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butterflydm · 5 days ago

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Wheel of Time 3x08 Deep Dive (show spoilers)

Spoilers through all of s3, but only for the show.

A whole lot to think about with this one (and wow, do I hope we get that s4 renewal -- I mean, given the reviews and what we know about the viewership, it would be silly not to get it but streaming makes all of that stuff so much less predictable).

We get a whole lot of full-circle moments from the start of the season coming to fruition here, as well as a couple of things that don't get follow-through where it seemed like they would (and I wonder if they're planned for s4 or simply dropped because they served their purpose).

We begin in Tar Valon, ten years ago.

The timeline here is very interesting to me. Because Elaida connected herself to the throne of Andor roughly twenty years ago due to a Foretelling that the royal line of Andor would be key to the Last Battle (she says this to Min in 3x03).

How long did she stay with Morgase before leaving to go back to the White Tower to try to become Amyrlin?

In Elaida, I feel like we're seeing a dark mirror of Siuan & Moiraine -- acting to position themselves as the ones in control of what they believe to be the main powers that will be at play in the Last Battle -- the White Tower and, for Elaida, the royal line of Andor and, for Siuan and Moiraine, the Dragon Reborn. Elaida was working with a more flexible timeline than Siuan and Moiraine, since she didn't know until very recently that the Dragon had been reborn, and she hasn't been under the kind of intense pressure that Siuan and Moiraine were under.

Both sets of them willing to be ruthless in the name of the greater good... but Elaida is shown to be arrogant and bigoted as well (calling Siuan "river trash" and looking down on her for decorating her apartments simply).

In the end, Elaida's 'greater good' boils down to the advancement of herself and her own power. Elaida would never choose to break her own heart and deny her own desires because she believes that her goal is more important than she is -- there is no goal that Elaida holds more precious to her than herself.

And Siuan and Moiraine realize that they cannot control prophecy or the Dragon, that they have to release their grip (a painful lesson for them both, but they learn it) and they have to trust in people, including the Dragon Reborn. It's not until Moiraine begins to loosen her grip that Rand shows his cards to her.

Thom tells us later in this episode that he left Morgase's court when Elayne was five. Was Elaida still acting as Morgase's adviser at that time, or had she gone back to the White Tower? We know that Thom's nephew was gentled by the Red Ajah and then killed himself, and Thom fiercely warned Rand to keep Mat away from any Red Sisters in order to protect him (since he believed at the time that Mat could channel). He recognized Liandrin's name, and it seems likely that he would recognize Elaida's as well, given what we currently know of the history of each of the characters.

Show-only based theory -- is it possible that Thom asked Morgase to let Elaida go as an advisor, because of what happened to his nephew, and she refused, and that caused him to leave the court? It's clear that his relationship with the royal family was extremely close -- he knew that toddler-Elayne was taking apart clocks and he knew Morgase's feelings about that. He made a promise to protect Elayne and he kept an eye on the court even after he left, enough so that he could be certain that "Lord Gaebril" was a fabrication.

Then a few years after that, Elaida goes to the White Tower to try her hand at Amyrlin, maybe now feeling like her grip as Morgase's connection to the White Tower is rock-solid. Goes into the doorway and gets promised the Amyrlin Seat (I won't get into the details in this post, but Alviarin says that the people that Elaida spoke to were "Aelfinn" while the being that Mat talks to uses the word "Eelfinn", which introduces some uncertainty about how closely Elaida's experience aligned with Mat's).

And then she loses the vote and is forced to go back to Andor in defeat, and her resentment towards Siuan (and Moiraine) grows.

Ten years ago, in Tar Valon, when Siuan became Amyrlin, there was a storm. It was raining during the cold open of 3x01. And Rand creates a storm at the end of 3x08.

But before we get there, we get Elaida leaving the twisted redstone doorway, and Alviarin is waiting for her, to tell her how reckless it was that she went to speak to the "Aelfinn". The bracelet that we saw before (with the snake on it) definitely seems connected to the Aelfinn, as we see her react to having it after leaving the doorway, or react to the golden key hanging from it, and we know that Mat also gets a piece of jewelry after his trip into the doorway (a medallion shaped like a fox's head). So, the Aelfinn/Eelfinn like giving parting gifts.

"Too many of our sisters have entered that doorway and never returned." Given what the Eelfinn tells Mat later ("wise to ask leave-taking") and what we see (skulls and body parts), it seems like you have to make leaving part of the bargain you make with the Aelfinn/Eelfinn in order to survive the trip. Otherwise, you stay there forever.

Elaida believes that Alviarin plans to vote in her favor, but Alviarin doesn't actually say that she plans to.

If Alviarin was originally planning to vote in Elaida's favor, is it Elaida's trip through the doorway that changes her mind and makes her decide to cast a vote for someone that she views as less reckless?

"I had hoped you wouldn't be so foolish." This does imply that Alviarin did have some idea of Elaida's plans before she went into the doorway -- maybe she tried to talk her out of it.

"What did the Aelfinn promise you?" "The Amyrlin Seat itself." "You cannot trust them. Every gift the Finn give has a price."

We get a glimpse of the price and the trickery involved here (and can think forward to how Mat might end up dealing with similar issues), because Elaida's victory at the end of this episode is both devastating for the Light but also hollow for her. She convened in secret for the vote (the emptiness of her Hall compared to how full it is to watch Siuan being voted in!), made certain to only have those present that she knew would be on her side, condemned Siuan to stilling and then to death before letting her speak in her own defense.

How will Tsutama Rath react when she learns about what happened in the White Tower today (our Red Highest who left to hunt down Taim on Siuan's orders)?

How will Alanna react?

Neither of them favorably, I would assume.

Verin and Leane know how dangerous the situation is, how fraught, and someone like Elaida seizing control of the Tower will do nothing but make the situation worse. Especially now that she's shown how far she's willing to go in order to force her will on others.

In the Hall, as they wait for the vote, Siuan and Moiraine exchange glances, and Elaida notices. Given Elaida's deeply-rooted classism, it must really rankle her that someone of noble blood like Moiraine thinks so highly of 'river trash' like Siuan, and that may have been why she never fell for the deception between the two of them (also, since she presumably goes back to Andor after this she may have missed most of the staged drama that Moiraine & Siuan did for the rest of the Sisters).

We learn that the most recent Amyrlin (Marith Jaen) has died this last week, after only being Amyrlin for four years. We can see that Verin, Liandrin, and Leane were Sitters at this time (and we get a cameo from Karene!), so it was at some point after this that Verin went into retirement.

I also noticed that one of the Brown Sitters is wearing a very red shade of brown. That's interesting. Not sure it means anything, but it's interesting.

I did not pick up on it at the time, but Rebecca Root, who plays the Keeper in this scene, is a trans woman. I wasn't familiar with her as an actress, but it's really nice to see her in this scene and I do take it as an implicit understanding of how the show is approaching the issue of how the One Power is split up -- the half of the Power that you channel is based on your soul, not the body you were born with, and they usually match but not always. Which is... technically also true in the books but it's not handled in the best way and is difficult to explain. That does still leave us with the question of people who don't fit into the gender binary, but the show may give us their answer on that at some point as well.

When the vote is called, the three Blue Sitters (including Leane) stand up in a group to cast their votes. I do really love getting to see the formal shawls in this scene, with the tassels.

Next we see Verin stand up and cast her vote for Siuan, with neither of her fellow Brown Sitters joining her. I am so curious about that Brown who is wearing a more reddish shade.

And then no one else stands up, and eventually our Keeper calls for people to stand for Elaida, who looks very pleased with herself... until Alviarin stands up and casts her vote for Siuan and not Elaida.

Both Moiraine and Siuan look concerned when it looks like the votes might not go Siuan's way -- I'm wondering if this also happened four years ago, and Siuan lost to the now-deceased Amyrlin Marith.

Liandrin looks so annoyed after Alviarin casts her vote for Siuan, it kinda makes me giggle, despite everything.

After Alviarin, we get some more Sitters standing and casting their votes for Siuan -- both of the White Sitters, though one is more reluctant than the other (perhaps confirming that Alviarin is the head of the White Ajah?); Kerene (back again for a nice flashback cameo) and a second Green Ajah Sitter; the Brown Sitter who is wearing a red-shaded brown; and one of the Yellow Sitters.

Exactly eleven, no more and no less. Enough to carry the vote.

We don't really get a close look at any of the Gray Ajah Sitters but I like that their gray is more of a silvery not-quite-blue. It makes it stand out more and lets the White Ajah wear more cream-colored shawls which helps distinguish them from what the novices wear (too many groups of people wear white in the books!).

Siuan only had ten years to try to get the Tower ready for the Dragon. She failed but... how much of a chance did she have when she didn't dare be honest about what she was doing? Could anyone have succeeded at this task? Especially with what we learned this season, when it was revealed that four Sitters were Black Ajah and ready to turn on and murder their fellow Sisters, with more BA littered throughout the Tower.

After the title card, we cut to the current Siuan, and she's looking at a drawing of Moiraine (you can see it through the paper). Wearing golden-cream, the colors of the Amyrlin Seat (this really stands out when we get to Elaida at the end, and how much red she is still wearing underneath her gold). She looks up at the portrait on the wall, her half of the ter'angreal that she used to connect with Moiraine when they were both in the Tower, and quickly puts away the drawing when she hears a knock on the door.

It's Leane, with another warning. Leane has been concerned all season (probably ever since Siuan told her the truth about conspiring with Moiraine and their approach to the Dragon Reborn). She's loyal but she doesn't understand why Siuan is making the choices that she's making -- and, she tries to get Siuan to see the problem that if she doesn't understand, how can Siuan hope that the rest of the Hall and the Tower will understand?

Leane is advocating for transparency and honesty, because she believes that the secrets are creating a more dangerous situation. It's dangerous for Siuan to declare support for Dragon Reborn if she doesn't have a solid reason why the Tower should go against their own laws and support him as opposed to try to control him. If she doesn't get buy-in from the Sitters before she acts.

