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butterflydm · 11 months

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wot reread: a memory of light (ch 5-6)

spoilers through a memory of light, the last book in the series

Rand wakes up next to Aviendha, and goes to the tent entrance to glance at the busy camp, already at work on preparing for the day. "Everyone knew these were their last moments before the storm arrived".

2. Aviendha sneaks up on Rand, delighted that she managed to succeed despite the bond. She had to move very slowly and carefully but she manages to startle him when he turns around to see her right there, still naked.

Yeah, if I were restructuring WoT as a whole, I think I would place the bond way later in time than it happened in the books. Like "last night" late. Still have the love confessions happen in WH (and Rand finally sleeping with Elayne) but don't have Elayne suggest bonding yet (honestly, when you look at Rand's arc as a whole, it's kinda weird that he's willing to agree to bonding at that time).

And when Rand sneaks off with Nynaeve, he should leave Min behind in Caemlyn too, which would (a.) actually give Min time to bond with Elayne & Aviendha and (b.) actually let Rand be genuinely emotionally alone and isolated for the arc where we're constantly being TOLD that he's alone and isolated and finally (c). be a much better reason why Min never tells Rand that Elayne is pregnant than 'doesn't remember due to being blackout drunk from jealousy'. Then Aviendha trains when she's in Caemlyn, and instead of going to Arad Doman with the rest of the Wise Ones, she goes to Rhuidean at that point (since Min is still in Caemlyn; you could have the Semirhage thing be a non-romantic moment where Rand breaks through to save Nynaeve or one of the Maidens). And then the actual bonding happens once the four of them are all reunited in Merrilor before the Last Battle. Plus, this means that Alanna stays important to the story as Cadsuane's Rand mood-ring.

Anyway, obviously not something that Jordan could have done, because he had not yet written all the parts that would need to be restructured. But in an ideal world. Because as it is, after the bond happens in WH, it's extremely underutilized. And Rand doubting that he can really love all three of them without that being an issue between them makes a lot more sense if he hasn't already experienced their affection through the bond.

3. Also, Rand being able to feel the land here ("The Dragon is one with the land" as we were told in EotW) is really neat and I like it a lot. He can feel the life of the land and also how precarious it all is.

4. There's still a bit of a culture clash going on, as Rand is puzzled at how Aviendha can find their first time together (back in TFoH) to now be something that can't be talked about at all (because she has met her toh over it to Elayne), which I like. They were raised in very different cultures. Aviendha also has definitely accepted here the idea that she plans to live in the wetlands, post-Last Battle, and is faintly wistful that they have no time for a bath before the big meeting (in one hour).

5. Ah, and Aviendha here shows us that it seems likely that the Aiel, out of all the nations, may have the easiest time of adjusting to the notion of men being able to channel now that saidin is clean -- she says that concern over men channeling now would be like refusing to forget toh after it has been met. This makes a lot of sense to me when I think about it -- we know that Aiel men who can channel historically left their clans to go face an honorable death in the Blight (even if we've just learned in this book that was being thwarted by the Dark One) so the Aiel haven't really been villainizing male channelers the way that so many cultures have done.

And Rand uses the One Power to give them a shared shower together. A nice hot shower like they used to have in the AoL. Aviendha does not find Rand's ancient memories at all off-putting, the way that Min did. She just teases him that he was easier to manage before he had his new ancient wisdom. They are being so cute together. 🥰🥰🥰

6. But, yeah, I love how Rand feels comfortable talking about the Age of Legends and what "we" did back then with Aviendha, with no worries that she's going to judge him or freak out on him. She 100% teases him and gives him shit about it, though. And when she criticizes the AoL attitudes as naive, he agrees with her. This is also when she requests her future 'boon' from Rand and while it would definitely be nice if she just... told him about her vision, I love the way that she makes her request, because it's couched in a way that is full of not denying his consent in the matter and with respect for her partner:

"Rand, today, I will request a boon."

"What boon? I'm not certain I could deny you anything today, Aviendha."

"I'm not certain yet what it will be."

"I don't understand."

"You needn't understand. And you needn't promise me you will agree. I felt I needed to give you warning, as one does not ambush a lover. My boon will require you to change your plans, perhaps in a drastic way, and it will be important."

Also, on a physical level, I like that Rand likes how rough Aviendha's hands are. <3

7. We switch to Egwene's PoV at this point. In this book, there has been a lot of mid-chapter PoV swapping and I'm not certain that I like it. I mean, that's kinda the reason that Sanderson gave for why he cut scenes like the bridal wreaths scene -- because it might have felt frivolous when set against the attack on Caemlyn (but Perrin and Rand yukking it up didn't??) -- but if there was less mid-chapter PoV swapping, then you could add more of those character beats in without it feeling jarring, because you could continue the story on to move back to a serious plot beat before swapping to the Black Tower storyline in the next chapter or whatnot. It's a self-created problem, is what I'm saying. Jordan would occasionally do mid-chapter PoV swaps but it was much more sparing. I understand the urge to always have the scene be in what you feel is the 'most effective' PoV for that part of the scene but sometimes the story is stronger as a whole if you don't constantly do that. I feel like maybe the PoV swapping extravaganza should possibly have been saved for chapter 37.

8. Egwene is trying to interpret her dreams while they happen. A glass column of light; trying to hold the world together and it continuing to break under her hands. When she wakes up, she's temporarily disorientated, because she's sleeping in a different room than normal, with her own room in the White Tower still being put to rights after the attempted assassination. She's been commuting to the Field of Merrilor, essentially, lol.

Gawyn reads a letter about the latest news from Caemlyn and they talk about "the Seanchan woman" (aka Leilwin née Egeanin) who Nynaeve has said won't cause them any 'intentional' harm. A glowing endorsement! Egwene, much like Rand, is worried that they will have to fight the Seanchan and the Trollocs at the same time (another thing that Mat is sheltered from -- from what I recall, I don't think he ever finds out how much danger all his friends were in from his slaver wife, because the narrative needs to keep the illusion alive for Mat for as long as possible).

9. Hundreds of thousands of people are reported dead in the Caemlyn attack. That's hundreds of thousands of lives that Mat could have saved if he'd been slightly less mistrusting of Aes Sedai. And the city itself is lost, at least for now. The city had also housed much of the planned food supply for Elayne's troops for the Last Battle, also now lost. They also get word of the time for the day's big meeting, and it's in half an hour, so they get moving. (Gawyn suggest letting Rand wait but Egwene says it would be a bad idea to allow Rand to fully set the narrative for the upcoming meeting).

10. Every nation but Murandy, Arad Doman, and the Seanchan-held lands is represented at this meeting. Darlin (of Tear) is worried deeply about the Seanchan threat to his lands, we learn, and so will stand with Egwene if need be, because she has promised him Gateways back to Tear, if he should need to bring his army back to face the Seanchan. But both Darlin and Gregorin (the steward of Illian) tell Egwene that Rand is willing to listen to reasonable arguments. See Egwene's worries here about how much she could trust 'the man he had become' would resonate a lot more in general, if her last meeting with Rand had been ruthless!Rand.

She is surprised to see that, despite what she'd thought going into this meeting, that the flag of Arad Doman is present after all. And so is the flag of Murandy. So only the Seanchan-held lands are not present.

11. Rand arrives, wearing red and gold, and with a carpet of fresh grass growing under his feet (because he's One with the Land <3). The impact that this would have had if she'd only seen ruthless!Rand in ToM and not zen!Rand. It's still pretty good but it could have been an even bigger moment for Egwene. The grass spreads outward until the entire area that the leaders are standing on is covered in green. Egwene sends Gawyn off to see if one of the Aes Sedai & Asha'man pairs will spill the beans on what weave Rand might be using to cause such an effect.

12. He has a large floating bundle that unravels as he walks, setting an enormous pavilion ahead on the green. Egwene reluctantly admires his showmanship, lol. Without breaking stride, he tells all the gathered leaders that they can bring five people with them each, and then heads into the tent. lol at Min being a prop just like the saidin glowbulbs are props. There she is, clinging to Rand's arm like a bracelet, as has been her duty since fucking A Crown of Swords. The Hero's Reward For His Sacrifices And Suffering. When I think of how interesting Min's storyline could have been and then think of how pointless it has been... it's just really sad and frustrating.

