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markantonys · 2 years ago

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AMOL chapters 9-20

“[lan] remembered teaching that same concept [duty being heavier than a mountain] to a youth out of the two rivers. a sheepherder, innocent of the world, fearful of the fate laid out before him by the pattern.” 😭😭

update since last recap: gawene ARE officially married! “the marriage had been performed by silviana in a simple ceremony the night before.” and right now it’s morning, which must be at least the morning after the Big Meeting if not several mornings after. so they weren’t married yet in chapters 1-8 but they are now. why did it happen offscreen! why do the weddings i want to see keep happening offscreen (this + lanaeve) when we saw morgase and tallanvor’s, a wedding i could not care less about, onscreen! how could you deprive me of “clandestine wedding the night before we die in battle tomorrow” when that is my favorite wedding trope! yes we already got it with perrin and faile but i want it AGAIN!

“it still felt odd to know that egwene had authorized her own wedding. when you were the highest authority, what else could you do?” jkjfg incredible. now i’m thinking of rand and elayne legally authorizing themselves to marry each other as well as mat and avi and if anyone’s like “but you can’t marry 3 people!” they can say “well actually i’m the highest authority, so jot that down.”

“rand turned back to the maps. what he saw impressed him. elayne was preparing well.” proud husband!!

RANDLAYNE SCENE!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am going to break this down in so much detail with so many quotes that you’ll basically read the entire scene by reading this post, let’s go

it begins by rand being surprised when elayne enters the tent and elayne being surprised to find him there, which should not be possible since they’re bonded but whatever lmao for once with randlayne in this book that IS something small and harmless enough that i can happily suspend disbelief!

“now here was life. flushed cheeks, golden hair with a hint of honey and rose, eyes that burned like a bonfire. her dress of crimson showed the swell of the children she bore. light, she was beautiful.” completing the holy trinity of mat’s and aviendha’s loving descriptions of how beautiful elayne is! tragically rand is the only one who doesn’t mention her hair glowing in a conveniently placed source of light, but her eyes are glowing so half credit! he also notes later that she smells wonderful lmao

“rand al’thor, are you going to talk to me, or do you wish to ogle me further?” “if i can’t ogle you, whom can i ogle?” djfkgj i love them your honor!!! also this is so funny, “whom can i ogle if not you” rand says as if they both don’t know full well that he has 2 other girlfriends.

elayne scolds him for sneaking up on her and says “honestly, as if aviendha weren’t enough” (since avi snuck up on her a couple chapters ago) AVIRANDLAYNE THROUPLE TRUTHERS RISE!!!

both of them definitely show concern over secrecy and not wanting people to know that rand came to visit her, which is interesting, although neither mentions a specific reason for this. i assume it would be because they’re both two extremely high-profile leaders and they want to keep their personal relationship under wraps, and perhaps also because they wouldn’t want the other leaders to accuse rand of showing favoritism to elayne and things like that. which all makes perfect sense. except for the fact that bashere made elayne publicize the fact that rand is her babydaddy djfkgj so now what’s the point of sneaking around? sanderson never thinks to consider in depth other characters’ perception/public perception of rand’s various relationships (though rj started dropping off in the last couple books too, since mat and nynaeve stopped reacting to rand having multiple gfs despite being very pressed about it in LOC and WH respectively).

i’m totally onboard for them wanting to keep their relationship quiet for the above reasons, and in fact i defs think that’s the wisest course of action (even if my heart wants them to be a public power couple), but in that case sanderson should’ve a) not had elayne tell everyone rand’s her babydaddy and b) made it clear for the first 8 chapters that this was what was going on, so then their ignoring each other and needing to use third parties to find out what’s going on in the other person’s camp would’ve come off as a bona fide attempt to be discreet rather than Batshit Insanity. (and even then they should’ve had a quick scene right off the bat wherein one Traveled into the other’s tent, they reunited and talked about the babies, and then agreed to keep their distance until they could find another moment to meet in secret.)

“i am happy to see you, and i am glad you came. i’m just trying to get into my head how you fit into all of this. how we fit into all of this.” “i don’t know. i’ve never figured it out.” this seems like an allusion to the political complications their personal relationship poses, but again the idea is referred to in such a strangely vague way. we deserved books and books of rand and elayne dealing with the PR and political repercussions of their relationship! it would’ve been fascinating! instead we just get some sparse, vague, and conflicting moments.

“he knelt before her, getting a cocked eyebrow until he placed his hand on her belly - hesitantly, at first.” 😭😭🥺🥺 MY HEART

also, cracking up at elayne raising her eyebrow when rand starts to kneel, homegirl thought he was about to immediately start going down on her jkfjgh i mean hey rand DID say once that he wanted to kneel at elayne’s feet and worship her 👀 so i bet their all-day all-night sex marathon was crazy.

rand says that tam will be a grandfather 🥺 fucking introduce him to elayne then!

“he found that deep down, he’d hoped that someday he would be a father. it had happened. that gave him warmth. one thing was going right in the world, even if so many had gone wrong. children. his children. he closed his eyes, breathing in, enjoying the thought.” 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭 MY HEART IS EXPLODING i take back what i said about Fratboy Rand (our new name for Zen Rand in case anybody missed that discussion in the replies on the last recap) being a deadbeat dad, he wants to be a dad he wants to know his babies!!!!

“he would never know them. he would leave them fatherless before they were even born.” NO STOP THAT [squirts him with a spraybottle]

“rand let himself go still as he felt her womb. was that motion? a kick?” okay google says that typically you can’t feel the baby move from the outside until end of second trimester or beginning of third trimester and there is NO WAY IN HELL that elayne is THAT pregnant right now! sanderson you’re killing me!! i can’t even cry over rand feeling the babies kick because i’m too distracted by the fucked up timeline of elayne’s pregnancy slash sanderson not bothering to look up timelines of pregnancy milestones jkfgj unless we are really supposed to believe that 6-7 months have passed since Randlayne Sex, but i do not buy that at all. WH was deep in winter and COT and KOD spanned very short time periods. i guess rand was in arad doman for a full month in TGS, and TOM also covered 1 month (it begins with rand telling egwene he’ll meet her at merrilor in 1 month). so at our most generous, by the end of WH 1 month has passed since Randlayne Sex (since rand WAS in far madding for some time, though i don’t actually think it was a whole month), COT-KOD is 1 month together, TGS is 1 month, and TOM is 1 month. elayne should not be more than 4 months pregnant, or 5 if we’re being EXTREMELY generous! definitely not 6 or 7!

elayne says she wants to name the boy rand. which would be weird if their dad rand was also part of her and their lives (i mean people name kids after their living and present parent irl often enough, but in books nobody does that) so i feel like she’s just already been long assuming that rand will either a) die in the last battle or b) be a deadbeat dad lmao

but rand asks her not to name either baby after him bc he wants them to live their own lives, awww. “my shadow will be long enough as it is” but they will still be stuck in it even if they aren’t literally named rand seeing as bashere made elayne tell everyone that they’re the dragon reborn’s kids!! sanderson you’re killing me again!