But the problem is that Siuan still doesn't know who she can trust. We know that she doubts even the two people here that she trusts the most -- Leane and Verin. The only people that she trusts beyond a doubt not to be Darkfriends (Nynaeve, Elayne, Moiraine, Lan) are far away from her. Twenty years of secrecy is a hard habit to break, as we've also seen from Moiraine. She is so scared that loosening her grip will lose them everything, just like Moiraine was. The fate of the entire world is on their shoulders and making the wrong choice -- trusting the wrong person -- could doom them all.

Elayne also talks about this in 3x01, when she's giving Rand the advice that leads to him making the decision to go to the Aiel Waste -- she mentions the importance of "knowing who to trust" as something that makes leadership difficult.

And the further trouble is that the only reason Siuan can offer the Sitters is "In my dreams, Moiraine Sedai told me that if the Tower doesn't bend the knee to the Dragon Reborn, he will lose the Last Battle. She learned this in the city of Rhuidean, in the Aiel Waste" and that brings up a whole host of questions that Siuan is not prepared to answer. Questions that she is probably certain would lead to her being deposed.

When you don't know how to explain something, it can be difficult to justify your actions (we also saw this with Rand and Egwene this season -- Rand doesn't know how to explain the Selene | Lanfear situation to Egwene, so he... doesn't, and it blows up in his face).

In the end, Siuan does figure out how to explain it. At least the most important parts. But she hasn't gotten there yet.

Instead of explaining herself to the Hall or putting it to a vote, Siuan writes letters of support for the Dragon Reborn and sends them to the various heads of state that the Amyrlin Seat has access to and authority to communicate with.

This act also gives Elaida (and Galina) the wedge that is needed to tell Alviarin that they are ready to vote on the matter, today -- and we learn later that this is the vote to depose Siuan.

At Cold Rocks Hold, Rand is trying to meet his toh to Alsera, still wracked with grief (and guilt). Egwene comes to fetch him for his break-up conversation with Lanfear and, you know, it is absolutely fascinating to me that Rand and Lanfear don't interact in person a single time this entire season. It happens entirely in Tel'aran'rhiod. Because of Moghedien's threats or because that was an environment that was under Lanfear's control (until Rand learns that he can control his own dreams)?

Rand is wearing a new coat, I think. Still mostly dusty Aiel colors but there's a reddish patch on the back and blue along the collar.

This scene shows us Rand's continuing grief over Alsera, as well as the fact that he and Egwene are still not communicating about anything (and, from what we see throughout the rest of this episode, I feel like they are destined to continue to fail to communicate for the foreseeable future).

We see that Egwene is still uncomfortable around Rand (due to the break-up itself or due to what happened afterwards with Alsera?) while Rand is lost in his grief.

In the scene with Moiraine and Sammael, Moiraine talks again about how Rand needs a teacher -- Rand is the first person who brought up this idea, back in 1x08, when he asked her if she could teach him and she said that she couldn't. She tried with Logain and now she's trying with Sammael -- both failures.

Are we going to follow the rule of three and have Moiraine try again to find Rand a teacher in s4, but this time it works?

We learn a bit of Sammael's backstory here -- grudge against Lews Therin, invented war*, etc. -- but he'll be dead soon, so I won't get into it, lol. We do also learn that now that she knows it's possible, Moiraine has figured out how to tie off weaves, so she can now presumably teach that to Egwene and Bair, if she chooses. I'm assuming that Moiraine used her sa'angreal to give herself enough of the One Power to shield Sammael and given that we see she can only barely hold her own against Lanfear later on, that does confirm that Sammael is weaker than Lanfear.

(*"In my time, there were no armies. Hadn't been for centuries. I discovered the art of war again." which also helps put the Aiel and the original Way of the Leaf into context -- they were formed in a time of no wars when living a life with no violence against others had less outside pressure against it; if the world hadn't placed Lewin or Aram into a situation where they needed to defend themselves/protect others, they would have continued living the Way of the Leaf)

One thing that does stand out is Sammael saying that he left his scar unhealed on purpose, because he wanted to have Lews Therin see it when he killed LTT. So we have a contrast between this scar of Sammael's that he refuses to have healed vs the wound in Rand's side that wasn't able to be healed, which has been touched on in two episodes (Rand wincing when Egwene is helping him rebandage it in 3x01, and it also appears to break open and bleed after his journey through the columns in 3x04).

"By the time songs are written about the Last Battle, no one will remember who you are." Unintentional prophecy by Moiraine, since she's not the one who kills Sammael, but true enough.

Shifting over to Liandrin's plotline, she bursts into the house she's sharing with the others (the old Lounalt estate) and we find Chesmal playing with a cat and Jeaine playing with what we learn is a balefire ter'angreal. The Sisters know that Liandrin killed Nyomi and suspect that she killed Ispan too. Liandrin ends up being the only survivor of the Black Ajah cabal that escaped from the White Tower (and I was shocked that she made it out alive tbh), and this episode helps out the kill count so that Team Light has now killed more of the Black Ajah than Team Shadow has, so that's good.

Team Light killed: the White Sitter (Leane); two unnamed BA sisters on the streets of Tar Valon (Ihvon & Maksim); Jeaine (Elayne); and I'll say Chesmal is probably dead or as good as dead (Min)

Team Shadow killed: Joiya (Gray Man); Nyomi (Liandrin); Ispan (Moghedien)

And Elaida killed Amico. I'm not willing to put her on 'Team Light'. Team Out For Herself, let's say.

The Black Ajah cabal took only a few weeks to completely disintegrate and it works as a microcosm of the Darkfriends as a whole and of the Forsaken -- if everyone is out for themselves, double-crossing is going to come naturally. Ishamael kept them all in line when he was in charge but now it's a bloodbath as everyone wants to be first, no matter who they need to step on (and we saw in s2 how Suroth and Liandrin's hatred/disdain for each other was only leashed because they were both following Ishamael's orders).

It's also an indictment on Liandrin's leadership skills, I'd say. If she had become Amyrlin, the way she dreamed of being, she would have ruined the White Tower in short order. She's a terrible leader.

(Though I don't imagine Elaida will do much better -- she's not a Darkfriend, judging by her actions in 3x06, but she's every bit as selfish, egotistical, and violent as the worst of the Darkfriends/Forsaken)

Liandrin has also taken to wearing the bracelet around, probably because she doesn't trust any of the others not to take it from her.

We get interrupted by Moghedien, delivering the second of the bracelets to Liandrin -- has Liandrin already figured out that her 'servant' is one of the Chosen or does that realization come later?

Moghedien is essentially getting Liandrin to do the work of finding the collar, rather than Moghedien doing it herself. She knows that two powerful, if untrained, channelers are looking for the collar, and doesn't want to put herself at risk, is my guess.

I do really like that we see Jeaine messing around with the balefire rod here, trying to figure it out, but she can't handle it when she actually tries to use it later, while Elayne shows herself able to figure it out extremely quickly -- we've been told that Elayne is inventive but we get to see it in action in this episode.

Nynaeve and Mat are keeping an eye on the Lounalt estate and see when Liandrin & co leave (I assume that the others are nearby, maybe watching other streets, because it doesn't seem to take long to fetch them).

Mat is wearing a gold ring that I hadn't noticed before. Where did he get that? I don't think it's important, since it isn't noted by the camera work or anything, but it looks nice. Nynaeve can handle the chopsticks but Mat is in despair and looking for a fork (I wonder if this is a reflection of the actor's IRL skills).

This is the only moment we get between Mat and Nynaeve in this episode, which does bring me to what felt like a bit of a dropped plot point, because Nynaeve ends up not at all involved in Mat's distress later in the episode, despite her promise to help Mat being the entire reason he stayed behind at the White Tower and then went to Tanchico with the group. Since I'm considerably more invested in Mat & Nynaeve's relationship than in Mat & Min's relationship, this was a bit of a disappointment for me. It kinda feels like Nynaeve has forgotten her promise to Mat because of how much she's focusing on Liandrin (she was going to straight-up leave him behind at the White Tower in 3x03 until he insisted on coming along). Maybe we'll see more with Nynaeve trying to help Mat in s4, or maybe the promise was just there to provide the initial reason to get Mat into the plotlines that the show wanted him to have this season and it won't come into play again at all in the future.

Or, and I just thought about this because I was rewatching the s2 Egwene & Elayne scenes looking for one of Elayne's lines -- there's a quote that Egwene says in 2x02 about Nynaeve - "She says that she came here for me. To protect me. But where is she when I actually need her?" So maybe this is an intentional thoroughline of Nynaeve not being able to help out "the kids" and them needing to figure out other ways of getting help/helping themselves. Interestingly, the reason that Nynaeve isn't "there for Egwene" in this scene is also because of spending time trying to figure out Liandrin's deal in that case as well. And then Nynaeve is unable to be there for Egwene at the end of the season too, when Egwene ends up needing to free herself from captivity. She isn't able to help Mat in s1 either, with Moiraine needing to be the one to come and heal him.

I never would have thought about that if I hadn't been scanning the scenes trying to find one of Elayne's lines for another part of this deep dive. I wonder how many other connections are lurking under the surface if I do a full series rewatch.

Time for Randfear to break up! Loved this scene so much (I adored Rand in all of his scenes this episode; Josha did such a good job).

So Rand actually is the one who set the scene here -- they're in the place where the Sharom (that big research station in the sky) crashed, back in the day, which is interesting, as Lanfear also says. It looks pretty nice, considering. So we've had two times when Lanfear picked the location -- when they met in the Cairhien inn room where they used to have sex; and two times when Rand picked the location -- when Lanfear barged in on his dream about the Two Rivers and now here, where Rand is fully aware and has made an active choice about where he wants to stage his break-up with Lanfear.

Lanfear kept them closed up in a small room, while Rand's settings involve the wide world. Very fitting for how Lanfear has sought to isolate Rand all this time.

Before we get into the scene itself, I want to take a look over their relationship as a whole, now that we've reached the end of it as a romance.

Let's rewind back to s2.

Lanfear is released from her seal and I'm guessing that Ishamael gives her the basic run-down on the situation with the new Dragon. Lanfear plops herself into the nearest big city to where Rand was last seen, probably using some Compulsion to make people believe she's been there for a while.