Okay, actually, here's a good time to mention an element of weird: Elayne just casually mentioned to Egwene that Aviendha spent the night with Rand. So, off-screen, Elayne has apparently shared the whole "all three of us love him and are in a relationship with him" thing with Egwene, because Egwene has zero thoughts or feelings about the fact that Elayne is pregnant with Rand's kids, Aviendha spent the night with him, and Min is stapled to him today. This is the same woman who believed in ToM that Gawyn shouldn't share a bedroom with her because they were unmarried, mind you. And she has zero thoughts or feelings about Rand hooking up with three different women while not married to any of them; she just recites the facts without any kind of response to them. You'd think that this would come up when she was thinking about how much he'd changed from the boy she used to know!

I say again, definitely not for the first time:

Stop having important emotional moments happen off-screen!

13. When Elayne enters the tent, she and Rand smile at each other, and Egwene is like "ugh, how can she be so pleased and impressed with him!" before reluctantly admitting that she feels some pride in how much he has accomplished as well. When Perrin ("and his wife") and Nynaeve come in, they go stand by Rand, as does Cadsuane. But again, Egwene apparently has no opinion about Min clinging to Rand while Elayne smiles at him from the other side of the tent. Egwene is not a character who is shy about having opinions!

14. Rand thought that the king of Murandy might be Demandred, I'm guessing, by the way all his people went on alert and him going to stare at the guy and then going, "you're not him. Where is he?" but poor Egwene is so baffled by this.

Rand lays out the situation and says that one of the big problems of the last Age is that they weren't all united against the Shadow -- each general led on their own (with LTT being just as guilty of this fault as anyone else). Another emotional beat that kinda fell by the wayside of hurrying to the ending: whenever Rand has revealed in the past that he has LTT's memories, it caused a lot more concern and fuss over his potential madness. Again, I do get why Sanderson would be like "we don't have time for that" but I do feel the need to note it.

15. Rand talks here about how he wants to prevent another Breaking, wants to prevent conflict from breaking out the moment that he's dead.

Ah, I wonder if Egwene's bizarrely uncharitable "Even Elayne had gobbled up another country" thought here is part of what contributed to the whole "Elayne is acting out of power-hunger" fandom belief even though we were actually told in Elayne's own PoV thoughts back in ToM that Elayne is acting out of thinking about the future and the looming threat of the Seanchan Empire. Between Birgitte's increasingly bitter PoV and Egwene throwing Elayne under the bus with the other rulers, readers choose to believe them over Elayne's own actual internal thoughts about her reasoning behind her choices. Though I feel like part of the issue there is how shortchanged the Elayne Takes Cairhien plotline ended up being -- if we'd spent more time getting to see Elayne navigate the politics of it, like we got to see with Caemlyn, then we would have gotten more of Elayne's own thoughts on the reasoning to balance everything out.

16. At this point, Rand presents "the Dragon's peace" -- one of the three things that he says he requires in exchange for him giving up his life to save the world.

Hmm, I wonder if getting Elayne's genuine reaction here was part of the reason that Rand has kept his distance from her? This way, the other rulers see her reaction alongside them and think of her as aligned with them instead of aligned with Rand?

I do feel like I don't really have any good idea here of whether or not the random leaders of the world know that Elayne and Rand are in a relationship but if I assume that they mostly don't, then that's an actual reason for Min to be clinging to Rand's arm here... but then Elayne kinda punctures that idea later in the scene and it kinda seems like, off the page, everyone did get a debriefing on the "so, the Dragon Reborn has three girlfriends, let's not make a big thing about it" issue. I feel like this is not something I should be so confused about at this point in the story, lol.

And I feel like this scene would make more sense if people (especially those not firmly on Rand's side) DON'T know about Rand and Elayne's relationship, because then Min clinging to Rand as a very visible "Hey! Look at me! Mistress to the Dragon Reborn!" distraction technique would make more sense (as part of a thing that the polycule worked out on purpose) and make her choice to do that seem more strategic and less like she's peeing all over Rand in public to make her claim on him. But, again, Elayne publicly telling Rand "I love you" later in this scene ruins that theory and we go back to 'Min feeling the need to reassert her claim after Aviendha slept with Rand last night' because we didn't get to actually see a scene where Min has been okay with the polycule and we've been left with possessive & jealous Min as our only 'on-screen' Min (didn't have to be the bridal wreaths scenes -- any scene of the three of them actually talking would have been nice to get! Bonus points if Rand is actually part of the discussion too!).

17. Egwene cuts off the discussions on this to ask after Rand's other two requests -- the first is that he essentially wants Egwene's blessing on breaking the seals (though he plans to do it even if he doesn't get her blessing). But this leads up to Egwene and Rand having a big argument and... tbh, I don't envy Sanderson for needing to come up with a reason for Egwene and Rand to be so ~at odds~ in this last moment so that Moiraine can swoop in to save the day because it really makes no sense that they can't come to terms with each other! I'm not sure there's any argument that could have been worked up here that wouldn't feel at least a little artificial.

Given the paths that they've both walked to this point, it feels somewhat infantilizing that they need mom holding their hands in order to stop fighting with each other. If the reason you 'kill off' the mentor is to allow the students to reach their full potential, it really does kinda stifle/reverse that growth if it ends up that the mentor needs to come back to fix things.

Oh, and to quote Sanderson's retrospective on Moiraine coming back:

In his notes, Robert Jordan was very specific about the fact that Rand and Egwene needed to almost come to blows in the lead-up to the Last Battle. He called it the grand union of the armies against Rand, whose decisions were considered too radical, too dangerous, to be allowed to proceed. Moiraine was to be the force that brought the two of them together, unifying the armies of light, cementing her importance—and showing why she needed to be rescued by Mat before the Last Battle. (There were a lot of instructions about what Moiraine was to say, and some good writing on that meeting at the Field of Merrilor.)

Just in the interest of having all the appropriate information.

18. Random side note, I love Berelain's reaction to Rand's treaty (it really would be a huge blessing to teeny tiny countries like Mayene!). I just adore her basically going "two thumbs up, five stars, no notes" to the Dragon's Peace. But Berelain has been such a strong & loyal supporter of Rand for a very long time (and deserves a lot more credit for it than the books were willing to give her). idk it's a fun little side note.

19. Oh, and Rand's last request is that he wants full control over the armies for the Last Battle rather than everyone controlling their own army.

Yeah, Egwene thinks here that Rand is acting very much like an Aes Sedai (which feels like a counter-balance to Rand going all, "You're Not Like The Other Aes Sedai to Nynaeve" -- or, I guess, I would say that it counts as evidence that Rand's PoV in that chapter in ToM IS meant to be his own biased PoV and not the objective truth about Aes Sedai), and we also have her thinking that she can tell he still has strong emotions going on underneath the surface but that he's got them under much better control than before.

20. So, yeah, knowing that at least some of what Moiraine says and does here in the tent at Merrilor came directly from Jordan's notes does make me wonder how much that shaped some of the other plot points that happen in this discussion.

21. Man, I do not love having this chapter start out in Perrin's PoV. That really feels like the most useless of the potential PoVs. Either Rand or staying with Egwene would be so much better imo.

Anyway, we are in Perrin's PoV as we see Moiraine enter, and Perrin wonders why Mat isn't with Moiraine and he gets a vision of Mat... "on a horse, riding along a dusty road, tinkering with something he held". I will... hold off my thoughts about that until we actually get to a Mat PoV and I can evaluate it properly. But, just as a reminder: at the end of ToM, Mat was planning to return to Caemlyn and was suggesting that Moiraine do the same so that she could speak to Elayne before trying to talk to Rand. And the group of three did not bring any horses to the Tower of Ghenjei.

22. lol so much at Moiraine just blowing off any attempt to give Mat, Thom, or Noal/Jain credit for saving her and going right to "the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills". Reminds me so much of people who attribute life-saving medical intervention to a miracle from a god and not the doctors & nurses who actually saved their lives. The real reason Mat isn't here: so that he doesn't die from anger & frustration at his sacrifice being completely brushed off by Moiraine.

Perrin also notes the presence of Thom coming in after Moiraine.