“he looked up to meet her eyes, and he found her smiling with fondness. she rested a smooth hand on his cheek. ‘you will be a fine father.’” 😭😭🥰🥰

god rand and elayne sitting down and talking about their babies and being soft and domestic!!!! unfollow me now this is gonna be the only thing i tweet about for the next week i’ve wanted this for years fuck what the fuck

“no talk of death, of duty.” “we cannot ignore what will happen.” “we needn’t dwell on it either. i taught you so much about being a monarch, rand. i seem to have forgotten one lesson. it is all right to plan for the worst possibilities, but you must not bask in them. you must not fixate on them.” and we have another Very Helpful Girlfriend Perspective that rand was deprived of until the final book when he was already mostly okay again! min clinging to hope and refusing to accept that rand might die + aviendha accepting it and assuaging him of guilt over her future pain because it’s her own choice to love him and endure that pain when it comes + elayne planning for it but not fixating on it and instead dwelling on present happiness = a perfectly balanced set of life outlooks that could’ve been immensely helpful to rand earlier in the series, but instead he got all of the first and none of the second or third.

elayne’s like “no more shoptalk i just want to have dinner with the man i love” and then they spend the entire meal talking about battle plans jfkgj they’re such workaholic nerds i love them!!!

rand is so full of praise for elayne’s battle strategy plans and tells her she has a head for it 🥰 but alas she deflects and says that it’s all the great generals’ doing, as well as bryne’s and her mother’s for teaching her. you ARE good at strategy elayne! on your own merits!

“the conversation reminded him of their time in tear, stealing hidden kisses in the stone between sessions of political training. rand had fallen in love with her during those days. real love. not the admiration of a boy falling off a wall, looking at a princess - back then, he hadn’t understood love any more than a farmboy swinging a sword understood war.” I LOVE THEM YOUR HONOR!!!! THE NOSTALGIA!!!

“their love was born of the things they shared. with elayne, he could speak of politics and the burden of rule. she understood. she truly did, better than anyone he knew. she knew what it was to make decisions that changed the lives of thousands. she understood what it was to be owned by the people of a nation.” YES!!!!!!!!!!!! YES YES YES YES YES THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING FOR THE WHOLE SERIES!!!!!!! I’M SO USED TO GIVING AND NOW I GET TO RECEIVE!!!!!!!!!

god seriously elayne IS the one that knows him best. for so many books the narrative kept trying to insist that title fell to min, but it’s elayne, and here it acknowledges that! min and rand were always telling us that she knew him better than anyone, but we were never shown that. instead, we saw min constantly making incorrect assumptions about rand, misunderstanding him, not being aware of things that were going on with him, etc. whereas elayne, despite barely getting screentime WITH him, has throughout the series often thought or told others “rand would probably react to X in Y way” and been spot on every time, and has been able to correctly work out his motives after hearing second- or third- or fourthhand reports about an action he took. in salidar, when they agreed they shouldn’t tell rand about the viewing of 3 women loving him, elayne’s reasoning was, accurately, that it would make him try to push them away to protect them, whereas min’s reasoning was that if rand knew about the viewing he’d want to take advantage of having 3 hot women on tap. when rand went to caemlyn in WH, elayne clocked his saidin dizziness and the fact that he was avoiding channeling within SECONDS of seeing him again, whereas min, who’d been with him for weeks at that point, never noticed a thing.

i absolutely stand by the statement that the only reason elayne wasn’t narratively allowed to spend time with rand is because she would’ve been too helpful to him and interfered with his downward spiral arc.

and here again now, elayne immediately notices a small facial cue of rand’s and asks him about it, which prompts him to confide in her about how upset he is that so many people will die for him in the coming battles.

“rand found it remarkable that, though they had often been apart, their connection held. in fact, it felt even stronger. now that elayne was queen, now that they shared the children growing within her.” ❤️❤️ this line could’ve so easily felt like “author attempting to justify a relationship that’s disproportionately strong for the little screentime it got” but it doesn’t, because the individual characters have been developed so well, and the relationship in its little screentime, that i believe this 100%, it doesn’t feel forced at all or like the narrative’s trying to Tell me something it never Showed me. somehow randlayne manages to be the best canon romantic pairing despite having like 3.5 scenes together in 14 books. their power!!

“‘i feel as if i should be able to do more, now that i remember. he tried to break me, and he failed.’ ‘is that what happened that day atop dragonmount?’ he hadn’t spoken of it to anyone. he pulled his seat closer to hers.” and he proceeds to confide in her about the dragonmount epiphany! which he hasn’t spoken of to anyone else! not even min, who was demonstrably completely unaware of what had happened up there in the previous book (i forget the context but i remember commenting on how it revealed that rand hadn’t told her anything about the epiphany). because ELAYNE is the one that truly understands him best, the one he feels most comfortable confiding in about his deepest feelings and struggles!!!!

“‘and you remember lews therin now?’ she whispered. ‘everything he knew? that is not just an air you put on?’ ‘i am him. i always was. i remember it now.’ elayne breathed out, eyes widening. ‘what an advantage.’ of all the people he had told that to, only she had responded in such a way. what a wonderful woman.” LIKE!!!! 🥰🥰 when rand talked about LTT’s memories like they were his own, min thought about how she hates when he talks like that and how it makes her uncomfortable and how he seems mad, and when rand then told her outright about him being LTT etc she was weirded out at the thought that he’s Not Really The Same Person anymore. but elayne just goes “oh that rocks!” what a wonderful woman indeed!!!

“he never quite knew what she was going to say or do, and that excited him. like the excitement of watching nightflowers, knowing that what was to come would be beautiful, but never knowing the exact form that beauty would take.” ROMANCE!!! also, rand comparing elayne to fireworks, which are mat’s beloved - matrandlayne rights!!!!

rand knows that elayne has the Talent of creating ter’angreal! i’m not sure if he’s ever alluded to it before, so i’m glad to have confirmation that he knows. and he gives her a Seed which can be used to create an angreal. “when i found it, forgotten, i thought of you.” romance!!

and elayne gives rand the knife ter’angreal that hides the bearer from the shadow! finally that extremely handy knife that was ignored for several books comes back into play! let’s see if rand actually ends up using it.

“she reached up to touch his face. he placed his hand on hers. they stayed together long into the night.” ❤️❤️❤️ romance!! rand gets to Kneel And Worship long into the night, hell yeah!

overall thoughts: LOVED THIS SCENE it was finally the sort of randlayne scene that i’ve been waiting for ever since book 4! since the 1 other time they saw each other since then, the two of them pretty much didn’t have a meaningful individual interaction, it was all about the 3 women confessing their feelings to rand and then as soon as rand and elayne were left alone we cut right over to min to experience their first time through her pov, and by the time we went back to elayne pov rand had already left. but THIS scene was so wonderful, it was romantic, it was fluffy, it was serious, it was complicated, it was supportive. one scene, and it’s so clear how truly compatible they are, how easily and how deeply they GET each other. they understand each other so well yet also have different opinions about some things and aren’t afraid to disagree with each other, but when they DO disagree they resolve it through calm discussion rather than losing tempers or getting petty.

i take back everything i’ve said over the past 3 books about sanderson not getting randlayne because he totally nailed them in this scene. well maybe i don’t take back EVERYTHING because there were definitely some things in TGS, TOM, and the first 8 chapters of AMOL that i was Quite Annoyed about. i take back SOME things. but on the whole, one very happy customer over here! and i bet randlayne won’t have another dedicated scene for the rest of the series, so i’m glad that this one was so wonderful. i do kinda feel like sanderson’s just checking off boxes like “okay, rand and aviendha had their scene alone, don’t have to show them anymore, rand and elayne got their scene, that’s all done” lmao

egwene mentions that other sisters know she’s married to gawyn, which confirms what i’ve been suspecting for a while but forgot to comment on before, that the amyrlin seat not being allowed to have a romantic relationship is only a thing in the show verse and not the book verse. (it IS a thing in the show verse right? i’m not misremembering that that was one reason why moiraine and siuan had to sneak around, it wasn’t just that they have to keep secret that they’re in cahoots regarding TDR?) anyway, assuming i’m remembering correctly, this could have some exciting implications for the show version of gawene! think of the extra layer of sweet sweet angst that would cause in their TGS/TOM issues where gawyn wants a more all-encompassing relationship than egwene is able to give him (all-encompassing as in he wants to be her boyfriend all the time everywhere, not just in certain contexts).