Once she has Rand in her sights, she gets to work -- sex first, and then use that to tip him into a relationship. Rand is isolated and in emotional turmoil, which is perfect for her purposes. We know that their relationship began as transactional, with 'Selene' asking for sex in exchange for giving Rand a room at her inn. And their relationship is at this basic level when we meet them in 3x02, though Rand's feelings are beginning to be more complex, because he is a heart-first sort of person.

Lanfear is also consistently pushing at Rand's boundaries in most of the scenes that they share together. Rand will say 'no' and she will continue to press him until he gives in. The one time in s2 that this doesn't work (at the party where he leaves her behind to go deliver that bottle of wine to Logain), we get our first true glimpse of who Lanfear actually is, when she threatens him in his dreams ("If you ever leave me again like that, I will kill you.") and then pushes and prods him into uncontrolled channeling in his sleep, which results in the fire at the inn, which is going to make Rand feel guilty over destroying her livelihood.

Then she sets up a situation where Rand will reveal his channeling to her, and she thinks that she's about to get everything that she ever wanted, and then Moiraine shows up and ruins her big night, which Lanfear carries a huge grudge about for the rest of s2 and into s3.

Now, imo, if Lanfear actually had revealed herself this early, she would have lost Rand (because he was beginning to be genuinely scared in that scene), but she believes that it's all Moiraine's fault.

She does want Rand to claim his power and titles, so she helps arrange for him to get to Falme. Plan B is in full swing... until she overplays her hand with Ishamael and tips things off to him. She can't resist gloating (a flaw that will return in s3) and Ishamael realizes that she's about to betray him, so scuppers her plans by releasing all the rest of the Forsaken so that she can't have it all her own way.

Meanwhile, Rand has been told by Moiraine that he needs to play into Lanfear's feelings for him, because of how incredibly dangerous she can be. He has also been carefully kept away from the majority of Lanfear's worst behavior and actions (mostly by Lanfear herself).

Rand is being starved of information. This was a common theme in the books but in the show, it is being tied specifically to this beat about Lanfear and her cruelty.

Once we open in s3, Lanfear can't see Rand in person because she doesn't want to draw the other Forsaken to him, so she visits him in dreams, pushing him towards Tear and Callandor, pushing him to take more power. She's also returned to the Selene persona, realizing that "openness and vulnerability" are much more appealing to Rand than "dominatrix sex goddess".

Rand is clearly still physically attracted to her, but resists her.

Also of note in their scenes this season is how little Rand actually shares his plans with her. She tells him things (some of them lies) but he tells her very little back.

From 3x02: She already knows that he's in the Waste (maybe through Moiraine?) and wants to know why he went to there instead of going to Tear. He does not tell her that it's to gain the allegiance of the Aiel, instead playing off of her own suggestion and saying that it gets him away from the other Forsaken.

Lanfear takes his hands and puts them on her waist. Lanfear touches his mouth. And that whole time, she's laying down poison about how if Egwene ever sees the truth about Rand, she will reject him. And once there's a hint of Rand softening towards her, she teasingly leaves.

From 3x03: She tells him about the Sakarnen and how she wants it in order to destroy the Dark One and escape her Dark Oaths. Rand asks her a lot of questions in this scene, prodding her to give him answers -- why do you want me to get Callandor so much? What would you do if you broke free of your Dark Oaths?

Note, that Rand approaches Lanfear here but she's once again the person who initiates physical touch -- she covers his hand while he keeps it closed into a fist on the bed.

Lanfear really really plays up the "I'm a helpless damsel who needs your protection" angle in this scene, probably thinking back to how effective it was in 2x04, before Rand knew the truth about her. Rand wants to be able to feel like he can protect people as opposed to hurting them, so she's trying to give that to him here. She also tries to get Rand to blame himself for them being here together in his dreams, though luckily Rand doesn't seem to buy it.

I don't think he buys her distressed damsel act either, not fully, but then 3x04 happens and he sees Mierin and it gives him hope that there's something real underneath Lanfear's lies.

He has hope that maybe 'Mierin' is still in there, that maybe Selene was Lanfear showing the Mierin side of herself.

From 3x05: Two significant things here: Rand does not tell her about seeing the Sakarnen in his Rhuidean visions, which he knows that she is looking for; and he does not say "I love you" back to her when she says it to him.

He does think that maybe there's a hope that there's something in Lanfear that can be saved -- that wants to be saved -- but he doesn't give away any key information to her, and he doesn't entrust her with his heart. He's still holding some big pieces back. Lanfear also is the one to initiate the physical contact (touching Rand's face and tipping him towards her for a kiss), though Rand is the one who initiates the kiss itself.

But even here, Lanfear is careful to seed in how Rand is dangerous and bad, just like her.

In these scenes, Rand also keeps poking at her ambition for more, as if confirming that's still her motive -- he does it in 3x02 ("Not big enough for you, not by a mile."), in 3x03 ("What would you do if the Oaths you swore were gone?"), and in 3x05 ("And more.").

And Lanfear's flaw from 2x08 comes back to bite her again -- she can't resist gloating, and she tips her hand to Egwene at the end of 3x05, thus leading to Egwene confronting Rand and revealing the extent of Lanfear's cruelty. His hope that Lanfear actually was telling the truth in 3x03 about wanting to break her Dark Oaths is snuffed out.

Now, in the wake of learning the truth, Rand waits in his dream, knowing that Lanfear will come for him, because she always does.

Hilariously, she does come in what reads as a modern white wedding dress. Amazing. No notes.

She reveals that Sammael was sent to Cold Rocks Hold as a 'surprise' for Rand, and she's thinking along the same lines as Moiraine, that he can act as a teacher for Rand.

We have... we have two sets of parallels set against Lanfear this season -- we have the Moiraine & Lanfear parallels; and we have the Egwene & Lanfear parallels. Interestingly, they don't overlap much -- Lanfear is covering two separate aspects of Rand here -- Rand as the Dragon and Rand as a romantic interest. This is kind of an echo to what Lanfear said back in s2, about how Rand needs to share all of himself with someone, rather than only parts of himself -- Lanfear claims to want all of Rand... but when Lanfear talks, she does a lot of projection. Most of what she claims is true of Rand is usually only true of herself, but she wants it to be true about Rand.

And we see Rand putting on a mask with Lanfear here -- he's closed in on himself, one hand clasping his other wrist. He gives her the smallest of (fake) smiles in order to get her to keep talking. And once he starts talking and settles into himself here, he begins slowly circling her.

Rand's facial expressions are so good. The little eyebrow twitch he does after he says, "It's also the last moment you were truly human." He's let go of his illusions/hopes about her. And what she did with Sammael would only help confirm that -- Sammael's attack is why Alsera is dead. Lanfear didn't even ask if anyone got hurt during the delivery of her 'surprise'.

And Lanfear is genuinely unbalanced by how Rand is behaving, not doing the false damsel act that she's used before.

I love how Lanfear goes, "So she told you." [beat] "I knew she would." You did not, you liar, lol. She is desperately trying to justify her actions here, trying to claim that her torture of Egwene was to make her stronger, because Rand learning this about Lanfear's actions is her worst nightmare. This is Lews Therin all over again, and I imagine that (whatever it was that made LTT realize that she had a rotten heart) she made frantic excuses to him back in the day too, hoping she could find the right words to make him still love her. Lanfear wanted to gloat over 'winning' Rand from Egwene and she ruined her own plans. Just like when she felt the need to gloat in front of Ishamael in 2x08, leading to Ishamael releasing the rest of the Chosen.

"Or do you want all that power for yourself?" And we see the same smile on Rand's face here that we saw at the beginning of this scene -- I will make a note to watch out for that no-teeth smile in the future. It's sexy but it seems to be a bad sign for whoever is on the receiving end. (contrast it to the full smiles that we saw Rand giving to a couple of people in 3x01 -- I think we see it with Mat & Perrin, and with Elayne)

"Why can't it be both?" Lanfear asks, which is essentially her stepping directly into the trap that Rand laid for her -- she just admitted that she wants that power for herself. This is also the first time we see Rand the one initiating the physical contact -- he puts his hands on her waist, in a reversal of the scene from 3x02.

Lanfear now tries to argue for the nuance in doing evil things, which is the point that she's been attempting to lead him to all this time.

And she makes a wild argument here: "Do you know what you did in your last life? You made the whole world bow. And the only one who wouldn't was me. That's why you left me. Because I wouldn't bow to you." I love how you can start to see the same look here that she had back in s2 during the "If you leave me like that again, I'll kill you" scene. She can tell that she's about to lose him (she's already lost him).

But though Lanfear accuses him of being a child here (in a few moments), Rand has learned a lot and he's grown, and he sees through her and doesn't fall for her attempts to blame the ending of their relationship on Lews Therin being arrogant.

He calls out what she said as a lie -- the reason that Lews Therin left her... the reason that Rand is leaving her, is because she's "jealous and petty and just cruel". She is not a good person. He has now seen all of her, and it's because he knows who she is that he doesn't love her.

With Egwene, Rand wasn't able to connect with her emotionally/romantically anymore and he also believes that she doesn't truly want him and a life with him. But he respects her and he cares for her, even if he was ready for a break-up the second she opened the door for one.

With Lanfear, once he sees her for who she truly is... he doesn't respect her choices. She has chosen to take her jealousy out on others. She has chosen cruelty when she could have chosen compassion. As we see with Melindhra later on in the episode, if the choice is between doing evil and dying... that is still a choice.

And Lanfear is not only cruel, she is cruel both in an indifferent way and in an actively and gleefully malicious way.

So, Rand can mark down two failed relationships.

One died because of the lack of communication in the relationship -- though it's entirely possible that communication also might have ended the relationship sooner, if more amicably.

The other died because it was based on a foundation of lies and manipulation, and as soon as Rand learned about the truth under the lies, it killed his feelings for Lanfear.

Much like Logain and Sammael as failed teachers, I will now ask... rule of three? Is Rand going to have a third relationship that does work out? If so, we have the rough shape of what it would need, from the reasons that his past two relationships failed -- he needs a relationship with good communication and a foundation of honesty.

