one of the last, who can look at him that way. He needs that, as he has needed that for so long, but if he can’t accept even that anymore, if it’s not enough to pull him back from this edge, not enough to keep him from doing what he’s done, what will be?

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#um. that was a lot.#this one got...a bit long #Wheel of Time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #The Gathering Storm

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