i have JUST ABOUT HAD IT with birgitte and her condescending babysitter’s attitude towards elayne. i think it’s come to the point where i genuinely dislike her now, which is so sad because i used to absolutely adore her and her relationship with elayne.

good news: elayne and tam had an interaction! bad news: it was only battlefield commands and they showed no sign of knowing each other on a personal level

“she’d heard rand brag about his bow, and she’d seen a two rivers longbow used on occasion” oh i’ll bet she did. last night, for instance.

now that i think about it it’s hilarious that mat was The Archer of the group in eotw and then never again. at the time of reading eotw i was like “i can’t believe the show gave rand mat’s bow skills in addition to sword and channeling skills and made mat just a useless twink” but now i see why they did that because the books also took away mat’s bow skills after eotw. mat can be a useless twink for a while until he gets his knives and ashandarei, as a treat.

speaking of the useless twink, here he is fucking about in ebou dar when LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE is in the middle of fighting the last battle!!

“rand should have just hidden [in the rahad], instead of going up to fight the last battle. the trollocs and darkfriends would have come for him, and the rahad would have left them all unconscious in an alley” so mat is worried about rand??? i have to find my cauthor crumbs wherever i can since mat has denied me real moments by going to fuck about in ebou dar!

things that happened to mat in ebou dar: getting raped repeatedly and turned into a sex slave, getting attacked by a gholam, having a wall fall on him and nearly kill him, being subjugated by invaders, being trapped in the city by his abuser for weeks, watching hundreds die because he tried to free them and feeling responsible for it

mat’s constant emotional state in ebou dar: anxious, nauseous, scared, depressed, self-hating, trapped

mat now on ebou dar: “he was surprised at how familiar, even comfortable, this city felt. he had liked it here.” “he now realized that his time in ebou dar had been among the best of his life.” “strangely, this place felt more like home to him than the two rivers did.”

like. WHAT???? i mean. WHAT??????? and i scream at the top of my lungs, what’s going on!!!!!

i know that “footage not found” is my favorite thing to say about the second half of the series, but holy shit this has got to be the worst instance of it yet!!!!! i don’t even have any rants to make, i’m simply speechless.

he also reflects on tylin as “a fun game” and hopes to have plenty of other women like that, but then notes that tuon is like that and he won’t need any others since she’s enough of a handful. this poor man has been gaslit so badly into thinking an abusive partner is desirable! i’m not even mad at mat anymore, i just feel sorry for him and the miserable life he’s been forced into and convinced himself he loves.

someone thinks mat is an assassin after tuon. man i wish!!! that would’ve been so sexy

once again mat frets about assassins being after tuon and wants to find out info to stop them. dammit mat!! this is the opposite of a problem!!

“‘sheepherder,’ lan said. rand raised an eyebrow. lan saluted him, arm cross his chest, bowing his head.” 😭😭

RAND HAS FOUND FAT LITTLE MAN ANGREAL MY BELOVED!!!!! 😭😭😭😭 i literally punched the air in delight when i read this!

look at this! i’m going back to reassure my past self that it will be okay and rand will find our emotional support fat little man angreal again! rand notes that no one knows he has it and that this is important. what if fat little man angreal my beloved ends up being the key to defeating the dark one!!

walmart: choedan kal gucci: fat little man angreal

rand destroying the choedan kal and now finding fat little man angreal again symbolizes him turning his back on power for power’s sake and returning to his good boy roots. now if only he would give up tai’daishar and get back his good boy horse, jeade’en. except jeade’en might have been eaten by trollocs since he might have still been in caemlyn when they attacked and elayne said the trollocs ate all the palace horses!!!!

“i will beat you, taim! i will finally do what i should have months ago!” no SHIT you should’ve done it months ago, rand. also i mistyped taim as tim at first jkfjgh somehow “i will beat you, tim!” doesn’t have the same gravitas.

rand goes to his dreamshard, which looks like a peaceful valley, and he’s wearing simple two rivers clothing. “he placed sturdy boots on his feet, like those he’d worn growing up. they fit him in a way that no new boot, no matter how well made, ever could. he wasn’t allowed old boots any longer. if his boots showed a hint of wear, one servant or another made them vanish.” 😭😭 baby boy!! rand and mat should meet up to discuss Boots As Metaphor For Class And The Burdens Of Leadership.

rand sees lanfear and we get some nice little tidbits of LTT Backstory. he says that lanfear just wanted him as an accessory, but also he has memories of walking into parties with her on his arm and having sex with her yet he never truly loved her. Fratboy LTT! lmao

i’m wondering if lanfear is going to ever Do anything by the end of the book. if not, then a) what was the point of not killing her off for good in TFOH and b) it will make so much sense if they give her mesaana’s plot in the show, since mesaana does nothing in the first half of the series and lanfear does nothing in the second half.

egwene and the aes sedai going apeshit on trollocs was pretty cool, but overall i’m getting tired and bored of all the battle scenes. and i’m only a third into an entire book about The Last Battle lmao

elayne mentions that rand occasionally visits her in her camp in the braem wood! fuck yeah!! and a little later she mentions rand’s failure against the dreadlords! they are visiting each other and telling each other about the things that happened to them while they were apart!

“‘these tactics aren’t bad,’ tam said, reading the orders. ‘the queen has a good head for warfare.’” father-in-law stamp of approval!!! ❤️

but perrin replies “she listens well to those who know their tactics and she doesn’t interfere.” jesus christ i KNOW perrin did NOT just say that elayne, the high commander of the forces of the light, works best when she’s shutting up and sitting quietly while men do all the work. fuck you to hell and back, perrin! and alas, tam goes on to say that that’s what he meant. i agree with the overall point that a good leader is one who knows how to listen to and take advice from others, but it being centered around undermining a young woman’s competence in favor of older men’s is very yikes. i feel like elayne’s military strategy skills are being unfairly retconned away in this book, because in previous books she’s been shown to be pretty good at military strategy because bryne taught her a lot about it. or actually, in this book elayne is showing good strategy skills but other characters tell us that it’s mostly the great generals doing the work and elayne herself minimizes her own contributions when rand compliments her. sigh.