Kinda like we saw with Perrin and Faile this season. They were a great example of a couple that followed Lanfear's (hilariously good) advice from 2x04 about letting someone see all of you and giving them a chance to love you (it works better when you aren't an awful person).

From what Rand himself has said, he also needs to believe that he's genuinely wanted for himself (not 'wanted' in a sexual way, but in an emotional/romantic way).

So I was hoping for an "Egwene teaches Rand how to protect his dreams from Lanfear" scene and this maybe counts, lol. If Rand has been told the secret about how he's the ultimate master of what happens in his own dreams, then we can potentially take it as read that he's able to shield his dreams in the future. We will (hopefully) find out in s4.

Rand calls Lanfear out for being a monster and pushes her away from him -- and the physicality of this scene is so delicious, with Rand's small secretive smiles and the way he moves in the scene and the way he touches Lanfear (after her doing all the touching in the earlier dream scenes). Even if you didn't have the dialogue, the dynamics are obvious just from the actions and the facial expressions. It's fantastic. What a great scene.

And Lanfear twitching as she begins to channel in her rage.

"You stupid, arrogant child," Lanfear says and this is also finally finally the truth about what Lanfear thinks about Rand (and potentially about LTT) when she isn't trying to seduce him. He frustrates her! We've seen moments of him frustrating her in other scenes, she's just always quick to paper over it. She never actually loved him. She loved an idea of him -- an idea of Lews Therin. She loved the idea of a younger Lews Therin that she could shape and mold into the man that she actually wanted -- all that power under her control (echoes of White Tower law when it comes to the Dragon Reborn! It's all about ownership). And, of course, this put paid to another lie that she made him believe about their relationship -- that she saw him and loved him as a man, not as a boy (which was the distinction that Rand himself made between 'Selene' and Egwene).

Sadly the trap for Lanfear doesn't pan out, even though everyone prepared for it really hard, because Lanfear's absolute pettiness has overruled her immediate rage -- she doesn't just want to kill Rand, she wants him to lose the thing that he's spent all this time working to get. She wants to see him fail before she kills him. She wants to kill Moiraine first. And probably Egwene too.

I notice that Aviendha is still going for her fire spears. Well, it's only the day after Rand and Egwene's break-up and everything that went down, so I suppose that's pretty reasonable. Aviendha has not been a Wise One apprentice for very long. Like... two and a half weeks, I think? Something like that.

We also see that Moiraine has gotten a lot more control over her sa'angreal and isn't struggling with it as much. Maybe Rand's advice helped!

Melindhra's little subplot isn't long, but I ended up enjoying it. Here, Lanfear calls in Melindhra's 'debt' and tells her to kill Lan. This is likely meant to cause Moiraine pain and throw her off-balance so that it's easier for Lanfear to kill her.

"If a Forsaken has that collar and uses it to control Rand..."

So... the uncomfortable question about what happened in Tanchico -- if Team Tanchico had not gone to Tanchico, would Liandrin and Moghedien have been able to find the second bracelet and the collar at all?

It's Mat being charming at the right man that lands them the second bracelet; Liandrin & co had no idea where to look for it. And Liandrin's drawing only shows what the collar looks like in the worn/activated state, not in its resting state, and she leaves it behind not recognizing it for what it is when she finds it in the Panarch's Palace.

And, of course, the reason that the Black Ajah have the first bracelet is because Verin and Adelas let Nyomi into the 13th Depository. Every single piece of the male a'dam came into Liandrin's hands because of the actions of someone on Team Light, though not on purpose.

That's not saying that Team Light failed completely in Tanchico -- they did take out two of the Black Ajah. Mat... accidentally accomplished something, though we don't know the details yet. Nynaeve broke her block. Min redeemed herself in her own eyes for her betrayal of Mat in s2. Elayne has a nifty new weapon and learned that Gaebril is one of the Forsaken.

But... they are the reason that the complete male a'dam is in Liandrin & Moghedien's possession.

Two ta'veren among them when this all happened. Is there a greater purpose in Liandrin and Moghedien having the collar that will play out to the Light's advantage?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now, we're outside the Panarch's Palace, everyone is terrified to be facing the Black Ajah but they are determined to be brave and try to find the collar in order to protect Rand. Mat reminds Thom that he didn't want to get involved but Thom says "I have this thing about watching kids die. Try to stop it if I can."

It was when the situation in Bree turned potentially deadly that Thom stepped in as a ride-or-die to help Mat and Rand as well. The more dangerous the situation is, the more likely Thom is to throw himself into it to protect these "kids" (aka people around his nephew's age? or people around Elayne's age, now that we know more about his backstory?).

"Whoever finds it, get out. Don't wait for the rest of us."

Nynaeve giving advice that she will not take herself. The first time watching it, it kinda felt like Nynaeve was specifically waiting around for Liandrin, which felt like a weird choice for her to make! But on rewatch, it's more likely that she felt like she couldn't leave without "the kids" (as Thom would say) and unfortunately Liandrin found her first.

They come into the palace and see the dead bodies of the guards, and they split up into three groups -- Nynaeve by herself, Min and Mat together, and Elayne and Thom together.

While the Tanchico players are all searching for the collar, Moghedien decides to start an art project!

Or, you know, tries to see how much she has to break Sammael's body before he finally dies and is unable to heal himself. This does let us know a couple of things -- Moghedien is aware at least vaguely about what's going on in Rand's plotline (but doesn't want to get involved until she can do it with minimal/no risk to herself) and her first priority is to knock off the other Chosen.

Rand approaches Alcair Dal with the Taardad Aiel following him, and we begin to get a chance to see the scope of the Aiel people here (though we're explicitly told that not all the clans have arrived yet, so this is still not all of them). Rhuarc warns Rand that going to Alcair Dal before the rest of the chiefs have arrived goes against tradition but says that he will stand for Rand regardless. And Rand does say flat-out that if the Aiel refuse to accept him at first, he will reveal the truth of Rhuidean to confirm to the clan chiefs and Wise Ones that he truly did go to the sacred city.

I really do wonder exactly how much Rand (or Egwene?) told everyone about Lanfear during the set-up of the trap. Enough that everyone who was in that room knows that Rand and Lanfear slept together, it seems, from what Aviendha says to Egwene here, but I'm kinda guessing he went as bare-bones as possible on the information.

One thing that I would really hope for in s4 is for Rand to actually debrief with someone about what happened with Lanfear (kinda like how Perrin was able to unpack what happened with Laila to Faile) because right now, Moiraine is really the only person who knows about Lanfear's long-term manipulation and deception of Rand and I don't know if I feel like she's a healthy and safe person to talk to about this sort of thing. I get why Rand didn't feel like he could tell Egwene, tbh -- because it would have required him to confess that while Egwene was mourning his death, he was sleeping with and developing feelings for someone else. But he was able to almost tell Mat and Perrin about it in 3x01 (but he was still trapped in the middle of the relationship at that point, and couldn't bring himself to tell them about the deception part of it), so I'm hoping now that the relationship is very much over, he can talk to someone about how it began.

I'm hoping that someone can ask him, "What happened with Lanfear, Rand?" in a more objective way (though I certainly understand why Egwene couldn't be that person!), and he can tell someone, "I didn't know she was one of the Forsaken. She was pretending to be someone else. She was lying to me for months. And after I learned the truth, Moiraine and I agreed that it would be safer for me to go along with her, for my own protection, because I didn't know how to protect myself from her intrusions into my dreams. I came to care for her, or the person that I wanted to believe that she could be, but I knew I couldn't trust her."

Or something to that effect, anyway.

This conversation with Aviendha is another example of people telling Egwene what her feelings about something should be, which feels like it happened a lot this season. I feel like we got a lot more of other people talking about how Egwene should feel about something than we got of Egwene telling us how she does feel about something. So I'm once again asking for more insight into Egwene's actual thoughts and feelings in s4. It does feel like the key is that she got separated from Nynaeve and Elayne so early on in the season and didn't have anyone to talk to who she fully trusted (just like Rand became more vulnerable to Lanfear's manipulations after he was separated from Perrin and Mat).

You know, it occurs to me that it was implied in behind-the-scenes stuff that we would get an explanation for Moiraine's fancy dress & armor in her fight with Lanfear but we didn't. It must have ended up on the cutting room floor, due to time constraints.

So... I'm assuming that the woman with Sevanna and Couladin here is a Shaido Wise One (and the xray confirms this, though she has no name), and she cautions them that there is "no honor in shedding blood in Alcair Dal." Lanfear arrives and the Wise One is asked to leave before Lanfear puts fake clan chief tats on Couladn's arms.

I'm going to try to see if I can spot this Wise One later in the episode and see if she leaves with Sevenna & Couladin, despite the fact that she would be able to guess that Couladin is lying about having gone to Rhuidean.

Sevenna and Couladin are both willing to pretend that he's the Car'a'carn in order to keep a wetlander from claiming the title.

Of course, the fact that someone was able to put fake dragons onto Couladin's arms opens the doorway of doubt into whether or not Rand's dragons are also fakes, at least to the Aiel, which is why Rand is going to need to tell them the truth.

Elaida primping herself up for her big moment of ascension to the Amyrlin Seat, done in a mostly empty Hall, in secrecy, and as quickly as possible. Elaida is ~technically~ legal here but essentially bending the law as far as she possibly can. What Siuan was doing in concern and desperation (barring the Red Ajah Sitters from the Hall because she was worried they were Black Ajah), Elaida does because it's the only way she can get what she's wanted all these years.

"Eight Red Sisters have just left the Tower, with no word as to why."

And that's how Elaida gets away with it. Because the implication is clear. Siuan is worrying desperately over the fate of the world and Rand is the person that she has to worry about the most. Her own experience of Rand showed her that he was young and brash and inexperienced. That a single Aes Sedai could shield him successfully. The idea of eight Red Sisters hunting him down is a terrifying prospect, and the thought of what might happen to Moiraine if she gets in the way.