23. Rand kneels before Moiraine until she tells him not to, Egwene welcomes her back to the White Tower, and Nynaeve gives her a hug (as sweet as the Nynaeve hug is, I still think she would be better served being in the Black Tower plotline right now). Anyway, Moiraine Fixes Everything by giving everyone present a lecture on how they need to trust Rand and quoting prophecy at them until they give up and agree to go along with him.

24. Also, both the Aes Sedai and the Asha'man are randomly using the Power to smack anyone who protests Moiraine's presence/importance (which kinda does feel like another Jordan Throwback and not one that I super-enjoy).

25. What's weird is that Perrin thinks of Grady as "one of the nearby Asha'man" here but... he should be the person who brought Moiraine and Thom to Merrilor? How is he already at this meeting as one of Rand's Asha'man? How did Moiraine and Thom get here if Grady was already present? Moiraine has been stuck in the Tower of Ghenjei and so didn't have a chance to learn how to Travel yet. Grady was the one opening Gateways to the Tower of Ghenjei in order to retrieve Mat & co once they were done with their task. Did Grady bring Moiraine and Thom to Perrin's camp, and then leave and go over to Rand (without telling him about it), and then Moiraine and Thom eavesdropped on the meeting until the ~most dramatic moment~ for her to enter and save the day? Not that this is necessarily out of character for Moiraine, of course, but... that should mean that Mat is here too, because Mat was with Moiraine and Thom. The logistics of this are not adding up for me.

26. One of the Aes Sedai (Perrin doesn't know her name) points out that even if they all agree here to the Dragon's Peace, there's a huge flaw remaining -- the Seanchan.

...wow, Mat really should be here for this conversation. I'm feeling sorta like I did at the start of Crossroads of Twilight, where it feels like the author decided to do a major swerve from what was set up in the previous books. Logistically, Mat should have come to Merrilor with Moiraine & Thom... it's honestly difficult to see how he possibly avoided it? Assigned Gateway-maker Grady is at Merrilor. Literally right here, in this meeting. Perrin just mentioned him.

Logically: Mat should have arrived at Merrilor, mentioned that he had been planning to return to Caemlyn (for the Band & Olver) and found out that Caemlyn was attacked (learning from Talmanes that the knowledge of the attack was in the letter that Verin had left for him). This would bring his arc re: mistrusting Aes Sedai to an appropriate conclusion: mistrusting Aes Sedai so strongly has led to massive death on a scale as bad as anything in his war memories. Then Mat should have learned that the only thing holding back the potential peace for the world post-Last Battle is the Seanchan. He finds out how worried everyone is that the Seanchan will attack, either while the Last Battle is happening or afterwards.

Then, as a show of self-sacrifice (and guilt over letting Caemlyn be attacked), Mat tells Rand & co about his marriage and volunteers to be the one to go to Fortuona, to make one last desperate attempt at a peace treaty before the Last Battle. Because of his marriage, he's the best person for the job (making his marriage actually matter in the narrative and giving it a reason to have a prophecy about it).

Before he goes through a Gateway to Ebou Dar, he and Rand talk about Rand's LTT memories and Rand confesses to Mat that he believes that he genuinely is insane but that he has control of himself (basically shift over those two conversations that Perrin had with Rand earlier, the ones that felt like they had zero relevance to Rand and Perrin's friendship). This would bring Mat's arc re: Rand and the role of the Dragon Reborn to an appropriate emotional conclusion.

And this would mean that the Emond's Field Five actually all get to reunite before the Last Battle kicks off!

27. "I see what you're trying to do, Rand, and I love you for it." This is the wtf moment that kinda throws the 'what DO all the various random rulers know about Rand's relationships?' question into the pot. Visibly pregnant Elayne saying this to Rand while another woman was desperately clinging (silently) to his arm only minutes ago should be raising so many questions and red flags for the various rulers who are present here. Especially since Rand doesn't publicly reciprocate her affection here. I feel like just having Elayne say, "I see what you're trying to do, Rand, but that does not remove the fact that this document is fundamentally untenable" would have made a lot more sense here. There's no point to Rand and Elayne avoiding spending time with each other if Elayne is also throwing out 'I love you's in public. Pick a lane, essentially. But Rand agrees to add the provision that if the Seanchan do not sign to the treaty, then the document as a whole is void.

28. Elayne says that only addresses the problem of the Seanchan and not the issue of how to enforce the treaty, which is what leads to Aviendha speaking up and telling Rand that she wants the boon that she'd requested earlier -- that the Aiel be treated the same way as the wetlanders in the treaty. Rand says that leaving them out of the agreement was meant as an expression of his trust and Aviendha tells him that it is an insult instead.

(and it is not the Aiel themselves who say that war is their purpose or that they are tools; they actually respond negatively to the suggestion -- it's Rand and Perrin, wetlanders who both canonically have the bad habit of using their people as tools, who make that comparison)

But anyway, the Aiel are written into the document as the official enforcers of the peace.

Hmm, we do get this cute moment from Perrin here that Elayne 'smells' proud of Rand even as she continues to 'stare daggers' at him, lol. But just like Egwene, Perrin has no thoughts on the whole "Rand has multiple girlfriends" situation.

Moiraine asks Rand how he plans to lead the armies if he's going to Shayol Ghul, so that's now an open question.

29. I do feel the need to point out: Aviendha is here spearheading the Aiel & the Wise Ones; Elayne is here representing Caemlyn & Cairhien; and they are both vocal in this meeting and actively facing and talking with Rand as equals. Min... is silently clinging to Rand's arm. And the saddest thing is that this is perfectly representative of them in the series as a whole, too. Aviendha and Elayne both have other things going on and get to be fully-realized characters and people, while Min... not so much, and the story has to keep trying to manufacture ways to occupy her time* because once she leaves Salidar, she has literally nothing else going on in her life but clinging to Rand.

(*hilariously, it's usually something that someone else had already discovered or realized earlier in the series -- ex. Rand himself has the realization about needing to break the seals all the way back at the start of Lord of Chaos, long before Min arrives in Caemlyn; or there's that time she uncovered the flaw in Callandor... that Cadsuane had already told Rand about in an earlier book)

30. As Faile brings up some pertinent questions about the Seanchan, Mat not being here at this meeting feels so weird and jarring. It makes zero narrative or purely logistical sense.

The question: if the Seanchan sign this document, does that give them formal permission to keep all the people they've enslaved and the lands that they've conquered? And are they allowed to kidnap and enslave anyone who crosses their borders (women who can channel in particular)? Very important questions and ones that Mat needed to hear being brought up. Shielding him from any of this, like he's a toddler who is too young to hear the truth about the world, doesn't help anyone, especially not him.

31. Rand says that he will go to the Seanchan after this meeting, either to find a way to get them to sign this treaty or to find a way to destroy their ability to make war (guessing this would be something to do with the damane -- maybe springing all their collars with the Power all at once?). So Rand still considers fighting the Seanchan to be a very viable possibility for him at this time.

Here is the point in the meeting when Mat (who should be here) would speak up and say, "I'll go and talk to her first" because he's just found out that the other option is Fortuona getting killed by his best friend and/or Fortuona attempting to kill his friends & people.

"We cannot have them striking at our backs when we attack the Shadow."

lol, Min silently takes Rand's arm again as the rulers proceed with the treaty signing.

32. When it comes time for Elayne to sign (she's last), she notes that it's a difficult thing that Rand is asking of her, and he gives her the control of the armies of the Last Battle. Though some of the leaders push back against the idea, none of them do so based on the whole "you two are romantically linked" conflict-of-interest idea, so I once again have to wonder what exactly all the random rulers know about their relationship (maybe they just assume Elayne is very free with her 'I love you's).

33. The question of the Seanchan is brought up again, and Rand says that he will see what he can do about trying to trade with the Seanchan to get their people back (from what we saw in Aviendha's visions, this is a trade that Fortuona and her successors refused in the alternate future) and try to persuade them to return back over the sea but if worst comes to worst "if forced to it, I am content to allow them the lands they have, so long as they do not spread further".

"Thousands are enslaved," Egwene points out.

"What's done is done," Rand says. Yikes. He does follow this up with, "Let us worry about the world first, then do what we can for those held captive" so again, he's not letting the Seanchan entirely off the hook here -- he's leaving an explicit opening for the leaders to push the Seanchan on this in the future. But, you know, saying "what's done is done" about people being kidnapped into slavery is extremely Yikes.