“someone needs to watch rand’s back, and it...well, it’s going to be me. i know it, somehow.” i hate this sudden narrative that perrin is rand’s best boy when for 13 books it was mat! why the fuck isn’t mat here right now? why the fuck am i not getting my 3 boy besties teaming up together at the last battle AS I WAS NARRATIVELY PROMISED SINCE BOOK FUCKING ONE????

i was saying this before on a specific post i made complaining about mat going to ebou dar, but it would’ve made soooo much more sense if mat went to merrilor with moiraine and we got our full ef5 reunion and a nice scene of the 3 boys chilling together and catching up for the first time since TSR, and then rand finds out mat’s married to the seanchan empress and the two of them go to ebou dar together to rope her into the alliance, or maybe mat goes alone first to meet up with tuon and then rand arrives later so it doesn’t look like they plotted together to ambush her. like, if mat needed to be in ebou dar to a) spend more time with tuon and b) be present to mediate the rand-tuon alliance, then sanderson could’ve just sent him there on rand’s behalf after they’ve had a chance to reunite and plan together. same goals accomplished without breaking mat’s characterization by having him voluntarily go back to the location where he was the most miserable in the entire series and claim that he always loved it there and had such great times.

perrin makes tam a lord because i guess the two rivers is now so far up nobility’s asses that they won’t accept tam taking over perrin’s authority unless he’s a lord. “steward over the two rivers in the name of his son, the dragon reborn” that’s cute though ❤️

gaul is another minor male character like talmanes that i feel the fandom is disproportionately obsessed with. people are ready to grab pitchforks at the prospect of him being cut from the show! gaul is a nice dude and i like him, but it would not affect my life in any way if he didn’t make it into the show lmao but i AM glad he’s going with perrin to the wolf dream, it’s nice to see perrin have a friend who isn’t his wife or a subordinate. and i WOULD really enjoy seeing gaul/chiad/bain adapted in the show in a way that explicitly acknowledges this is a bi love triangle rather than trying to frame it as chiad’s male love interest and ~very close female friend~ fighting over her. i absolutely love the concept of first-sisters, but only when it doesn’t feel like a blatant No Homo on rj’s part, as it does with elayne-avi and bain-chiad. amys and lian, on the other hand, i would be equally happy to see kept as platonic sister-wives as i would be to see them made each other’s wives.

perrin mentions that aviendha is with rand when he goes to find him! and he does not say that min is there 😌 although i can’t imagine where else she’d be if not barnacled to rand’s side, so maybe she is there and perrin just didn’t think it was important enough to mention.

“i only need [rand] for a moment.” “you have this moment and many, perrin. i owe you dearly.” perrin has really not done ALL that much for you, rand. his one real job was to deal with masema, which he waffled over for like 5 books before faile finally took care of it! once again i’m totally seeing that perrin is sanderson’s favorite.

rand tells perrin to watch out for mat, concerned husband!

“‘may the light shelter you, perrin aybara.’ ‘and you, rand al’thor.’ perrin hesitated, and realized what was happening. they were saying goodbye. he took rand in an embrace.” 🥺🥺🥺 okay since sanderson took over we’ve gotten a mat-perrin hug and now a rand-perrin hug, he better come through with a mat-rand hug!

perrin says that defeating slayer will be key to dealing with the black tower situation, and it turns out that slayer’s anti-gateway dome is covering the black tower. ooh taim should’ve been slayer if he wasn’t demandred! that would’ve been neat and would’ve given slayer some much-needed narrative relevance. i like that solution much better than taimandred actually, since taim and slayer are both unsexy and can therefore be merged whereas demandred is too sexy to deserve being taim.

interesting dynamic of lanfear helping perrin in TAR! i feel like she’s hovered just on the edge of being a compelling villain throughout the series, so i’m hoping the show can pull back the curtain on her some more and shed more light on her characterization and motivations. AOL flashbacks to her relationship with LTT and decision to join the shadow would be excellent!

“my suffering goes beyond what you could conceive” babygirl i’ve undergone suffering you wouldn’t even believe

perrin going “it’s so unfair that channelers can be turned to the shadow against their will!” coming in with a solid No Shit Sherlock moment jkfg he’s like “does rand know that this is possible?” boy rand has known about this since book TWO get with the program!

mat is breaking into the tarasin palace to see tuon. imagine how romantic it would be if he was breaking into the caemlyn palace to see elayne! we were robbed.

in good news, this chapter does acknowledge that mat’s time in ebou dar was Not So Great Actually and does a decent job presenting the argument that mat is lying to himself when he says that he misses it and that he liked being with tylin. there are a few lines that do this, but most notably: “he had lived in this palace, free to come and go. for the most part. he scratched at his neck, and the scarf he wore there. for a moment it felt like a ribbon that felt like a chain.” this is a really good line and i am very happy to see it, but also so very sad because it really hits home how depressing mat’s endgame fate is. more than any other character, all he ever wanted was to be free, and he ends up with a stronger chain around his neck than any other character has in the end. i just don’t see how anybody could interpret mat’s arc as anything but a tragedy. and i do think that under sanderson’s pen the narrative does commit to it being a tragedy (there are some really heartbreaking lines in this chapter showing so clearly that mat is desperate to be loved but tuon only sees him as a tool) if not fully, at least moreso than it did under rj’s, where he treated their whole courtship in COT and KOD like a fun little romcom. and i think sanderson has also committed more fully to tuon being a villain rather than rj going “yes she enslaves people but all her slaves love her uwu” but on the other hand, sanderson!tuon shows more affection for mat (as in, 0.01 ounce of affection rather than 0 ounces) than rj!tuon did, so i don’t know.

“if tuon wanted to live in a city where the head of her armies was trying to have her assassinated, that was her choice.” i agree! leave her to her fate! this whole passage, props to sanderson for nailing the classic “mat complains about how that idiot other character is asking for trouble and he’s not gonna save their ass, while actively going out of his way to save their ass despite them not asking for his help” but also it was usually rand and elayne who got that attitude from mat and tuon does not deserve it jfkg

“if rand was up north, where all the trollocs were, then mat wanted to be as far from the man as possible. he felt bad for rand, but any sane person would see that mat’s choice was the only one. the swirl of colors started to form, but mat suppressed it. [paragraph break so that these following 2 sentences stand alone in their own paragraph, which i think is important] rational. he would be very rational.” i was about to blow my lid and say that this is wildly ooc for mat and is TDR mat behavior and erases all the growth he had in terms of coming to accept rand and his own responsibilities thereto. and i still say those things, but i am not blowing my lid because the end of the excerpt and especially the “rational. he would be very rational.” does a pretty good job of conveying that mat IS lying to himself about not wanting to go help rand with the last battle and that he secretly feels guilty for not being there. or maybe i’m just so desperate to believe that mat’s character hasn’t been entirely butchered that i’m grasping at straws jkdjfg but in TGS and TOM mat WAS totally prepared to bring the dragons and the band to help rand at the last battle and also told the aes sedai to tell egwene to make sure the horn of valere was ready for him, so i can’t say that this about-face is entirely sanderson’s fault since he did show in the prior 2 books that he understood that mat was ready and willing to help at the last battle. i wouldn’t be surprised if mat fucking off to ebou dar instead of going to merrilor was in rj’s notes and sanderson had no choice but to go with it.

selucia: “if [being called Highness] bothers you, cauthon, you have a very irritating life ahead of you. there is only one way to stop being the prince of the ravens, and that is to find your neck in a cord.” another very good line. it’s played for laughs on the surface, but it also shows a narrative awareness that this fate IS really terrible for mat. and the entire chapter, which revolves around mat and tuon’s reunion which you might think the narrative would want to frame as romantic (and in some places it does), is titled “your neck in a cord” so i think that that choice of title for this chapter definitely undercuts the ~romantic moments~ and shows awareness of The Tragedy Of Mat.

we move to rand who is just returning from another visit to elayne! ❤️❤️ i’m glad sanderson is at least making it clear that they’re in regular contact and spending time together even if he doesn’t bother to show any meeting but the first. haha in the previous 2 books i was certain that he loved rand/min the most and didn’t give a shit about rand/avi or rand/elayne, but in this book, once the initial weirdness of them avoiding each other was moved past, rand/elayne has been getting the best treatment and being depicted as the most important of rand’s relationships. we’re 300 pages in and min has still barely been mentioned at all! love it.

we also learn that their visits are no longer secretive: rand is walking openly through the camp and tells us, “elayne had made her armies aware of his earlier visit. i lead these armies, she had said as they parted last time, but you are their heart. you gathered them, rand. they fight for you. please let them see you when you come.” god the power couple-ness of it all!!!! if only mat was here, just imagine the power throuple-ness of the dragon reborn, the high commander of the armies of the light, and the greatest general of the age.

rand visits tam!! this whole scene is so wonderful!! too many wonderful moments and lines to call out all of them.

rand gives tam a new sword to replace the heron-marked blade (sob. i want the heron-marked blade and jeade’en to join fat little man angreal in coming back to rand at the end of it all!) and i think this must be the mysterious sword that he acquired before TGS and was cryptic about. he’s still so cryptic about it here! “it belonged...to a kindred soul.” what’s the point of stringing me along like this sanderson just tell me where the stupid sword came from! my only theory is maybe it was LTT’s sword since later in rand’s narration is “he’d never had a chance to fight with it” and that line is in its own paragraph which feels significant. but wait no then it turns out that rand hasn’t fought with a sword since losing his hand, so that’s probably actually what that line meant. who did this fucking sword belong to and why is it worth dragging out like this!!