So Verin leaves the Tower, with "a group of our most trusted Sisters" and are out of the way when Elaida's coup takes place.

Heartbreaking.

I do think that Siuan was given a losing hand. We've seen how corrupt the Tower is -- how many of the Sitters were Black Ajah, how many other Black Ajah are around. And their very laws feel written in a way that is harmful to the Last Battle (re: caging the Dragon), which makes me wonder if Ishamael got his hands on their bylaws early on in the formation of the White Tower.

How could Siuan have had a chance of righting that boat in only ten years?

We get a nice moment between Elayne and Thom here -- it was implied in 3x06 that Thom had known Elayne from before ("part of Morgase's court") but we get more of the details here, and a timeline. There's also a reminder that Elayne likes to tinker with things... Thom tells a story about toddler!Elayne taking apart all the clocks in the palace.

"The queen was too proud to punish you. She always was."

This actually goes back to something I noted back in 3x02, which is that the show did a really good job of transferring over "beloved and cosseted heir" vibes from how a crown prince might be treated in a patriarchial monarchy to how Morgase treats Elayne.

Something I find interesting about Elayne's outfit here is that I don't see a rose in her hair. During most of the season, Elayne has put her hair up with some part of it echoing the shape of a rose, to remind us of the rose crown. But here, her hair is fully down and she's wearing a black headband (that I think can double as a veil).

Talking about how old she was when Thom left leads to the revelation that Lord Gaebril is not who Elayne remembers him to be -- that he straight-up didn't used to exist. This was definitely the big thing that I was wondering if Thom would be used to bring back into Elayne's plotline -- finding out that her mother is under the thumb of one of the Forsaken. Very important and scary information for Elayne to receive!

Jeaine shows up and now we're going to build up to the Tanchico finale, as all three of the subgroups are brought into acute danger -- Mat through the doorway, Elayne and Thom because of the balefire rod, and Nynaeve in finding the collar and then confronting Liandrin. Easier to cover each group as a whole as opposed to cutting between them, so Mat gets to go first, and he gets sucked into a redstone twisted doorway very similiar to the one in the White Tower that Elaida exited from at the start of the episode!

The room of the Eelfinn (as he calls himself) is full of skulls and skeletons. So, you know. That's promising. Mat's doorway also disappears as soon as he looks away from it. Also very promising, I am sure!

Mat gets greeted by a roar from the Eelfinn, who is standing on a platform (we see similar small platforms around the room). The Eelfinn is furry, has red eyes, and is wearing human leather for clothes (the spine of his jacket is made of ears). All very promising signs that Mat will have a chill and no stress time in here!

There do not appear to be any exits to the room. There are narrow windows that let in shafts of light but all much too small for Mat.

"A very long time," the Eelfinn said and that, plus the fact that the names are slightly different (Aelfinn vs Eelfinn) is another clue that this may not be the same person that Elaida spoke to in her doorway. Though it depends on scale. Ten years can be a very long time, depending on how long Eelfinn live.

"By the ancient treaty, here is agreement made." (said in the Old Tongue, so Mat was probably able to understand just fine)

"What is your need?" This is the focus of what the Eelfinn presses onto Mat over the course of their scene together. Due to some ancient treaty, there's an agreement that the Eelfinn grant needs to a person who enters (three of them, from what the Eelfinn says) but there are some specific rules and guidelines about how these bargains work, none of which Mat knows.

Next we learn some of those rules - "Do you carry iron, instruments of music or devices for making light?" These do not appear to be allowed by the ancient treaty. Mat has nothing but the clothes on his back right now, as far as we're aware, so he's good to go.

The Eelfinn also knows Mat's name without being told. A totally normal thing that shouldn't stress anyone out at all!

When the Eelfinn laughs, it distorts the room (Mat winces in pain), and a similar thing happens each time he grants a need.

Mat's first need: "to stop getting bollocked about by every bloody magical force on this bloody planet. I'm sick of this One Power-"

Then, interesting, the Eelfinn makes an offer of a need -- "There are memories racing through your mind. They are not yours. We can take them."

When Mat responds - "You can fix me", this is also granted as "done" by the Eelfinn. So, yeah, that one is very interesting because it's actually something that the Eelfinn initiated and wanted, not Mat.

I think someone might be bending the ancient treaty to get something that he wants.

Mat compares the smell of the Eelfinn's room here to a "fox den" - "full of dead things". It's all pretty worrying.

So Mat makes his last need - "to get the fuck out of here. Now!"

We learn a couple of more important rules of visiting the Eelfinn (and perhaps the Aelfinn) -- you are not guaranteed the right to leave. If you forget to make leaving part of your bargain, then you will stay here and die. And probably get turned into clothing.

And that there are terms and there's a price for the needs that are granted and if that is not set by the person making the request, then the Eelfinn gets to set it himself. And his price is that Mat does leave his realm... by way of a noose.

On the other side of the doorway, Min panics a bit over Mat disappearing, and Chesmal shows up. Once Mat arrives hanged, Min waits until he's stopped breathing to bonk Chesmal over the head. I'm not entirely certain why she doesn't do it sooner, if I'm being perfectly honest. Chesmal seemed pretty transfixed by watching Mat die.

Anyway, Min saves Mat's life using not very good CPR, Mat reflectively flirts when he wakes up, which is his default state of being, and he's survived his journey through the doorway, only barely. Honestly, that Mat doesn't manage to flirt with the Eelfinn is a real statement about how much he was thrown by the events in the room (the list of people Mat has defensively flirted with includes both Liandrin and Ishamael, after all).

He's also left with three parting gifts -- a nasty scar on his neck that hopefully will get healed up; a silver or steel foxhead necklace; and the rope that he's hanging from is tied to a spear of some kind that is jammed into the doorway. We don't get confirmation on whether or not he takes that with him.

Mat also appears to have lost some of his own memories -- he doesn't remember coming to the Panarch's palace (but he does seem to remember Min fine). On the plus side, the screaming in his head is gone.

Did Elaida's doorway work the same? We can't know. She did appear to get a gift, but she came out with the promise that she would become Amrylin. We don't know much beyond that, except that she may have known enough about how the Finn work to negotiate her own price (perhaps it relates to why her hand shakes?).

Mat did acquire some new items, at a cost, but we don't yet know the value of them, and he's lost some of his memories as well.

But they are past the vision of him being hanged. So far, we've had one big Min vision per season that gets resolved in the finale, so I wonder if that trend will continue (s1: Nynaeve and Egwene nearly burning out; s2: Mat stabbing Rand; s3: Mat being hanged).

Elayne and Thom are hiding from Jeaine and Thom tries to talk Elayne into letting him make a noble last stand, the same as he did with the boys back in s1. While he's saying what he believes are his last goodbyes to her, he tells her that he promised her mother that he would keep her safe, and that she needs to find a way to stop the Forsaken in Caemlyn that is controlling Morgase.

While Elayne appears to agree, she actually sneaks around the other way and, while Thom has Jeaine distracted, Elayne wallops her with the One Power and snatches the ter'angreal from her. We've seen that when Jeaine tries to use the rod, there was a nasty recoil that made it very difficult for her to aim, but Elayne is able to control it with relative ease.

When she hits Jeaine with the balefire, Jeaine slowly (and painfully, it looks like) disappears... and then a balefire-colored ghosty image of Jeaine appears, doing the same actions she'd done earlier, and the damage that Jeaine did to the ceiling becomes undone and the ceiling is whole again.

"This makes balefire. I could be one of the Chosen with a weapon like this."

So that seems like a useful little toy that Elayne has acquired! Plus she saved Thom's life. Elayne's plan here goes off without a hitch.

I also like that we bring the whole ~gunslinger~ vibe that Alanna had in 3x01 back again here with Thom.

This little thread is probably our most successful of the groups in Tanchico -- Elayne kills Jeaine, saves Thom, and acquires a weapon that can potentially challenge the Forsaken. All gains no losses! Not a bad day's work!

Nynaeve is searching around and she's in the correct room but doesn't know it yet. Liandrin shows up, finds the collar, but then leaves it behind because it doesn't look like what she was expecting. After Liandrin leaves, Nynaeve picks the collar up and puts it into her bag, and then heads to the entrance, where she waits.

She told the others to leave if they found the collar, but she can't bring herself to do it. And so she's waiting right there when Liandrin shows up (I'm guessing Liandrin was following the whispers from the bracelets again -- which is likely why Moghedien gave her the bracelets in the first place, because she knows how these kinds of ter'angreal work and assumed that having two of the pieces would be able to draw Liandrin to the third piece).

I feel like Nynaeve could at least have tried to hide instead of standing right by the door! But she is standing by the door and is immediately spotted by Liandrin.

New rule: Nynaeve isn't allowed on any more stealth missions.

There's literally a shadowy corridor right behind her too.

So, the Nynaeve and Liandrin scene -- I feel like there's definitely a comparison to be made to Rand and Lanfear, in terms of someone wishing that they could change the mind of a person who is on the side of the Shadow and bring them back to the Light. In both cases, the relationship is first established via deception -- Lanfear pretends to be Selene to get into Rand's bed; Liandrin pretends not to be Black Ajah so that she can become Nynaeve's teacher. There's a moment of horrifying realization that this person that you trusted and liked is committed to a horrible cause (Moiraine revealing that Selene is Lanfear vs the Seanchan betrayal).

And then there's the hope that maybe you can save them.

Though I do feel like not all of Liandrin's backstory was necessary this season and that we could have cut some of it in favor of something else, there's also a comparison in that as well -- it's learning about Liandrin/Lanfear's past history that gives Nynaeve/Rand hope that they can turn away from the Shadow.

Rand realizes at the end of 3x06 that the woman that he wants to save doesn't exist. The woman that he cared about -- the woman that he could perhaps have loved... she wasn't real. Because that woman would not have been capable of tormenting someone for weeks in their dreams. Lanfear's own revealed actions shattered Rand's illusions about her.

Here, Liandrin declares that the woman that Nynaeve wants to believe in doesn't exist and, to prove it, she tosses Nynaeve into the ocean.