We also get the pro-'strongman' yikes argument of "the lands they have taken have benefited from strong leadership", which is something that Jordan first brought up in TPoD as propaganda that the Seanchan were spreading but wasn't actually true (as we heard stories about how violent the Seanchan mainland still was, with uprisings and civil wars), was treated as an article of faith by Fortuona in CoT & KoD even as we were cut off from hearing any counter-arguments, and now is basically taken as literally true.

And, once again, I feel the need to point out that the 'strong leadership' that Rand is praising is mostly the work of Darkfriend Suroth and Forsaken Semirhage, as Fortuona was ~under the veil~ during her first weeks in Ebou Dar and so in a weird in-between place as far as her authority went, then kidnapped and missing for at least a month and maybe closer to two or three months, and has only recently been returned to power. So this is more an argument in praise of the Dark One than the Seanchan, though Rand (and I guess Sanderson) doesn't realize it.

34. Things are getting bad in the Borderlands, we find out, as we check in with Lan.

Yeah, I feel like this section here would have been enough to illustrate how bad things were getting without us needing the attack on Caemlyn. Too many battles, not enough character moments! (especially if Mat isn't there to face his failure with Caemlyn and Verin's letter, making it all feel much more pointless and 'battle for the sake of battle')

Right when Lan believes that he's facing his last stand, Gateways open up and reinforcements pour in from Merrilor. And Lan is relieved that what he thought was his death becomes "a promising battle" instead.

This is a pretty nice, upbeat moment to end this section of the reread on, I think, since I feel like it's gotten long enough. I had a lot to say about the big meeting, lol.

#wot reread #wot #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #elayne trakand #rand al'thor #perrin aybara #moiraine damodred #egwene al'vere #mat cauthon

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highladyluck · 8 months

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Season 2, Episode 4 Liveblog

Teaser:

Selene is so sanguine about her entire livelihood going up in smoke! It’s almost like this has happened before

Werewolf Perrin rumors have been crushed!

The problem with the Forsaken Ski Chalet is that there’s a Myrdraal infestation in the basement

It is a personal insult that the subtitles just say [chanting] when Ishy is clearly dialing up Lanfear (also if anyone can overwrite the audio for this scene with the dial-up modem sound I want to see the clip)

DARK PROPHECY IS A GO

Awww she’s an amateur artist

Dollars to donuts that ‘older sister’ is an Aes Sedai

It has to be so painful coming back home

Selene is so sanguine about her entire livelihood going up in smoke! It’s almost like this has happened before

How long, Selene? Exactly how long has it been?

I’m gonna need fanart/fanfic of the Forsaken Ski Chalet up near Kinslayer’s Dagger

Awwwwwwwwwww

The Accepted sleeves look AWESOME I know I keep saying that but it’s true! They’re little embroidered ombre flames

Alanna is like ‘I don’t do therapy, I only do sex advice’

Hmmmmm, that doesn’t sound like stilling aftermath, another point in favor of ‘shielded’

It’s good that they are namedropping Cads this early; she came out of nowhere in the books.

DARK, Alanna. Also I bet I know what that change in Moiraine was; the timeframe is right for it to be when Gitara died & she got her quest.

Moiraine is on the case!

Ooooooooooooh this is going to be FUN

DAMN so that’s why she wanted that specific red wine. This feels very on par with the books- Moiraine a step behind but trying desperately to stay in the loop and get Rand what she thinks he needs

Moiraine, damn

Yeah, no point letting him destroy himself until all value has been extracted from him :/

Elayne like ‘she’s been promoted’ lmao she would think it was just that

Oh Egwene, you have not even begun to feel like shit

Ooooh someone gave Liandrin her marching orders

FORESHADOWING

Awww it’s Hopper! Hi Hopper

Werewolf Perrin rumors have been crushed! It’s ok he is a werewolf in my heart, the way Rand is a ghost in my heart and Mat is a vampire in my heart. And by ‘in my heart’ I mean ‘in the subtext’

Huh, interesting thing with the visions

Perrin like ‘excuse me, why did I not get an instruction manual and personal tutoring, this is a shitty apprenticeship so far’

None of the Tower’s fucking business honestly (this is also why info about the Power doesn’t get shared but whatever)

Lmao Selene you lie about more than that

Her face when Rand says ‘you’d be surprised’ lmao, that’s a Lanfear Face (TM)

Oh honey you haven’t even broken the world yet

“[dice rattling]” IT’S MY BOY!!!

Is Min gonna have Mat kidnapped by the Seanchan and taken to Falme? I am INTRIGUED

I’m glad the show explores the rift in families created by the long lives of Aes Sedai

Liandrin says ‘Rescue mission! You love a rescue mission!’

Alanna does not like Dark Prophecies written in blood, I guess?

Ooooh there’s that Damodred spirit (political maneuvering)

“This is my room.” - Elayne

“didn’t ask, don’t care” - Nyneave

Egwene no no no you already have enough trauma you don’t need to go to Falme

Uh oh, always a bad sign when Ishy shows up in your dreams (I love that the non-ta’veren are getting Ishy dreams!) also at this point it should be obv to everyone that Liandrin is bad news bears, even if you missed the lying

Oooooh interesting, what IS In Cairhein?

The problem with the Forsaken Ski Chalet is that there’s a Myrdraal infestation in the basement

Lmao like she didn’t know

Selene doesn’t know anything about being seen as a monster, nope

Oh ok that bit about her soul is great

Rand is vanilla

What the hell

Wow that is the most awkward thing I can imagine happening between Rand and Moiraine, you’re gonna give him a complex about… killing… women… I see

I cannot wait to see Lanfear do some horror movie shit

YEAH

AVI NEXT EP!!!

#wheel of time #wot on prime #wot book spoilers #wot on prime s2 #WoT on prime spoilers #WoT on prime s2e4

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jackoshadows · 11 months

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Looking through the 2023 WoTCon panels and...

Really? Do we really need this ‘eternal fandom debate’ regurgitated in 2023? Why is it Min Farshaw alone that perennially gets this treatment? Where is the ‘Damn, he’s a sexy Lamp’ analysis for Gawyn Trakand, who is just around to complain about Rand?

Even to the extend that when the TV show was being cast, fans were speculating that Min would be cut or combined with Elayne, horrifying even Rafe Judkins!

Q: Are you going to merge Min and Elayne?

A: Hell no

Q: Will min, elayne, and avienda have to be combined into a single character?

A: Girl you crazy. I’m not going to combine huge characters like that. Maybe sometimes a minor character folded into a more major one to make better use of our cast but nothing nutso

Can’t female characters play different kinds of important roles without being leaders, Queens, Amyrlins and warriors anymore? If one female character plays a supporting role to a male character she’s reduced to being a ‘sexy lamp’?

I can understand this critique if Min Farshaw was the sole, lead female character in the series. However, in a series where the female characters are the most powerful, most pro-active, comprise most of the leaders of this world, make the rules, why is it that Min Farshaw is always picked out for simply supporting the man she loves?

And given how important Rand’s mental health is to the survival of the world, isn’t Min’s emotional strength and support to this person she loves dearly also an important narrative plot?

Min - ‘I love this person, he needs my help, others are doing their part to save the world, I am saving the person who is essential to saving the world’

Fandom - ‘Is Min a sexy Lamp, simply there for decor. Let’s continue to have this eternal debate!’

And if the criticism is about problematic or sexist writing for the character in terms of fashion and dressing etc. then there’s a lot of problematic writing and tropes for ALL the female characters in they way Jordan uses stereotypes and leans hard into the gender divide of ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’, the spankings and nudity etc.

Min trying to find allies to support Rand, her visions, her friendships with Far Dareis Mai, her sticking by him when he suffers from PTSD from the box when all his friends are afraid of him, think him mad or think to control him...Without Min Farshaw, Rand al’Thor would be a different, much darker, more lonely character who has absolutely no one by his side.

In a book series where characters fall in love in a few seconds because of the pattern and then spend the rest of the series apart, Rand and Min is that rare relationship where they spend time with each other and support each other.