“this is too fine a gift, son.” “nothing is too fine for you. nothing.”❤️❤️ “think of it as a thank-you, from all the world to you.” ❤️❤️

argh rand once again calls tam by his first name to his face! but then 2 pages later he calls him “father.” sanderson what are you doing!! this is such a tiny point but it makes me so mad djkfjg definitely one of my Unimportant Wheel Of Time Hills I Have Chosen To Die On (we all have some)

“to think. if you hadn’t wanted me to be a good archer [by teaching him the flame and the void], i’d have never have learned the thing that kept me sane through the rough times.” 😭❤️

“people’s eyes tended to slide off [his missing hand], as if they were seeing a gray man. they didn’t like the idea that their dragon reborn was flawed. he never let them know how tired he felt, inside.” 😭😭

and rand and tam swordfight for a while which is some nice father-son bonding and also rand fiiiiinally reacting to and working through the loss of his hand! what a good scene! i have for the moment taken Fratboy Rand’s title away from him because he has been a good boy so far in this chapter chunk lmao

rand mentions a gray man metaphor above and then there’s a real gray man in mat’s next section, and rand had also used a moss metaphor and then mat notes the moss in the garden with the same “moss still lived” line. parallels!

“mat was pretty sure rand was to blame [for plants dying]. rand or the dark one. mat could trace every bloody problem in his life to one or the other. those flaming colors...” mat why don’t you give rand a kiss on the lips and maybe you’ll calm down

“he had married her...she had married him back” why did that make me laugh so much

i’m so mad because this description of tuon practicing wrestling or whatever fistfighting she’s doing would be so sexy if i didn’t hate her so much jfkjg show come through and make her evil in a sexy way instead of a gross way and then make her redeem herself in a sexy way! and the moment of mat throwing the knife at her but actually the gray man behind her and she instinctively turns to look behind her instead of assuming mat is trying to kill her could also have been so godtier in a proper, well done enemies-to-lovers arranged-marriage-to-real-love dynamic. but instead it’s probably just tuon knowing mat’s wrapped far too tightly around her finger like a good little slave to even think of killing her :(

min and min/rand i never would have found that compelling even if the ship had been done to the best of its potential because the ground layer of that character and ship are simply not that interesting to me, but tuon and mat/tuon............................[gazes off into the distance thinking of all we could’ve had]

i think that because it’s been so long since i last saw mat and tuon onscreen together (like, super long since i’ve been so slow about reading these last few books) i WAS able to read this first moment almost in a vacuum and appreciate the good stuff for a page until tuon opened her mouth lmao

“you must not stay away. you are important to the empire, and i have use for you.” “sounds delightful.” / “did you save her? the one you went to rescue?” “how did you know about that?” “i have decided not to be jealous. you are fortunate. the missing eye suits you. before, you were too pretty.” / “good to see you, by the way. usually, when a fellow says something like that, it’s customary to tell them that you’re happy to see them as well.” “i am the empress now. i do not wait upon others, and do not find it ‘good’ that someone has returned. their return is expected, as they serve me.” “you know how to make a fellow feel loved.” it is so clear how absolutely MISERABLE mat is going to be in this marriage. despite his protests about not wanting to get married, he does want love, he wants to be loved and appreciated as a person, but tuon only sees him as a tool and thinks of him in terms of how he can be useful to her, and yet mat desperately laps up whatever tiny little scraps of would-be affection she throws his way (like later when she says it’s good to see him and he’s like yay i’ll take that for now!). The Tragedy Of Mat!!!

“when you saw me with a dagger in hand - as if to throw at you - you didn’t call for your guards. you didn’t fear i was here to kill you. you looked over your shoulder to see what i was aiming at. that’s the most loving gesture i think a man could receive from a woman.” like this is GOOD??? i LIKED this! if only tuon wasn’t Like That then i could enjoy this moment properly! even so, this line + the actual knife throwing scene a page earlier is my favorite mat/tuon moment of the series. which is like saying “my favorite war crime in history” but yknow.

“she did not reply. light, but she seemed cold. was it all going to be different, now that she was the empress? he could not have lost her already, could he?” mat i do not know WHAT delusions you were previously operating under that you ever thought she wasn’t cold or that you “had” her lmao! she is behaving exactly the same as she always has been!

tuon now rewards his good behavior with sex just like how she rewarded his good behavior with a kiss in KOD (i think it was that book). i 100000% subscribe to @butterflydm’s theory that tuon is using slave breaking methods on mat (rewarding good behavior with treats, refusing to acknowledge his original name and instead forcing a new one on him until he begins responding to it - all things we’ve seen sul’dam do to damane). actually that’s not even a theory, it’s just a fact that that’s what she’s doing.

“i would not have said the words i did if i had found in you only a toy. a man missing an eye is no toy anyway. you have known battle; everyone who sees you now will know that. they will not mistake you for a fool, and i have no use for a toy. i shall have a prince instead.” a tiny bit of progression since she no longer views him as a toy or a fool, but she’s still seeing him as an object. only considering how he can be useful to her and how having him on her arm will affect public perception of her. she wants a nice Real Warrior to parade around and show off to everyone.

tuon when she brings a wild dangerous lion into her home and then he someday destroys it from the inside: surprised pikachu

i wish we could’ve gotten that spinoff of mat taking down the seanchan empire (if that’s what outriggers would’ve been about, which for my own sanity i must assume it would’ve been). then The Tragedy Of Mat would be a good launching point for that story, rather than an unsatisfying endgame.

“loial, son of arent, son of halan, had secretly always wanted to be hasty.” gasp! scandalous!

“it is nearly time for me to go.” “to battle?” “no, to mat. he is in ebou dar.” rand misses his man!!!

we finally learn the last thing about callandor, and it’s that it’s a sa’angreal for the true power as well as the one power! rand just suddenly knows this and doesn’t explain how - LTT memory maybe? - so i guess min’s 5 books of callandor research were completely useless lmao excellent, looks like we can officially begin and end the list of min’s plot contributions with “helping siuan escape the tower”

moiraine makes a vague allusion to mat having ancient memories that flies over rand’s head. it KILLS me that they never had a talk about their shared experience of having ancient memories!! also, wasn’t rand kind of aware that mat had ancient memories back in TFOH? or no i guess he only knew that he’d suddenly gained lots of battle strategy knowledge, but he didn’t know where it came from.