So, we definitely see Nynaeve's weakness for Liandrin on display here. Is Liandrin showing a weakness for Nynaeve, or she is embracing cruelty? Drowning is a slower and more painful death than the bullet-to-the-head weave.

It might be as simple as having enough affection for Nynaeve that Liandrin didn't personally want to watch her die.

I'm not sure I believe that Liandrin was trying to give Nynaeve a chance to break her block, though the argument can be made. That maybe the lie that Lanfear said about Egwene (hurting her to "make her stronger") is part of Liandrin's intentions here. Maybe. Liandrin does believe that "adversity breeds strength".

After what Liandrin says here ("I'm going to collar the Dragon Reborn"), it makes all the sense in the world that Nynaeve & co are going to try to book it to find Rand as quickly as possible, and their best guess for where he has to go eventually would be Tear (because of Callandor). Plus Elayne has a family friend in the city.

Nynaeve breaking through her block by using the thought of the daughter that she had in the Arches. It really is interesting to me how much focus there has been on Nynaeve's journey through the Arches, compared to how little it's been focused on for Egwene or (especially) Elayne. We caught one glimpse of a mad!Rand in Egwene's nightmares in 3x02 and then nothing until Egwene accuses Rand of being mad in 3x06, and then her concern in 3x08 when Rand doesn't let go of the One Power. And with Elayne, we have absolutely zero knowledge of what happened in the Arches.

But for Nynaeve, it has been a profoundly transformative experience that has deeply shaped her, to the point where that's what she reaches for when she needs to break her block, not any of the real and living people who are potentially in danger in the Panarch's Palace. She talks about her daughter in 3x01, dreams about her in 3x05, uses her to help break her block in 3x08.

Part of her grieving process, perhaps, turning Elnore's memory into something that gives her strength instead of hurting her? To contrast against Liandrin calling her son something that made her weak?

Nynaeve's scorecard for the episode: one big miss (Liandrin taking the collar); one big hit (breaking her block)

The Tanchico storyline is now all wrapped up and it's time to wrap up the Aiel Waste and the White Tower plotlines (which get interlinked, because the events in the White Tower plotline end up affecting the Waste Plotline).

Lan's subplot with Melindhra gets wrapped up, and we get to see the effects of the Dark Oath on a person. Now, we don't know exactly what triggers the backlash from breaking the Dark Oath -- is it something that happened internally in her heart? Was it refusing an order from one of the Forsaken? Was it telling Lan about Lanfear? Uncertain. It does not look like a pleasant ending but Melindhra realizes that her life is not worth living if she is forced to betray the one thing that mattered so much to her that she was willing to dedicate herself to the Shadow for the promise of it.

There's a quote from another series, the Vorkosigan series, that I feel suits this situation: "Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing that you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart." Lan is Malkier, and Malkier is Melindhra's heart.

"Death is lighter than a feather. Duty, heavier than a mountain."

Duty has been a big theme this season. The weight of duty. Rand has been struggling with it. Aviendha was running from it. Elayne is trying to balance it. Moiraine and Siuan are both willing to sacrifice everything for it. We've seen how that mountain has been weighing Siuan down this season, this task that she has been trying to hold up, as impossible as holding up the sky itself. Perrin choosing first to defend his people and then to lay his weapons down and surrender himself to Dain and the Whitecloaks. We watched the many past Aiel torn between duty to the Aes Sedai and their way of life, with those who tried to keep to both dying out. The sa'angreal in Rhodric's hands, carried out of the Age of Legends and into Rhuidean so that it could be held by Moiraine today, used to defend his blood-descendent, the Dragon Reborn. The Aiel people shattered into pieces to create Rhuidean, and to prepare the way for the Car'a'carn. They will shatter again today.

Duty, and destiny.

Rand watches the horizon. A shape is there, in the distance. A dark shape of a person against the white clouds.

He blinks, and the horizon is clear again.

While he was looking out at the desert, Moiraine has come to join him in his shade, and she opens the conversation with "You were right."

I'm guessing that part of the reason that Moiraine is so vulnerable with Rand here (admitting that he was right and she was wrong is a very vulnerable thing for her to do) is because she thinks it might be her last chance -- from what she saw in the rings, it is very likely that she might die today, facing off against Lanfear.

This opening also functions as a nice compare/contrast against a conversation that Rand had with Lanfear in 3x03, which was her creating false vulnerability and false intimacy.

Lanfear (3x03): "I don't know if I can untangle this for us. You were right to stay away from Callandor. I should have seen that. It was selfish of me."

Moiraine (3x08): "You were right to come here. This is a nation of warriors. This is an army that can take the Stone of Tear. Even the Forsaken will fall against a hundred thousand spears."

I am also going to point out that Moiraine is secondhand complimenting Elayne here as well, though she doesn't know it, because Elayne is the one who suggested this idea to Rand -- and for exactly this reason.

In 3x03, Lanfear "admits" that she now believes that Rand was right because she's working on manipulating him (she uses that conversation to try to make him believe she wants to escape her Dark Oaths, and to try to get Rand to find the Sakarnan for her).

Moiraine admits that Rand's right because she actually believes it. She says it plain, so that Rand can know it's true. Unlike Lanfear, she can't lie (which was also the key thing that made Rand go with Moiraine back in 2x04, when she first revealed who Lanfear was to Rand), so if Moiraine is telling Rand that he made the right choice, she means it.

"I'm sorry that I didn't know sooner that this was the right thing to do." Another huge show of vulnerability for Moiraine that I didn't catch the significance of during my first viewing. I think I was probably still recovering from Nynaeve breaking her block, so there was a lot in this conversation that I didn't pick up on! I think I only really started being able to properly process again when we get to the point where Rand crouches down in front of her (which echoes what Moiraine did to Rand in their much more testy conversation in 3x01).

Rand reciprocates her honesty with his own, revealing his cards in a way that he never does with Lanfear in any of their scenes -- he tells her that he's guessed that she helped Lanfear with the attack on the inn. He's guessed her motives as well - "To separate me from the others so that you could control me."

He gets her to confirm that she suspected that she knew about Lanfear torturing Egwene as well (I'm assuming it was the bruises on Egwene's neck in 3x02 that made Moiraine suspect something, at least after Egwene confirmed that they weren't from Rand).

"I hoped it would drive you two apart." "Me and Egwene? Or me and Lanfear?" "Both." "It worked." "I know."

While the actual break-up scenes with Egwene and Lanfear happened earlier, this is the confirmation from Rand that, for his part, he is done with both relationships entirely.

This also may have been why Moiraine was mostly avoiding Rand after Rhuidean -- she was waiting and hoping for the Egwene-Lanfear situation to blow up so that Rand would no longer be tethered to either of them.

So. Cards on the table. Honesty. It took a long time for Moiraine to be willing to be this honest with him, but they've finally gotten there.

Rand saw a figure out on the horizon that disappeared when he blinked. Whether or not that figure was a sign of potential madness waiting for him, Rand likely believes that it was. So he's in a similar position to Moiraine here -- the thing that he was so scared of is already knocking at the door. He and Moiraine are both at the point that lies beyond fear, into sheer bloody determination to do whatever it takes to accomplish their goal, in the time that they have left to do it (and Siuan will be right on this same wavelength once we loop back into her storyline).

"I have been ready to kill you if you chose the Dark or if you lost your mind. I don't want you to get to the Last Battle unless I know you can win it for the Light." "Exactly. You want what I want. You're the only one who does. Thank you. I'm here because of you. I see that now." "I won't be here forever." "I know. And I won't either."

They're on the same page, and agree on the terms. The goal is what matters, not the cost to themselves. This is, and must be, bigger than themselves.

(that doesn't mean that all the rest doesn't matter, even if Rand might believe it doesn't right now; but I'll talk about that at the end)

Look how much trust and gratitude you can get out of Rand if you're honest with him, Moiraine! This could have been you in 3x01 if you'd opened up to him back then instead of making deals with Lanfear, just saying!

I'm teasing her a little but Rand has been trying to reach out to Moiraine this season and she has been a brick wall back to him for most of that time, so it's really nice to see her offer truth and vulnerability here and then get immediately rewarded for it.

The truth doesn't need to be pretty -- it can be messy and ruthless and difficult. But Rand appreciates it anyway, because it's the truth.

Rand wants them to fight this battle together, but Moiraine refuses -- "No Aes Sedai strings at your back." Instead, they will fight separate battles -- him to bring the Aiel under his control and her against Lanfear.

And Siuan, fighting her own battle, alone except for Leane.

Separate battles, but it's all the same battle.

Verin and the rest of the "most trusted" Sisters arrive to confront Galina and the other seven Red Sisters who left the White Tower, only to learn that it was all done to get the people that Siuan trusted most out of the Tower.

In addition to getting these Sisters out of the way for the planned coup, this also reveals to Galina (and thus Elaida), which Sisters it was that Siuan trusted on this sort of mission.

The climaxes between Siuan - Moiraine - Rand are more tied together than the Tanchico climaxes, so I'll take them together instead of separately.

What Siuan and Leane learn here is that they're too late. Leane isn't being allowed into the Hall, because the vote was already taken. Secretly, with only the minimum of needed Sitters, Siuan has been deposed and accused of being a Darkfriend (note Elaida's use of the passive voice -- who accused her of being a Darkfriend, exactly?), who was "working in concert with the Shadow to hide the Dragon's existence from this Tower". That is a very specific accusation, Elaida. Who exactly wrote down the words of that accusation?

The Sitters that we see: none of the Blues (not a shock); two Greens; one Gray; two Whites, I think; two Yellows; one Brown; three Reds.

No audience, not like there was when Siuan became Amyrlin.

Leane moves to defend Siuan (using her staff) and is shielded by Alviarin. And several of the Sitters stand up to help Elaida still Siuan.

So even as Rand moves to secure the Aiel, he has lost the White Tower ("If the White Tower does not bend the knee to Rand al'Thor, he will lose the Last Battle," from what Moiraine learned in the rings).

We know what an overwhelming and devasting experience that being stilled/gentled is -- we saw Logain still wishing for death months later. And we see it here with Siuan, how hollowed out it makes her feel.