I love Min Farshaw and I hope the TV show does not change the book character too much and turn her into a mini Egwene/Elayne/Aviendha because of this idea that female characters cannot be different things and have different roles and parts to play in a story or be secondary/tertiary characters and in supporting roles. We get a wide variety of male characters in the books, let’s want and hope for the same with it’s female characters.

#Min Farshaw #The Wheel of Time #Wheel of Time #wot #WoTCon #Wheel of Time book spoilers #fandom nonsense #Game of Thrones did this to Sansa - turning her into a mini Arya/Dany and it was awful #the character was unbearably awful and had no resemblance to book Sasna

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hauntedmoors · 8 months

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more pondering and some of the aspects of the show that’ve dissatisfied me so far

on a more serious note this show is really not doing good in terms of economical storytelling lol, and has indeed already made some very stupid choices. liandrin is a side character who gets like three lines at the most. I won’t lie - I’ve enjoyed her in the show in the recent episodes because I do think she’s fairly relevant in terms of the liandrin/nynaeve/moghedien trio although she really annoyed me in the beginning but all that screentime could have been dedicated to other important characters / more worldbuilding in a show that’s already struggling with pacing because it’s limited to 8 episodes. moiraine’s family doesn’t exist in the books at all and moiraine being a Distant Person is reiterated too often to count as smart storytelling. the emphasis on the warders this early in the series is very annoying, not going to lie, because they’re mostly relevant in the autonomy question and I don’t really care about them otherwise because they literally don’t deserve a greater focus in the story than the main characters themselves. lan and moiraine’s storyline tackling the Distance question so quickly makes me unhappy because tfoh is a book I’m very fond of, although I guess it Kind Of makes sense since the story is set in cairhien and they clearly wanted to tackle the question of moiraine’s family. I’ve already talked about this but I’m also pretty unhappy that moiraine and lan aren’t the same age on the show. more importantly why does min not have THREE aunts when they’re clearly in reference to the three fates in the books. it would’ve taken zero (0) effort to throw in a random extra. why was there a domesticated animal in tel’aran’rhiod in the dream sequence when lanfear interrupts ishy invading rand’s dream. why is every single sex scene involving rand lacking any real eroticism. how is it possible to *sleep* in the world of dreams. why is there so little of siuan. can logain see or feel rand channeling (?) that sequence was so weird. when are we going to see siuan and egwene bond!!!! why were all of siuan’s plotlines transferred to liandrin!!! are we already getting started on the black ajah plotline in the show without seaine and pevara :/

#text

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alectology-archive · 2 years

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chapters 21, 22, 23, 30, 31, 32 partly:

Only three nights before, she had married Bael, in a ceremony that made her his wife and first-sister to his other wife, Dorindha. That part had been just as important as the marriage, apparently;

yeah, sentences like this make me think RJ really wanted to write poly relationships but was too enamoured with his kinks and obsessed with heterosexual relationships to do so. I’m fascinated, though, by his choice to make women choose other women as the most important people in their lives over even their love interests - min is the rare exception to this rule.

“Well, just you remember it. It was not your fault.” She heeled Mist on, and began talking to Aviendha before she was out of earshot. “I am glad he is taking it so well. He has the habit of feeling guilty over things he cannot control.”

once again, egwene Gets rand! and she cares so much! people who dislike egwene are fully delusional and probably base their dislike for her off of her characterisation in sanderson’s books. again, I feel the need to mention that egwene only ever admonishes rand in private in RJ’s books - and not even in front of moiraine! - but publicly insults him in front of world leaders in the sanderson books. plus rand undermines egwene’s authority and makes her look powerless in book 13 by walking into the white tower and demanding promises without offering any explanations. lol, sanderson has a tendency to write from a place of “Does this sound cool?” rather than “Is this a politically or logically sound action?”

ohhh and while we’re still on the topic of sanderson and bad characterisations and egwene telling rand that rand that it wasn’t his fault that the shaido ravaged Taien - rand makes a fucking point about trying to save as many people as he can! and blames himself for not achieving everything he sets his mind to in order to save people! part of the reason his mental health worsens as the books progress is because he can’t protect everybody around him despite trying his best to do so - this holds true at least up to book 11, if not book 12, and nothing really happens in book 12 to warrant a change on that note. so the fact that sanderson makes rand monologue something stupid about how he’d stopped caring for the people around him during his dragonmount epiphany infuriates me to no end. I just generally hate any of the new character flaws he introduces for all the characters. who asked him to do that 😵‍💫

[Rand to Aviendha] “Did you ever for one minute think that it could have bitten you?” he said. “Did you ever think of using the Power instead of a bloody belt knife? Why didn’t you kiss it first? You had to be close enough.”

they’re both so funny. yeah, avi and rand are also a similar kind of stupid, lol.

avi feeding rand the meat of a poisonous snake she killed is unironically the height of romance actually. and rand doesn’t complain, so I’m proud of him. anyway, I love her. have I mentioned that I love avi?

Aviendha sniffed at him in perfect imitation of Egwene. Those two women were definitely spending too much time together.

aw, avi is copying egwene’s mannerisms! back in chapter 5 she was also appreciating egwene and telling her that she was very good at everything she did <3 in chapter 22, we also have egwene stepping in to calm her down after rand yells at avi for nearly hurting him in the process of trying to kill a draghkar.

Aviendha appeared disappointed that he did not spit the stew out in disgust, though sometimes it was difficult to tell what she was feeling. At times she seemed to take great pleasure in discomfiting him.

sort of mat vibes from this, again! I think avi and mat could have been best friends if they’d tried. I’m honestly kind of shocked that we don’t see more of mat and the maidens being buddies except when he’s trying to catch their interest - because men and women can’t be friends, of course.

“You are thinking of Mat Cauthon?” She actually giggled. “Sometimes, a man gives up the spear for a Maiden.”

once again, weird mat gender moments! only maidens giving up the spear is really a thing in the books.

… he dreamed a dream of Min and Elayne helping him throw Aviendha, wearing nothing but that necklace, over his shoulder, while she beat him over the head with a wreath of segade blossoms.

wearing nothing but the necklace EGWENE gave avi? rand doesn’t know that egwene gave it but. anyway. more rand/egwene soulmatism, I guess.

Nothing after Artur Paendrag Tanreall, and nothing before Maecine of Eharon.

hello! mat’s memories have a specific limit apparently. but don’t the finn grant him memories of everybody who’s ever entered the redstone doorway? a bunch of rulers from mayene were using it pretty recently, I think? I need to look up the wiki later.

[Mat] He supposed that he would marry someday, settle down. That was what you did. A woman, a house, a family. Shackled to one spot for the rest of his life.

this is definitely another one of those mat things that are usually discussed in reference to female characters more often. and again, I vibe with the idea of him being allowed to be single - I think he has a lot of romantic tension with practically every character he interacts with, but I personally really relate to him saying he’s not interested in marriage. plus he just sounds so despondent about the prospect? I’m sad! very mat is repressed vibes too, because he specifically makes a note to mention disliking the thought of the two rivers having a lot of expectations about marriage, family etc.

“You are not made for spits, but for great honor, I think,” Melindhra said softly.

lol, melindhra and lanfear both try to get mat to step out of rand’s shadow and reach for honour/glory! and they both fail! I love mat. your faves want what mat has with rand - the narrative keeps goading him to become demandred 2.0 but mat consistently refuses to do so and manages to defy the narrative and some sort of potentially darker fate at least in that little way even if the prophecies mostly knock him down a bunch in the books.

It was being near Rand that got Mat into these things. All he wanted from life was some good wine, a game of dice, and a pretty girl or three.

hello??? three girls?? put him in rand’s polycule! again, mat is very repressed and in denial about his feelings.

once again poly vibes from melaine, dorindha and bael! the wise ones are betting on whether melaine will check on dorindha or bael first after the shadowspawn attack on the camp.

rand is wondering why moiraine didn’t come to find him immediately after the alarms went off - I’m guessing it’s because she saw a future in the rhuidean ter’angreal that said it wouldn’t be a good thing to do so.

rand is also showing a lot of restraint and being courteous! he’s not abusing the power he has over moiraine now - he briefly considers forcing her to tell him why she didn’t appear immediately but decides he won’t do something like that to somebody trying to help him. I think this is the section where rand is learning to find a balance - he’s come into a lot of power and is consciously preventing himself from abusing it.