“why go to ebou dar?” because his husband is there, moiraine! he already said that!

rand is really STILL out there saying he’s gonna KILL the LITERAL DARK ONE. [1x01 moiraine intro monologue voice] the arrogance

“‘well,’ she said. ‘i am still in need of a cup of tea.’ rand looked at her, incredulous. then he laughed and walked away to bring her some.” 🥺

some dumbass tries to tell lan to talk tenobia and the other saldaean women out of joining the battle and lan claps back with: “i’ve seen saldaean woman spar. if i were to place a bet on a contest between one of them and a man from any army in the south, i’d bet on the saldaean any day...this war is everything or nothing. if i could round up each woman in the borderlands and put a sword in her hands, i would. for now, i’ll settle for not doing something stupid - like forbidding some trained and passionate soldiers from fighting.” FEMINIST KING LAN MANDRAGORAN 👑👑👑👑👑 so much love to him for being The First man in all of wheel of time to not be Weird about women going into battle!!! oh this was so satisfying.

poor mat wakes up naked in the garden with soldiers all around and tuon acts like this is normal and he’s stupid for being embarrassed. the rest of his life is going to be SO MISERABLE for him.

and finally, drumroll please.......................CAUTHOR REUNION!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

okay now that that’s out of the way, it was actually kind of a letdown i’m not gonna lie lmao but let’s get into it!

“rand looked older, more weathered, than the last time mat had seen him in person. of course, he had seen the man recently in those blasted visions. although mat had trained himself to stop thinking of rand to avoid those colors, he still slipped on occasion.” mat HAD TO TRAIN HIMSELF to STOP THINKING ABOUT RAND oh my god mat. and still slips on occasion! on occasion? mat, you are thinking about rand and getting pressed about the visions like once a chapter! perrin sure didn’t have to train himself to stop thinking about rand, i’ll tell you that.

“anyway, seeing rand in person was different.” seeing rand in person is DIFFERENT, you guys. mat is shook!

“it had been...light, how long had it been? the last time i saw him with my own eyes was when he sent me to salidar after elayne. that felt like an eternity ago. it had been before he had come to ebou dar, before he had seen the gholam for the first time. before tylin, before tuon.” 😭😭😭 especially with that last sentence, this reads so much like mat seeing his gay lover for the first time after tylin and tuon forced him through a conversion therapy arc to make him a proper heterosexual husband. i’m hurting!!! that interpretation of mat’s arc changed me as a person.

“rand did not seem the least bit worried; his face was calm. he wore a nice coat of red and black, a white shirt underneath, black trousers.” “rand watched the man go, nonchalant though he was bound. you know, mat thought idly, he kind of does look like a king.” mat really wants us to know how hot and fuckable Daddy Rand is right now, thank you mat.

tuon thinks that mat was just playing her last night and was actually luring rand to her. man i wish! but rand jumps in to tell her not to blame mat, protective husband <3

mat gets bound by the power. his gut assumption is that it’s rand doing it - heartbreaking - but it turns out it’s a damane, and tuon stole the medallion off him while he slept - heartbreaking. remember when rand refused to help moiraine get the medallion from mat? remember when elayne turned down the medallion when mat offered it to her in a dangerous situation because she wanted him to keep it and be safe? and meanwhile tuon steals it from him while he’s sleeping to protect herself. mat deserves better 2k22

“‘thanks a bundle for this,’ mat muttered to rand. ‘you’re such a bloody good friend.’ ‘it’s good to see you too,’ rand said, a hint of a smile on his lips. ‘here we go,’ mat said with a sigh. ‘you’ve pulled me into trouble again. you always do this.’” THEY ARE SO MARRIED this takes me back specifically to rhuidean when mat was like “well i won’t wait for you! so there! you better not think i will!” and rand was like, smiling, “of course i wouldn’t think that of you mat.” Poor Mat, His Husband Gets Him Into So Much Trouble! and fond husband rand just going “ah classic mat, i love this fool”

(also, might i add that “it’s good to see you” was tuon’s alleged big romantic line to mat just 2 chapters ago? 👀👀)

“‘you think you could stay away from me?’ rand asked, smiling.” rand knows mat is whipped for him god bless

amidst all his complaints mat slips in right away “what did you do to your hand, by the way?” concerned husband 🥺 “lost it capturing one of the forsaken.” “capturing? you’re growing soft.” proud husband who knows rand could kick any forsaken’s ass any day of the week! also good for him for unknowingly roasting rand for refusing to kill semirhage Because She’s A Woman lmao

“he glanced to the side. ‘you look nice, by the way. you’ve been taking better care of yourself lately.’ ‘so you do care,’ rand said. ‘of course i do,’ mat grumbled.” 😭😭😭 MARRIED!!!! also, mat, if i was going to tell my friend that they looked healthy and in a good state i would say that they looked “well” or they looked “good” i would not say that they looked NICE, MAT that’s gay. in what world is “you look nice” a comment on anything but somebody’s physical appearance in terms of attractiveness rather than in terms of health, mat. if i told somebody they looked nice they would immediately assume i was complimenting their attractiveness or their outfit or something, mat.

“‘i mean, you have to keep yourself alive, right? go have your little duel with the dark one and keep us all safe? it’s good to know you’re looking up to it.’ ‘that’s nice to hear,’ rand said, smiling.” mat is IN LOVE with rand and rand knows it and that’s why he spends this entire conversation smiling like a fool. mat’s like “you look nice. um i mean healthy and stuff! and i only care because you have to stay alive to fight the dark one to save everybody!” and rand’s just smiling because mat called him hot, no takebacks <3

and unfortunately that’s about the last of it as the rest of the scene is all about tuon being The Worst

mat immediately upon hearing tuon declare that she’s going to take his best friend captive and bring him back to seanchan: “mat smiled. light, but she made a good empress.” ?????????? WHAT THE HELL MAT also he always does this about not only the shittiest things she does but also the stupidest. like she’ll make some completely empty ego-based threat and he’s like “wow she’s such a good empress!” have any of her wild claims and threats ever ACTUALLY happened, mat? no they have not.

however, he does immediately follow this up with “there was no need to filch my medallion, though, he thought. they were going to have words about that. assuming he survived this. she would not really execute him would she?” tuon taking away mat’s possessions - and a possession that is extremely meaningful to him and makes him feel safe - is another one for the list of abusive partner markers that she displays. all together, this paragraph reads so much like somebody who is subconsciously aware that he’s in an abusive relationship but doesn’t quite know how to verbalize it to himself :(

“you know, mat thought, he does a fair job of sounding like a king too.” okay mat being into Empress Tuon can retroactively have half a right only because it implies that a bi panic is going on when paired with this line about rand jfkgj

rand flexes on tuon so hard and it’s SO sexy. “rand stepped forward. ‘i held the loyalty and fealty of all seventeen generals of dawn’s gate. fortuona athaem devi paendrag, my authority supersedes your own! ‘artur hawkwing-’ ‘my authority supersedes that of hawkwing! if you claim rule by the name of he who conquered, then you must bow before my prior claim. i conquered before hawkwing, though i needed no sword to do so. you are here on my land, empress, at my sufferance!’ thunder broke in the distance. mat found himself shaking.” yeah i’ll bet that mat Ruler Kink cauthon is shaking after that 🥵🥵

“i allowed you to live when i could have destroyed you in an instant” rand can you please just destroy her in an instant, christ!

mat persuades tuon that rand is trustworthy: “he’s a good fellow. he’s rough at the corners sometimes, but you can trust his word. if he’s offering you a treaty, he’ll make good on it.” “i grew up with rand. i vouch for him.”

and finally, perhaps the most romantic love declaration in all of WOT, “you can trust rand al’thor with the world itself.” ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

the cinematic parallels to rand defending mat to tuon back in TGS and saying he’s a good man and a loyal friend!!!!