After seeing the fall of the White Tower begin, we move to Liandrin's job interview with Moghedien, where the two of them decide to team up to collar the Dragon Reborn. Neither of them have been great at working with others so far (as they both admit) so... we will see where that goes next season.

I have to admit that I was pretty surprised that Liandrin survived the season, because we got so much backstory on her that I felt like it was building up to a death scene of some kind. All that backstory does feel slightly excessive to me now that I know that she doesn't die, lol. But maybe they wanted to make sure that Moghedien had a consistent scene partner in s4 to bounce off of, and Kate Fleetwood is an excellent actress.

I am very curious where Liandrin learned the term Nae'Blis. Was Ishamael making her wild promises back in s1/2? He was very good at making promises.

Rahvin and Lanfear (in her goth era -- actually she kinda reminds me of the look in the movie "Legend" from the 'dancing with the black dress' scene) examine the... art piece that Moghedien made out of Sammael's body and blood -- Moggy successfully learned how to kill one of the Chosen (both Moghedien and Liandrin have a history of killing their coworkers -- a shared interest!).

"You've always played on all sides, Rahvin. It's time for you to pick the winning one."

Flashbacking to Lanfear, trying to play all sides, literally earlier in this same season, lol. Anyway, Lanfear has moved on from trying to get her baby boo do-over Lews Therin to get Callandor and is now trying to get Rahvin to go for it.

(Rahvin accurately comments that this must mean that her "little Dragon" has rejected her)

Lanfear declares that she's ready to kill Rand (spoilers: she does not even get anywhere close to Rand in the remainder of the episode).

Shifting to those two scenes let some time pass in our other storylines, so now Rand and Rhuarc are approaching Alcair Dal, to give the presentation to the Aiel but, just like Siuan was too late to the Hall, Rand is too late and Couladin is already here, presenting himself to the Aiel and claiming that he's the Car'a'carn.

Rand knows he's lying. Rhuarc knows he's lying. Bair and Melaine know he's lying.

Couladin knows he's lying.

But the majority of the Aiel present don't know. Even the other clan chiefs and Wise Ones don't know until Rand reveals that he knows the truth of Rhuidean while Couladin's actions make it clear that he doesn't.

Sevenna is presenting Couladin to the assembled Aiel, standing in for the clan chief that the Shaido don't currently have (what with Muradin clawing his eyes out in the columns and never making it back out), lying to them that Couladin is the Car'a'carn.

At first glance, I do not see the Shaido Wise One from earlier among the other Wise Ones (and Egwene) who are assembled to one side, though there is one Wise One who is dressed in the darker colors that the Shaido wear.

I do feel like we all should stop and admire Sevenna's outfit. That is wild. I love it so much. What is she wearing on her chest? That can't be comfortable.

While Rand heads off to interrupt Couladin's presentation, Moiraine creates a protective bubble around the area -- though I suspect her actual purpose is distracting Lanfear to come find her.

Couladin: "According to prophecy, I will bring new days. We will cross the Dragonwall again and take back what was ours."

So that's the plan that Couladin sets out here, and what he's going to take his faction of Aiel to do after he leaves here today. Originally, he wanted to get all of the Aiel on his side before Rand arrived, but he was not quick enough.

It looks like there are three empty clan chief seats, so we're missing three clans here.

"Wetlander. I'll kill you for standing on our sacred ground."

And, of course, we had the Shaido Wise One noting earlier that shedding blood on sacred ground is not honorable.

"What does the prophecy (of Rhuidean) say?"

Rand uses Couladin desparagingly callilng him a 'wetlander' to lean into going over the prophecies with the assembled Aiel -- born of the blood but not raised by the blood, and tells them his birth father was Janduin (of the Iron Mountain sept, clan chief of the Taardad Aiel). He points out that it was to the wetlands that people were sent looking for the Car'a'carn.

And the clan chiefs look at Rand, knowing that he is speaking the truth, while some of the assembled Aiel call him a 'liar' because, like Couladin, they do not want a 'wetlander' as their Car'a'carn.

In the Tower, Siuan has been brought back to the Hall for her sentencing, after having been questioned off-screen.

We see the same Sitters as before, in an otherwise empty Hall. Alviarin, now the Keeper, and Elaida, who wears her Amyrlin gold over a large amount of red (much more red than gold). She has no interest in being 'of all Ajahs', and only cared about the power of the Seat, not the duties.

Siuan has had such a heavy weight for the past twenty years, ever since she and Moiraine heard Gitara's prophecy. Fighting a battle against impossible odds. Now, she's lost that battle -- lost the White Tower, which might mean that they are doomed to lose the Last Battle itself, if what Moiraine told her is true. Past the point of fear, having already lost everything, Siuan is able to say all the things that she couldn't say before, because she was afraid that telling those truths would lead to these consequences.

(from 1x06: "They must never suspect we're working together. If another Sister finds out what we're doing, we'll be stilled.")

That she loves Moiraine, yes. That she would die to protect Moiraine, yes. But then she also confirms that she has been conspiring with Moiraine for the past twenty years, which puts Moiraine in that same danger that Siuan is facing, because as much as she loves Moiraine and wants to protect her, there is something greater. Trying to fix the White Tower in secret didn't work.

But Siuan has to believe that not all of these women are Darkfriends (she's fairly certain that Elaida herself is not). So she uses the time that she has left to try to use the truth to reach at least one of them. To try to make them believe, the way that she believes.

We don't know if any of the other Sitters are willing to listen but Elaida hears her, and is shaken by what she hears. She is aware of the power of a Foretelling, and knowing that Siuan and Moiraine have been following a Foretelling is going to shake her resolve.

While Siuan tells the truth to the small audience that she faces, Rand is telling the truth to the enormous host of assembled Aiel. We get a quick glimpse of Aviendha feeling a moment of betrayal towards the Wise Ones when she hears Rand reveal that the Aiel once followed the Way of the Leaf ("You knew?").

The way Rhuarc talks here "our people cannot face this truth" does seem specifically geared to reinforce the idea that Rand is speaking the truth. He didn't want Rand to do this, but he won't pretend it's a lie.

"This is what I was born to do." (what does the prophecy say? that he will save and destroy the Aiel)

Couladin does realize at this point that the more his people listen to Rand talk, the more likely Rand is to get them to realize that he must be the one speaking the truth, so he bounces, along with the people willling to follow him (mostly Shaido but I see some lighter outfits in there too).

And the Aiel remaining are the ones willing to listen.

Egwene is already looking worried here, even before Rand starts channeling -- maybe the very idea of him embracing prophecy this strongly concerns her? I'm not certain (I am once again asking for more insight into Egwene's thoughts and feelings in s4, lol).

Siuan's speech is genuinely fantastic and sums up so much of what the show is saying about people living in dangerous and difficult times.

"The world is changing. We cannot stand behind these walls and pretend we still have control. The only thing we have control over is what we do.

So what will you do?

Will you stand behind this woman who stands for nothing? Who loves nothing but power.

It's not the Tower or the Seat that makes us who we are.

It is us.

Us.

We are the power.

The Light shines through us. That is the truth!

I am Aes Sedai.

I have sworn on the Oath that my Sisters have sworn on for three thousand years. So, you hear my words and know that they are true.

If you stay here, you will burn with this Tower that you claim to love.

But I will never burn because I am Siuan Sanche. Daughter of the river. Water itself. And I defy you!

I defy you, Elaida!"

Before she kills Siuan, Alviarin looks over to Elaida, who is pretty visibly shaken by Siuan's words.

And Moiraine feels Siuan's death, as the oath she made to Siuan is released.

In between Siuan's speech, Rand speaks to the Aiel, reminding them of the words of the prophecy -- reminding them what the Car'a'carn is meant to do to them as a people. He will break them, he will destroy them, but he will save "the remnant of a remnant". Salvation and destruction, both.

Lanfear told him that she had fallen in love with the part that wanted to save the world, and Rand wanted to believe her, but when he found out what she was doing to Egwene, he knew it wasn't true.

Egwene looks worried and concerned over Rand even before any channeling is involved. Rand becoming what he must become is what worries her.

Before the taint overtakes his channeling, I see red, blue, and white -- I think that's fire, water, and air? Makes sense for what he does.

This is Rand doing the same thing that Moiraine and Siuan are both doing right now -- he is embracing the truth that terrifies him, which is what he is asking the Aiel to do as well (and what Siuan is asking the Sitters to do).

In 2x07, Siuan calls Rand "the water that turns the Wheel". In this episode, she calls herself water -- she has been the Amyrlin Seat for the past ten years, the daughter of the river.

Water frequently comes up when the One Power is involved, or to invoke the rituals that were likely once associated with the One Power -- I imagine that the ceremony of the Women's Circle in the Two Rivers might have originated as a Manetheren rite of passage for potential Aes Sedai, teaching them to trust the "river" aka the One Power. In s2, our blocked Nynaeve is unable to use the Power to clean a glass of water and drinks it dirty. Water is used as the symbol of the battle of wills between Renna and Egwene, where Renna wants control over Egwene's power. Wine (water with a pleasing intoxicant in it) is used to symbolized tainted saidin in Rand's conversation with Logain in s2.

In this episode, Nynaeve finds herself in the water, in all senses of the word, and frees herself from her block.

And Rand makes it rain in the desert, creating a storm that reaches out as far as Tanchico on the west coast. He is the water turning the Wheel of Time itself, a level of power that outstrips anything we've seen before (and the first time when Rand has really needed to put his whole body into channeling the way that Aes Sedai need to do for much simpler and smaller weaves).

I don't have that much to say about Moiraine & Lan's fight against Lanfear because I never really have much to say about fighting scenes! We do see that Moiraine is able to be fueled by the grief that she feels when Siuan dies, just as Queen Eldrene was fueled by grief in the story of Manetheren, when she felt her husband die. Lanfear gets injured but manages to escape (running the second she feels like she's in genuine danger).

And Moiraine is left with her grief -- a deep personal grief, for the loss of the woman that she loves, and while it may not have hit her yet, there will likely also be grief over what this may mean in the larger picture. If Siuan is dead, nothing good can be happening at the White Tower.