This time he dreamed of Aviendha hurling fire, only she was not hurling it at a Draghkar, and Sammael was sitting at her side, laughing.

rand has the weirdest dreams about aviendha. what am I supposed to make of this.

I can’t shake off the feeling that avi would enjoy femininity if not for the way the wise ones sort of force her to adopt it? she genuinely enjoys exploring wearing wetlander clothes when she and elayne try to teach one another other about their respective customs. I just really dislike the line where sorilea tells avi that she has hips made for making babies - leave her alone. as a concept, I love the wise ones but I’m also irritated by their matchmaking and babymaking agenda.

avi and rand also do have a bunch in common - they’re forcibly expected to channel and are pushed into radically different lives from the ones they’ve been leading prior to rhuidean/rand finding out that he’s the dragon reborn.

[Egwene about Rand announcing he’ll hang chiefs who violate his rules about not hurting Cairhienin] Justice would do him no good if he found the others [the chiefs] turning against him as well as the Shaido.

see! she gets him!

He could waste an hour being soothed by the flow of a river.

Rand is so right.

When he doesn’t see familiar faces amongst the maidens who usually guard him, rand is constantly asking other maidens if they’re sick - it happened with joinde in rhuidean, and he’s now once again asking after adelin and enaila! I love this relationship sooo much.

Sitting on the stone rail of the wide flat bridge in the heart of the town,

area man sits weird again!

Elayne would have known what taxes were used for; it had certainly been more fun taking advice from her than from Moiraine.

I’m. I guess I agree about the principle of the thing I suppose, lol 😭

edit: help, this is also the book where we learn that two rivers folk are tax evaders! RJ is fully clowning on rand here, lol.

[Rand to Aviendha] “Do you have any idea how I will miss hearing you breathe at night?”

romance <3

He watched Asmodean from the corner of his eye, but the man only sat there, looking slightly ill. He could not know whether Rand meant to stuff that spear down his throat.

do I even need to say it?

ah, yeah, I did remember a weirdly specific fact correctly! avi accidentally taught rand the lesson of ~being hard~ when she told him he should have been harsher with the seanchan they dealt with. his demeanour completely shifts after that one exchange and he becomes noticeably colder - he’s a lot harsher with asmodean after this. insert tumblr post *having plot relevant sex with my thematically appropriate wife* (quite literally!)

And I’m only skimming chapter 41 but… there is so much going on in this quote. so much:

[Rand] He thought he could have been friends with any of the four, but especially Mangin, who had a sense of humor much like Mat’s. If he had no time to study women, he certainly had no time for making new friends. Little time for old friends, for that matter. Mat worried him.

I mentioned that a lot of mat’s personality was moulded as a direct consequence of being rand’s friend, but this is a lot! 1. rand loves mat’s sense of humour 2. rand makes friends based on that blueprint! hello, I’m crying. what does it MEAN that rand hangs mangin in LOC? is there some hidden symbolism there about how he’s left his boyhood behind? the hanging parallels are making me insane. does it imply that rand accidentally forces mat through a traumatic arc from books 7-9 the same way he can’t help but kill mangin for violating one of his laws? I will not be normal about this. local girl has been found dead on the streets!!!!!!!!

(I honestly skimmed everything from chapter 30 onward, I think, so there really was not much to say in this post - I never intended to really read much past rand arriving at eianrod, at most)

But I’ve officially finished rereading the parts I wanted to! I’d fully forgotten how the characters sounded in my head and I mostly wanted to go back and immerse myself in RJ’s writing style because I was not in a happy place after reading sanderson’s style in AMOL (literally to the point where I was wondering if I actually liked reading the series, lol). I think I managed to like TGS way better than I did the other sequels - but it kind of feels like TGS might have still been a mostly enjoyable read because he was piggybacking off of iconic plotlines that RJ had already set up and left notes for - but I’m consciously going to shut up about AMOL now. I only accept book 12 as canon at most anyway, lol, idk why I waste my energy yelling about the last two books at this point.

#mat repressionposting #this is a rand and egwene appreciation post #aelia reads wheel of time #aelia reads the fires of heaven #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #rand repressionposting #the rand/mat agenda only

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markantonys · 2 years

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winter’s heart chapter 22-27

“[min] nestled in the back of [rand’s] head more strongly than elayne or aviendha, or alanna. he was only vaguely aware of the others. min seemed alive inside him.” yes this is only because min is physically nearby him and the others aren’t, but still, it just feels like such a slap in the face to avirandlayne enjoyers 😒 especially seeing as elayne is the only one who ever wanted rand as her warder in the first place or should even have a warder. the other two have no business having a warder (especially min, whereas avi at least is a channeler if not an aes sedai) and just co-opted what should’ve been a randlayne-only bond and i’ll never stop being mad about it.

“in far madding, a wealthy man was one whose wife gave him a generous allowance or a widower who had been provided for” a city of sugar mamas, love to see it!

“at best, he would have to abandon his sword, which he was reluctant to do. it was a gift from aviendha.” 📣📣 rand just had an independent individual thought about aviendha! instead of only thinking of her in the Girlfriend Blob! stop the presses!

but rand does not have a single independent individual thought about elayne. like, he saw her again for the first time in months and found out she loves him after all, despite the confusion of the letters, and slept with her for the first time, and he’s just? not going to even mention that? have any thoughts about it? i hate it here.

min gets plenty of independent individual thoughts, of course, when rand returns to the inn and sees her and thinks about how beautiful she is and how he can feel her love in the bond. i hate it here!!!!!

could we not have been spared one (1) scene of rand pov when he was with all of them in caemlyn? he’s just had major relationship developments and we don’t get to hear a peep about how he feels about it! i know he’s busy with world-saving stuff to do, but good god!

it’s so unfair. why can’t elayne or avi be the ones traveling with rand and having adventures with him and pretending to be his wife at the inn and sharing a room and feeling his (lack of) emotions in the bond and vice versa? oh, right, because they actually have important roles in their own plotlines, how could i have forgotten.

anyway, rand’s like “why is nynaeve wearing so much jewelry and attracting attention to our party” but i recognize at least one piece as an angreal, so i’m guessing they all are. why wouldn’t she explain that to rand? they’re working together on a super important mission and still aren’t telling each other stuff?

we learn that the traitor asha’man are all darkfriends and i’m annoyed about it. every time a character turns out to be a traitor or villain or what have you, they’re always a darkfriend. i want more villains who aren’t actually darkfriends or serving the dark one! villains who do bad things without being Evil™! i think all we’ve got on that front are elaida (who’s under the control of a darkfriend), the seanchan, and the whitecloaks (who’ve been MIA for many books and aren’t a real threat). this was my same frustration when it turned out elayne was poisoned by darkfriends and not political rivals as i was expecting it to be.

lews therin is good at drawing! a random little factoid that i love. always nice to see wholesome lews therin memories. the only other one i can remember is one where he was climbing olive trees as a kid.

luc. forgot about that guy. still no clue what his deal is, but we get confirmation that he is indeed luc mantear and rand’s uncle. i can’t muster up the energy to be interested in him, i’ve already got more than enough characters and plotlines to be dealing with.

speaking of, the next 2 chapters are in some windfinder’s pov and i don’t care. i think that it should be illegal for anyone to have pov for more than 1 page unless they are rand, mat, elayne, nynaeve, egwene, aviendha, faile, gawyn, morgase, moiraine, or lan (tho i don’t thiiiiink we’ve seen any pov from him yet in the series). perrin is on thin ice. min’s ice has all cracked. everybody else never had ice to begin with.

the one good thing about the windfinder is that she’s unambiguously and canonically bi! she is married to a man whom she misses and wants to be with again, but she also had an affair with a cairhienin woman (ailil, the icon who was making fun of rand’s Can’t Kill Women shit in the last book and is now more of an icon due to being canon wlw). throughout her chapters she describes both men and women as pretty. good for her! i still don’t want to hear from her for 2 whole chapters though.

but we do have the sweetest of moments when, after spending 2 chapters hearing how her younger sister harine is always mean and authoritative towards shalon since she ranks higher than her, harine says when she sees how scared shalon is to be cut off from the source (we also learn that far madding has ter’angreal that make it like a stedding where no one can channel): “i was afraid of the dark when i was a child, and you never left me alone till the fear passed. i will not leave you alone either, shalon.” 🥺

rand is playing his flute!!! yes!!! if only it was mat sitting in the inn room with him instead of min. i miss the cauthor roadtrip.