“you called them my forces. they are our forces. you are one of us now, matrim.” “well, i guess i am at that.” stop harshing my vibe!! leave me alone i just wanna sit here and enjoy my cauthor!

speaking of harshing my vibe, UGH the deal ends up being that tuon can keep all the damane she’s already collared!!!! rand at least makes a halfhearted attempt to make her release all the ones she’s taken from the westlands before folding like a damn chair as soon as she goes “no :)” and mat just stands there and doesn’t even try. this is so fucking frustrating and it’s SO unnecessary!!!!! narratively, WHY did this need to happen? why couldn’t rand have gotten her to agree to release all the damane she’s taken from the westlands? even that is still far below what SHOULD be the endgame here - the total collapse of the seanchan empire wherein every slave in the whole empire is freed and all the lands they took in the westlands are released - so why couldn’t we have had tuon be forced to make ONE fucking concession? she almost got pulled by ta’veren sway and agreed to rand’s terms in TGS, she should be extra susceptible now that there’s two ta’veren! i’m so mad!!!! chewing rocks, as they say!!!!!

and like, you would think that the ENTIRE PURPOSE of mat’s marriage to tuon should be to help with this alliance, but he basically does NOTHING in this scene! sure he convinces tuon to trust rand, but that’s it. during the actual negotiations, he doesn’t say a peep, just sits there chewing his nails because The Girls Are Fightingggg and makes no effort to help rand get tuon to free the damane. we could’ve axed mat and tuon’s marriage entirely and it would not have been difficult to get to this same endgame result.

“‘by the way, i saved moiraine. chew on that as you try to decide which of the two of us is winning.’ mat followed tuon, and behind him rose the laughter of the dragon reborn.” a nice little note to end our cauthor scene on since i think i’ve heard it’s the last one in the whole series 😭 but also a depressing note because mat follows tuon and turns his back on rand! the metaphor of it all! The Tragedy Of Mat!

AND I DIDN’T EVEN GET MY CAUTHOR HUG GODDAMMIT!!!!!!

“‘you are right [that i need sleep], of course. and you needn’t feel surprised to hear me admit it.’ ‘i wasn’t surprised.’ ‘i can feel your emotions, gawyn.’ ‘that was from something else entirely. i remembered something sleete said a few days back, a joke i didn’t understand until now.’ he looked at her innocently. that, finally, earned a smile. a hint of one, but that was enough.” I LOVE THEM YOUR HONOR

“asha’man fighting for the enemy. why wouldn’t the dragon reborn have done something?” god i know right jkfjgh

“outside, egwene sighed, closing her eyes. he put his arm around her and let her slump against him. the moment lasted but a few seconds before she pulled back, standing up straight and putting on the face of the amyrlin. so young, he thought, to have so much required of her.” 😭😭😭

“of course, she wasn’t much younger than al’thor himself. gawyn was pleased, and a little surprised, that thinking of the man did not provoke any anger. al’thor would fight his fight. really, what the man did was none of gawyn’s business.” look at gawyn so happy over the progress he’s made in working through the one-sided breakup with his toxic ex who never even knew they were in a relationship djfkjg good for him!

“i begin to think she assumes all seanchan to be darkfriends.” “you beat her and imprisoned her, making her into an animal to be led by a collar.” king gawyn once again being the only man in the series to take damane enslavement and its traumas seriously! 👑👑

gawyn feels wasted on the battlefield since he spends 95% of his time just standing there and not doing anything and acts shifty about the bloodrings and conceals from egwene the fact that he has them. oh no baby boy i sense your As Yet Unknown Crime approaching and i am afraid! but given how staunch i have become in loving gawyn - my original genuine love only being fueled higher by spite since everyone else hates him - his crime will have to be truly incredibly unbelievably heinous to make me dislike him hahaha even if it is i am fully prepared to dismiss it as ooc behavior and not his fault!

exhibit a: “you decided to stand in egwene’s shadow, gawyn, he thought. you decided you would protect her, do what she needed of you. she was winning this war, she and the aes sedai. would he let himself grow as jealous of her as he had been of al’thor?” on the one hand, still mad about gawyn’s sudden issues about being in people’s shadows that never existed prior to TOM being turned into the foundation of his character, and extra mad that all the character development he went through in the last book to overcome those issues - character development that was already unnecessary since those issues were invented purely for that one book - are now doubly unnecessary since he’s just regressed back again. on the other hand, thrilled by him paralleling his feelings for egwene with his feelings for rand, as if rand too was a lover whom gawyn grew jealous of over time djfkgjh

min shows up and says things for the first time (page 353) blech, but at least it’s brief. “light, what would he have done without her? i’d have fallen, he thought. during the dark months...i’d have fallen for certain.” FOOTAGE!!!! NOT!!!!! FOUND!!!!!!!!! you know what actually would’ve happened without min during the dark months, rand? a) you would never have been kidnapped and put in the box, b) you would never have lost your hand, c) you would never have been broken by having to torture and almost kill someone you loved, d) you wouldn’t have had to endure cadsuane’s bullying, e) you wouldn’t have had constant viewings worsening your paranoia and mistrust of others, f) you wouldn’t have had your personal secrets and traumas spilled to people you do not trust, g) you wouldn’t have had an allegedly supportive girlfriend frequently hitting you, threatening you, and working with others behind your back to “handle” you like you were a disobedient child. ETC!!

i say this all the goddamn time but i have to say again HOW FRUSTRATING it is that rand and min bludgeon us over the head with how min was The Only Light In The Darkness and The Only One Who Truly Knew Him and The Only One Who Helped Him Hold On, when there is literally no actual behavior or actions or events in the text to support these claims and in fact min’s presence actively made things worse for rand much of the time. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cadsuane fondly tells min that she’s been reading too much after min recites some stupid low-hanging fruit philosophy (if rand says he’s a fool, then that means he is a fool, but if he says he’s not a fool, that still means he’s a fool since it implies he doesn’t seek further wisdom) and then a page later says about elayne “then she has spoken wisdom at least once in her life. a better average than i had assumed of that one.” fuck you to hell and back along with perrin, cadsuane! elayne is far and away one of the most intelligent characters in the series and i am tired of the other characters undermining her intelligence.

but regarding that line, “rand refused to rise to that comment” and notes that cadsuane is testing him, so at least a) rand is angry to hear her speak badly of elayne and b) cadsuane is mostly just talking shit to annoy him

so far rand has gotten nice goodbye moments with elayne, aviendha, perrin, tam, lan, moiraine, cadsuane, and in a couple chapters egwene. the fact that FUCKING CADSUANE got a proper goodbye moment with rand and MAT did not!!!!!! i’m raging!!!!!!!

lan to mandarb: “we’ll rest soon, my friend. i promise. we’ll make a home. the shadow defeated, nynaeve and i will reclaim malkier. we’ll make the fields bloom again, cleanse the lakes. green pastures. no more trollocs to fight. children to ride on your back, old friend. you can spend your days in peace, eating apples and having your pick of mares.” 😭😭😭😭

“rand al’thor had begun to crack that shell, and then nynaeve’s love had ripped it apart completely. i wonder if rand ever knew, lan thought.” 😭😭😭😭

it’s just so weird that all rand’s relationships are getting such nice tributes paid to them but his relationship with mat, which was his KEY RELATIONSHIP for the first 5 books of the series, is completely brushed off. like i enjoyed their little reunion banter, but it was not nearly sufficient to be the sendoff of one of the series’ most important relationships.

speaking of sendoffs, egwene gets one with the wise ones 😭 “‘i am proud of you, girl,’ amys said. amys, tough-as-nails amys, looked teary-eyed. they rose, and egwene embraced them one a a time. ‘light shelter you, amys, melaine, bair,’ egwene said. ‘give my love to the others.’ ‘it will be done, egwene al’vere,’ bair said. ‘may you find water and shade, now and always.’” 😭😭😭

and egwene also decides not to return to TAR for the moment since it’s increasingly dangerous. “‘and farewell to you, old friend,’ she said to the air. ‘until i dream again.’ she let herself wake.” 😭😭😭

knowing what i do about egwene’s fate, this all hurt me so much!!!

egwene, gawyn, and rand have a scene alone together, perfectly timed to coincide with my third eye being opened to this forbidden polycule jkdfjgh

rand gives egwene a hair ribbon: “you always looked forward so to being able to braid your hair.” 😭😭😭😭

why didn’t mat get a nice little present from rand!!!!!!!!