As Moiraine speaks the words of one of the prophecies, we watch as the storm clouds begin to pass over Moiraine and Lan.

The storm clouds reach Tar Valon, as Elaida moves her things into Siuan's chambers and has Siuan's personal items removed.

Thunder rolls and Moghedien looks up. The storm has reached her location -- is she still in Tanchico, or have she and Liandrin left? I am not good at architectural analysis, so I'm not certain. It doesn't look like Tanchico architecture to me, so I think she might be somewhere else. Maybe further to the east.

We see clouds in the sky as Faile, Bain, and Chiad examine the massive Whitecloak camp where Perrin has (presumably) been taken.

And the storm has reached the seas, where Nynaeve, Elayne, Mat, and Min (and presumably Thom) are leaving via a Sea Folk ship. To try to find Rand and warn him about the collar being in the hands of Liandrin and an unknown member of the Forsaken.

Then we return to Rand. He is calm, not crazed (like he was in Egwene's Arches vision) or euphoric (like he was in 3x01). Egwene calls out to him to let go of the One Power, like she did in 3x01 but this time, he doesn't.

I do love this look at the end between Rand and Egwene, and how vastly different their experiences of that moment are (I do suspect that their experiences are going to continue to drift apart).

For Egwene, she's worried that Rand has lost himself. She asks him to let go and he acknowledges that he heard her (he looks over to her) and he doesn't listen to her.

But while Rand has let go of himself... it's not to the corruption but to what he believes that he must become, to the prophecy of the Dragon Reborn (and the Car'a'carn). This is essentially what he expressed in his conversation with Moiraine earlier. He and Moiraine both want the same thing -- for Rand win the Last Battle 'for the Light', while accepting that Rand may need to be willing to do whatever it takes in the pursuit of that goal.

Are Moiraine and Rand correct in what they believe Rand must become in order to succeed?

Is it a good thing that Moiraine has been doing her best to isolate Rand away from other people and break him away from his emotional attachments?

Is it a good thing if Rand decides to embrace Moiraine's philosophy?

The prophecy that Moiraine says in voiceover implies that they might be wrong with their approach.

For the land is one with the Dragon Reborn, and he is one with the land. Soul of fire, heart of stone, in pride he conquers, forcing the proud to yield. He calls upon the mountains to kneel, and the seas to give way, and the very skies to bow. Pray that the heart of stone remembers tears, and the soul of fire, love

There's an interesting alignment of Egwene & Lanfear going on this season, a sort of compare/contrast that I feel like was probably at the heart of why the season had Randgwene last as long as it did. We have the Dragon's two exes, with Lanfear saying that the reason that Lews Therin Telamon broke things off with her was because she didn't bow to him, and Egwene being the only person that doesn't bow to Rand at the end of the episode (which, you know, of course she doesn't -- he's not her Car'a'carn. I don't think any of the Aiel expected her to bow, and Rand certainly didn't. But the comparison is there for the audience, not the Aiel; the audience is meant to think back to Mad!Rand screaming at Egwene to bow to him in her Arches vision from 3x01).

This is what Lanfear claims now (3x08): "You made the whole world bow. And the only one who wouldn't was me. That's why you left me. Because I wouldn't bow to you."

But both 'Selene' and 'Lews Therin' (via Rand's words) tell a different story.

'Selene' (2x04): "You shouldn't hide it. I did that once. Turned my soul to him like a mirror, reflecting only what he wanted to see. Leaving the rest of me in darkness. But one day he looked too long. Too carefully. You need to give someone the chance to love all of you. They might not. But you have to give them the chance."

Rand (3x08): "Lews Therin... he left you for the same reasons that I am. Because you're jealous and petty and just cruel. You're a monster, Lanfear."

Some part of Lanfear knows why she and LTT didn't work out, but she doesn't want to admit to any character flaws so... it's because she didn't worship him. That's the reason. It's definitely not because of any fault in herself that he might have discovered that turned him off her. Definitely not!

Sammael didn't last long in the show, but he did drop in that banger of a line which undercuts the narrative that Lanfear is trying to peddle right now (3x03): "You'd have stretched out at [Lews Therin's] feet if he'd said 'Rug'."

And, of course, 'not bowing to him' is also not the reason that Egwene and Rand broke things off either. In fact, Rand respects that Egwene has no intention of bending herself to his desires. That's not what he wants out of a partner -- we had that confirmed already back in 1x08, when he rejects the temptation-world that Ishamael created for him because he knew it wasn't what Egwene would have wanted, but Rand also re-affirms it in the 3x06 break-up scene.

But one of the big themes of the books is the difficulties of communication, especially between men and women. I tend to call it "Women And Men Just Can't Communicate With Each Other" and it gets taken to ridiculous lengths in the books.

In the show, it kinda feels like they're taking something that was generalized in the books to Basically Everyone and making it instead a specific problem between Rand and Egwene, and a long-standing one that has marked their whole relationship but that didn't really matter until the stakes became so much bigger (I noted in either a 3x05 or 3x06 post that Rand and Egwene's communication issues were already present back in 1x01 -- Egwene avoids talking to Rand until their parents basically force them to be alone together; and then Rand distracts them with sex once he starts to get the vibe that Egwene is about to start a Serious Relationship Conversation).

Instead of Women And Men Just Can't Communicate With Each Other, it's Egwene And Rand Just Can't Communicate With Each Other -- in a similar way to how the show took the general theme in the books of "Two Rivers Men Are Wildly Overprotective Of Women Just Because" and made it a Perrin-specific thing and gave him a reason to feel that way. Because the show does agree that this is an issue that should be addressed, whether it be overprotectiveness or miscommunication, but wants to explore it using only one character (or one set of characters), rather than it being something that afflicts all the main characters.

I realized that I was shouting, "Holy shit, just TALK to each other" at Rand and Egwene the same way that I basically did most of the time when women and men interacted with each other in the books, because there were so many persistent and wilful misunderstandings going on. The frustration that Randgwene made me feel this season truly was straight out of the books.

And if they were going to have any two characters exploring this specific issue, Rand and Egwene are probably the ones to do it (we've seen in the show that most men and women do not have this level of communication disconnect with each other -- Nynaeve and Mat have a much warmer relationship in the show than in the books, for instance).

3x06 is the first time that Egwene accuses Rand of madness due to behavior that is unrelated to any kind of corruption or taint from the Dark One (the Lanfear mess was good old-fashioned manipulation from a master-manipulator) but I don't think it'll be the last. When Rand acts in ways that go outside how she believes he would act, I think we may see her going back to "it must be the madness taking him" as her belief for why he's acting that way.

If Egwene has a conviction that Rand is already heavily influenced by madness, we've seen that Rand also sees Egwene through Two Rivers eyes, but while Egwene thinks back to pre-1x01 and their relationship before the break-up and is comparing now-Rand to then-Rand, Rand sees her in the lens of their break-up in 1x01.

A large part of his side of their break-up talk in 3x06 goes back to that original break-up and her reasons for it. When she had a chance for something she saw as 'better' than a life with Rand (the apprenticeship with Nynaeve), that's what she wanted. And when that chance vanished, she wanted to go back to her old relationship with Rand as if nothing had changed between them when, for Rand, everything had changed because now he knew where he stood in Egwene's list of priorities. He accepts this and lets go of the dream of his life with Egwene in 1x08 when he's facing Ishamael, but then s3 digs up those wounds again.

To Rand, what happens this season feels like part of that same pattern from 1x01-1x02 -- she only wants him when she has nothing better on offer and when she needs someone 'safe' as a security blanket.

From my own perspective, I do wish we'd gotten a reminder of some kind in 3x03 that the worry about Rand going mad has been preying on Egwene's mind and that she's with him in the Aiel Waste partly because she's concerned that she's going to need to be the one to stop him if he starts to be overcome by the corruption, because the break-up did feel unbalanced to me and I felt like that part of it wasn't really implied outside of 3x01 itself, but hopefully s4 will let us have more insight into Egwene's thought processes again, maybe if she gets reunited with Nynaeve and Elayne, and has someone to confide in that she can trust.

Looking forward to s4, which I do dearly hope that we get, we have some things set up for us:

Tear and Callandor. This has gotten a ton of set-up this season -- it was mentioned both in 3x01 and in 3x08. Callandor is the male counterpart to the sa'angreal that Moiraine has, so it can presumably amplified Rand as much as the Sakarnan amplifies Moiraine in this episode. Given how incredibly powerful Rand has shown himself to be here without any kind of sa'angreal, that is... a lot of power. You can see why Lanfear tried to convince Rand that it could be used to kill the Dark One.

Perrin has surrendered himself to the Whitecloaks, but Faile, Bain, and Chiad aren't going to leave it at that.

We have two different sets of villains: we have the alliance of Moghedien and Liandrin, who have the collar and want to put it on Rand, and we potentially have an alliance of Lanfear and Rahvin -- she's trying to convince him to go for Callandor, but she also just got her ass kicked by Moiraine and nearly died, so he might not find her arguments persuasive.

The White Tower has essentially fallen, which is concerning on several different levels.

Rand and Moiraine have connected and fully aligned on their goals and methods. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen -- Egwene seems concerned.

A large portion of the Aiel present at Alcair Dal left with Couladin, who expressed a desire to go over the Dragonwall to "take back what is ours". That also seems like a pressing problem.

Rand definitely saw someone in the desert who disappeared when he blinked. That's concerning. He also no longer seems to be worrying about how much of the corruption he touches, as long as the One Power does what he needs it to do.

We are down two Chosen now, with three in the spotlight (Lanfear, Moghedien, and Rahvin), two mentioned but not seen yet (Semirhage and Graendal), and one who is completely unknown.

Fingers crossed for renewal news!

#wot #the wheel of time #wheel of time #wot on prime #wot s3 spoilers #wheel of time s3 spoilers #butterfly watches wot #wot meta #my wot meta #wot 3x08 spoilers #even with how long this is #i feel like there was still so much to talk about #but i kinda want to do a full-series rewatch now #to pick up on all those threads

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