“how would he feel at dying? sadness at leaving [min], at leaving elayne and aviendha.” and once again we have min separated out and elayne and avi together in a blob 😒

“he would like to see his father again before the end.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭 if we never get a rand-tam reunion i’ll kill myself

“he had been told [that he had to die] by those he had to believe. to live, you must die.” the snaky folk perhaps?? i don’t think we’ve heard what rand’s questions and answers were. (also, we got an aelfinn namedrop somewhere in these chapters but i don’t think we’ve yet learned that that’s the proper name of the snaky folk. whenever i see you guys talk about the aelfinn i go “the who now? oh, you mean the Snaky Folk™” that’s who they’ll always be to me.)

“‘if you hadn’t [let us bond you], we’d have tied you up and done it anyway.’ best not to ask how that would have differed from what alanna had done, he decided. certainly, [min] saw a difference.” uh yikes min! big “it’s not rape if he’s my boyfriend” energy. elayne and avi have definitely had their moments, but min is by far the worst when it comes to stripping rand of all agency in his own relationship, what with this line + how she said “us 3 women will decide about marriage” + how she told elayne they would slice him up between them like a pie + her entire books 4-7 approach of “i’m gonna chase rand down and force him to love me”

when rand says alanna’s about to walk into the room, min drapes herself all over him on the bed so that alanna will see them that way. once again i’m asking for min to find some dignity and self-respect. she’s just so possessive of rand and insecure about her relationship with him. there is no doubt in my mind that she would not hesitate to cut elayne and avi out of the relationship if she had the chance.

alanna mentions that she asked cadsuane if she could transfer rand’s bond to her: “only, she refused. she was furious that i suggested it without asking you, outraged” nice, cadsuane has one (1) right

“a man who trusts everyone is a fool, and a man who trusts no one is a fool” lews therin does come out with good advice sometimes

rand initially thought of having aes sedai swear fealty to him as only a power move, but now alanna makes him realize that if he puts a little trust in them he can use them to help him out and solve some of his political problems in other lands. nice!

“he hoped elayne and aviendha masked the bond when he was making love with min.” aren’t they way too far away to feel it anyway? “when the two of them were together in bed, no one else existed except her, the same as it had been with elayne.” an independent individual thought about elayne and their night together!!!!!! but also, harem vibes. it’s weird to have them all bonded but not all banging. either have them all bonded and all banging, or have them banging separately and rand is bonded to none (or only to elayne). i’m all for warder bond sex benefits but rand is clearly uncomfortable with the thought of the other two girlfriends feeling what he’s doing with the third girlfriend, just as min and aviendha were clearly uncomfortable feeling what he was doing with elayne. and it seems that the warder can’t mask the bond but that min also wasn’t able to despite being the bondholder, i’m guessing because she can’t channel, which is EXACTLY why she has no business being a warder’s bondholder.

verin is native to far madding but was exiled and seems to be a wanted woman? girl what did you DO?? “hastily filling a second cup, verin slipped the small vial back into her pouch unopened. it was good to be sure of cadsuane at last. ‘do you take honey?’ she asked in her most muddled voice. ‘i never can remember.’” GIRL!?!?!??!!! i never have any idea what verin’s up to but i love her. add her to my “characters who can legally have pov” list. i would gladly read the whole series from verin’s pov.

cadsuane again talks about how she needs to help rand relearn to be human and to laugh and cry. why do you think that bullying him is helping accomplish this at all? and why the hell is this role falling to cadsuane? still struggling to see why she needs to exist at all. why can’t it be rand’s friends and family and partners (ALL of them, not just min) chipping in and teaming up to bring him back from the brink?

i guess this is why we have so much plot-mandated character separation - for narrative and character arc purposes, rand isn’t allowed to realize how many loved ones he really does have. readers say how sad it is that everyone abandons rand, but they don’t, rj just forbids them from spending time with him. but before they were separated from him (and separated from him largely not of their own choice), we’ve seen in elayne’s and mat’s and perrin’s pov that they notice rand is unwell and are worried about him, and nynaeve’s too, tho at least she’s with him rn so i have hope. and while egwene is tower-focused now, in the next chapter she does tell elayne that she loves rand, and when they were together in loc it was clear she cared for rand and worried about him even though she always misinterpreted his growing hardness as arrogance rather than trauma. and rand thinks that lan sees only tdr now and is afraid of him, but i wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s just rand’s self-loathing making him think that and lan actually does still care and worry about him.

i would kill for the pivotal scene in rand’s emotional arc to be ALL his loved ones showing up and being there for him and making him finally see that he’s not alone and that he’s so loved, but i know i’m not going to get that and i’m devastated about it.

“egwene seemed stunned by [the changes in emond’s field]. when she first appeared in tel’aran’rhiod, a long braid had dangled down egwene’s back and she was in a plain woolen dress, of all things, with stout shoes peeking out beneath her skirts as she walked.” 😭😭 egwene is the one who’s left emond’s field furthest behind, and it both heals and hurts me to see that she DOES miss it and her family (later in the chapter she wonders if her family is well and elayne suggests Traveling to visit them, but egwene says that she “can’t face confronting emond’s field as amyrlin” she misses her home but knows she’s changed too much to go back and have things be the way they once were 😭)

“[elayne] hoped rand could still love emond’s field, but it was no longer the village where he and egwene had grown up.” “here in tel’aran’rhiod, she could not know which direction he was. she missed that knowledge, small as it was. she missed him.” 😭😭😭 randlayne deserves betterrrrrrrr

“Traveling made such things [as egwene popping in to visit emond’s field] easy” YEAH IT SURE DOES SO WHY DO NONE OF YOU GUYS EVER TRAVEL TO HANG OUT WITH EACH OTHER

egwene is burdened by duty and elayne hugs her and comforts her. once again i am asking why the boys aren’t allowed to do this! “‘whatever i decide, people are going to die for it.’ she patted elayne’s arm. ‘well, you understand that sort of decision, don’t you.’” once again i am asking why neither of them are allowed to have this sort of conversation and duty-empathizing with rand!

from rumors, egwene thinks rand is chaining aes sedai like damane. aha, i remember back at dumai’s wells i predicted there would be a reckoning between rand and egwene when she found out about him making aes sedai kneel and swear fealty to him. elayne thinks “rand would never do that! if only for love of her, he would not!” bless her ❤️

“with him so far away, the veins of gold shone only in memory.” RANDLAYNE DESERVES BETTER

OKAY OH MY GOD aviendha and elayne are now sharing a bed!!! “every morning since they had begun to share the same bed” and elayne mentions “aviendha’s side of the bed” and they dress together and have breakfast together every morning, they are WIVES like straight up this is not even subtext anymore. i’m gonna jump out of order a bit here to present my evidence on this topic.

aviendha is unhappy about elayne pretending mellar is the father of her baby in order to protect them (since they’d be in danger if it was known rand was their father): “‘i see,’ aviendha said slowly, and frowned into her plate as though seeing something other than the eggs and plums she began pushing around with her spoon.” while she understands it, she’s upset about her wife pretending to be in love with someone else!

throughout these chapters, avi remains by elayne’s side and we are told many times about other people reacting to this with surprise and sometimes confusion/judgment. “the kandori studied aviendha surreptitiously when not listening attentively to elayne, and the illianers avoided looking at her at all after the first widening of eyes in surprise.” meanwhile, “if [reene harfor] had ever been uncertain about elayne calling aviendha sister, she had never shown it, and now she genuinely appeared to approve.” the sister business is all a euphemism and we are actually seeing people react to the daughter-heir having a wife.

like it’s just soooooo blatant at this point that i have to assume rj genuinely WAS intending their relationship to be subtextually romantic but just couldn’t make it explicit due to constraints of the times and/or publisher. there’s just no other explanation for this shit. they live together and share a bed by choice when other beds are available and elayne’s housekeeper approves of their ““sister”” relationship though others find it strange and avi is constantly fussing over elayne and the baby (i will get into that more in a moment bc it made my heart melt). and it seems to me that they started sharing a bed around the time of rand’s visit to caemlyn (i don’t THINK they were before that) so i can only conclude that all 3 of them got together officially that day (with min once again being the awkward outlier)

back to where i was chronologically. avi and birgitte told elayne that min told them she’s pregnant, but we learn later in the chapter that avi and birgitte got too drunk to remember that it was boy and girl twins so elayne thinks she’s having only a single baby and doesn’t know the gender. feels weird to me that avi and birgitte would remember elayne’s pregnant but not that it’s twins but whatever lmao

“she almost looked forward to the start of birthing sickness, so she could share the queasy belly with birgitte” jdfkjgh crying. also yet another reason why rand should be allowed to be near elayne again, it would be hilarious having to watch him deal with secondhand pregnancy effects.

elayne is so overworked that sometimes avi has to “half carry her to bed.” to bed, not to ELAYNE’S bed. because it is THEIR bed that they share, together, every night, as wives.