“‘i just...i didn’t want to go to my fight with our last meeting having been an argument, even if it was an important one.’ ‘oh, rand,’ egwene said. she stepped forward, taking the ribbon. she embraced him.” 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️ all of this late-series rand-egwene stuff is gonna hit SOOOO well in the show since their early-series relationship was strengthened so much!

rand tells gawyn that he (rand) is galad’s half-brother!! finally this is shared!!! “egwene had figured this out ages ago” why didn’t you tell gawyn or elayne then jdkfg though maybe i’ll hopefully assume rand has told elayne by now in one of their little battle camp rendezvous.

gawyn is shook and asks about elayne and rand assures him that he and elayne are not related. secretly gawyn was asking because he wanted to know if HE and rand were related and if he would have to feel awkward about his homoerotic obsession with rand djfkg

“half-brother. not that it would probably mean much to a whitecloak.” 💔💔 galad winning the worst brother of the year award once more! and at least this does explain why rand wouldn’t have sought him out to tell him that they’re brothers. “‘i think galad would surprise you,’ gawyn said softly.” is gawyn??? being nice to rand??? oh my heart!!

and we have an uncomfortable and sad scene of mat being poked and prodded at and forced into new clothes that he hates, YET AGAIN. tuon really is just tylin 2.0

“normal life had been harder for mat than for other boys.” the Queer Mat vibes of this line when taken out of context!

“for much of mat’s life, he had wished that people would not look at him so much...now he had it [since the seanchan are all lowering their eyes], and it made him sick.” 💔💔

the one bit of good news from this scene is that mat is in last battle mode and is all business and prepared to whip the seanchan into shape, so that bs of him abandoning the last battle seems to be over now. and i can see narratively why rj would’ve wanted a major protagonist entrenched in the seanchan firmly enough that he can force them to come to the last battle and be their military commander, but there were just so many better ways to execute that.

okay so a MASSIVE army of sharans, whom we’ve heard about in passing like 4 times before this moment and barely even knew existed, just Traveled into the middle of egwene’s camp COMPLETELY OUT OF THE BLUE what in the goddamn hell???? talk about a deus ex machina! this is even worse than guybon and his massive army showing up out of the blue in KOD!

“i am the amyrlin seat, she told herself firmly. i will be strong. i will survive. so long as i live, the white tower stands. she still let gawyn hold her.” 😭😭

“if the end of the aiel was the sacrifice required for rand to win, [aviendha] would make it...better that one people should end than the world fall completely under Shadow.” okay but in the visions the world fell completely under the seanchan which is the SAME DAMN THING

we get another wonderful little avirand scene, hell yeah i wasn’t expecting to get another!!!

“she stepped up to him, and he moved so that he stood just beside her, his shoulder touching hers. he did not drape an arm around her, and she did not take his hand. he did not own her, and she did not own him. the act of his movement so that they faced the same direction meant far more to her than any other gesture could.” I HAVE BEEN STRUCK DEAD BY ROMANCE!!!! SHIT!!!!!!! I’M DEAD ON THE FLOOR!!!!! understated romantic moments between reserved characters are my kryptonite!!!!! also, howling screaming cackling at the STARK contrast between min and her possessiveness and insecurity constantly plastering herself all over rand and trying to show everyone that she owns him LMAO

RAND CALLS AVI “SHADE OF MY HEART” 😭😭😭😭😭😭🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

okay okay i’m calm! no i’m not, but i must continue on.

AVI STRAIGHT UP SAYS RAND SHOULD TAKE THE DARK ONE GAI’SHAIN JKJFKGJ THE ICON JUMPED OUT

rand used the dagger ter’angreal on his shayol ghul scouting mission and it successfully prevented the dark one from seeing him, nice! “aviendha, that you should find this and identify it when you did, that elayne should give it to me...the pattern weaves us all where we need to be.” AVIRANDLAYNE PERFECT THROUPLE PERFECT NARRATIVE COMPLEMENTS THERE IS NO NARRATIVE REASON FOR MIN TO BE PART OF THIS RELATIONSHIP

“rand smiled, then added, ‘elayne sounded sad when she gave me the dagger. i think a part of her wanted to keep it because it would let her curse by the dark one’s name without drawing his attention.’” DJFKJG he knows his wife! also, i adore this little moment of rand fondly ribbing elayne to aviendha, just as elayne fondly ribbed aviendha to rand when complaining about how they both snuck up on her. they are all married! MIN is never involved in these moments of other partners being fondly ribbed, because she refuses to acknowledge that rand HAS other partners when she’s with him.

rand tells avi that the shadow has the seals! a small thing but after so many books of rand needlessly keeping information from his own partners elayne and aviendha, i get so happy in this book when he keeps them abreast of what’s going on!

“‘we will find a way to stop this,’ aviendha said, voice firm. he looked to her and smiled. ‘always the warrior.’ ‘of course.’ what else would she be?” ❤️❤️

nynaeve’s been studying callandor, which makes no sense as she has no ability with ter’angreal, but she has nothing to do while elayne and aviendha are busy doing hot girl shit, so that task was punted off to her. nynaeve really was so wasted after WH, or really after ACOS, i feel like her breaking her block was her last truly big solo moment. why isn’t she with egwene blowing up trollocs and helping with healing? she would be so effective there!

lmao of course min was hoping and assuming that rand would take her with him into THE LITERAL DARK ONE’S PRISON WHEN HE GOES THERE TO FIGHT HIM 1V1 good god i cannot with her. aviendha at least had reasonable grounds to hope to go, as she is an extremely capable warrior with both the power and with physical weapons, but what did min think she was gonna do, recite other people’s philosophical ideas at the dark one?

but rand is sending her to egwene’s battlefront and i’m guessing they might not see each other again, in which case min did NOT get a dedicated scene with him like elayne and aviendha did, fuck yeah we love to see it!!

“tomorrow, we invade shayol ghul and claim it as our own! if we must put our head into the lion’s mouth, let us make certain that he chokes upon our flesh!” damn! i was hoping to get to halfway through the book for this recap (currently 50ish pages away from halfway), but this is just too fitting a place to end the post!

one last note for the road: i’ve got to apply this quote to The Tragedy Of Mat. he is being forced to put his head into the lion’s mouth, but someday they WILL choke upon his flesh!

#wot #wot book spoilers #this chapter chunk wasn't even 200 pages lmao how did this post get so long!#especially considering so much of those 200 pages were battle scenes i skipped over with no commentary!#i guess 40% of the post is deep dives into the randlayne and cauthor reunions djfk that's important content!

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