“‘do i need [birgitte] to tell me you spend too many hours inside and sleep too little?’ aviendha replied contemptuously. ‘you need fresh air.’” “‘monaelle has borne seven children. she says i must see you get fresh air.’” “elayne hastily ate her midday meal early. she had not sent for it; aviendha had. apparently, monaelle said missing meals was as bad as eating too much.” caretaker avi looking after her wife and baby 🥺

“whatever protected her baby, she was willing to do.” “nothing could be allowed to threaten her child. nothing!” 🥺🥺❤️❤️ elayne haters are always going on about how annoying pregnant elayne is, but i for one am adoring this so far. i love elayne and i love babies and i love elayne loving her babies!!

“no escort, birgitte. except for you. an aes sedai and her warder. and aviendha, of course.” of course! because elayne’s wife accompanies her everywhere! that goes without saying!

“dark-stockinged legs bared above the knee by straddling a saddle” elayne is looking at aviendha’s legs Respectfully

“unlike birgitte, [aviendha] had not ceased her attempts to dissuade elayne.” protective yet annoyed wife! “[elayne did not feel] at all ready to put up with badgering. but she did not want to snap at aviendha.” exasperated yet loving wife!

“it might be better to have a son first, so he could begin his training before his sister came. yet a daughter secured the succession, while a lone son would be pushed aside, and as much as she wanted more than one, nothing said she would have another child. the light send her more of rand’s children, but she had to be practical.” elayne i cannot wait for you to find out that you and your spouses are gonna end up with 6 kids!! she’s gonna be absolutely thriving!!

elayne finagles the borderland rulers into an agreeable deal with ease! i say that’s my baby and i’m really proud.gif!

“take care of him, min, she thought. take care of him for us.” elayne is so trusting of min and is all in on the polycule, contrasting back to my earlier thought about how i always get the impression min would jump at the chance to cut her and avi out and keep rand to herself.

“there was no time for sleep, no time for weariness. she had a city to defend.” baby 😭 she and rand are THE SAME

reading this post back, it’s amazing how much more cheerful my liveblogging became once i got to elayne pov lmao elayne and avilayne are literally saving me!

#wot #wot book spoilers #a short chunk of chapters but i'm at a good break point since we're about to go back to mat pov for a while

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koravelliumavast · 2 years

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Fuck it. Analysis of why this song does indeed fit the character because Spotify is rude for not letting us do that. My 3hr 25min 57 song Rand al’Thor playlist edition.

This is a very long post (look how long my playlist IS) I also just finished book 2 so there are spoilers to the end of that book.

right where you left me - bonus.-Taylor Swift

Rand fears that he’s going to be left alone without any one of his friends around him after all he’s the dragon reborn and the dragon reborn can’t do anything but live tragic lives. When they all left him because they were scared of his abilities to channel, it is really prevalent in this song. As well as him fantasizing about what it would be like living in the two rivers still.

august-Taylor Swift

Min telling Rand about her visions of the future that deal with him. Also Rand and Mats bard adventures

gold rush-Taylor Swift

You know how many people seem to be in love with Rand? A lot. It’s like Kaladin level. (That’s saying something) Anyways Rand here is like how he has wanted a sweet peaceful life with Egwene that he never gets to have, which is sad. But Rand probably finds another love (again idk I haven’t finished the series yet.)

illicit affairs-Taylor Swift

Rand keeping his channeling abilities a secret from everyone. Like an affair being kept secret

the lakes - bonus track-Taylor Swift

We all know Rand does NOT want the powers. I think this song feels like there’s a big weight being lifted off your shoulders as you go deeper into places where you can’t be found. Here it is almost like Rand stepping into the Stedding as he cannot channel there. Also the lines ‘I don’t belong and my beloved, neither do you.’ Idk who his beloved is yet but Rand currently doesn’t belong with his friends but he doesn’t belong with his enemies and I’m not sure where he sits at right now.

betty-Taylor Swift

There are quite a few scenes where Rand or one of his friends does something quite hurtful to one of their friends but are thinking of something different and they don’t realize how much it hurts them. And the lines ‘I'm only 17, I don't know anything. But I know I miss you.’ Really resound with me as Rand really doesn’t know anything about what his life is going to be like.

I Hear a Symphony-Cody Fry

Rand is a big dreamer (but in a different sense) and it may not be super prevalent in canon it’s because instead of crazy ideas he has very simple dreams and goals but he believes in them way too much and relies on these to help him get through struggles. This song has a very similar feeling to that in my mind.

World's Smallest Violin-AJR

Unlike the song, Rand’s troubles are quite big but nobody seems to relate to them or actually listen. ‘So if I do not find somebody soon, I’ll blow into smithereens.’ Rand needs to share his problems with SOMEBODY. Also unrelated to Rand but I love how in this song there are some parts where the melody changes between instruments and people and I think that is super cool.

Run-COIN

I feel like Rand and Mat share one braincell for a majority of the time. This song was them on their bard adventure where they don’t have much of a clue what they’re doing. But also Rand is very goal driven and will follow out his plans until the end. Shown as when everyone was like Rand we can’t save the girls and Rand says no we WILL.

nothing else i could do-ella jane

Rand rationalizes his actions to himself quite a bit of the time. This song is very fitting. Plus it’s a fun song.

Come Out Ye Black & Tans-The Wolfe Tones

Idk the planet (does it have a name?) this takes place on feels very Irish inspired in terms of scenery to me and here’s a classic Irish drinking song.

The Good Part-AJR

Rand doesn’t want this to happen to him but as his ta'veren nature coexists with his abilities to channel, he doesn’t have much of a choice but he wants the good part to happen to him now. ‘If there’s a good part, then I hope it’s not far, ‘cause I thought It’d be today’ is a good example of this in the song.

Bummerland-AJR

Do you ever get so anxious about life that you’re actually overly positive? (Like unhealthy levels of coping???) yeah that’s Rand in this song. Also it has the shared melody between people singing and instruments that is very prevalent in the album.

Scrawny-Wallows

Rand doesn’t really like things changing as much as his ta'veren nature ends up being. Also he definitely says the wrong things at the wrong times.

Haunted-Taylor Swift

Basically Rand at the end of the great hunt. He’s haunted by his actions and is unsure of what his future is going to look like because he has basically revealed himself as the dragon reborn and everything is different now.

The Chain - 2004 Remaster-Fleetwood Mac

We always need this song in a media playlist. It’s fitting. But also like Mat and Rands bard adventures.

Baker Street-Gerry Rafferty

I feel like there is going to be a minor mental health and healing journey for Rand in the later books. These lines exemplify my points. ‘And it's taken you so long To find out you were wrong When you thought it held everything You used to think that it was so easy You used to say that it was so easy But you're tryin', you're tryin' now Another year and then you'd be happy Just one more year and then you'd be happy But you're cryin', you're cryin' now’ so basically it doesn’t happen YET but Rand is going to go through a crisis like this song.

Why Am I Like This?-Orla Gartland

‘Oh, it's like I'm looking down from the ceiling above Never in the moment, never giving enough Let's go out and shout the words we never said. I got my mistakes on loop inside my head. Inside my head So why am I like this?’ Rand deals with lots of internal struggles as he tries to figure out who he is as a person while also figuring his powers out.

Clearest Blue-CHVRCHES

This is the scenes of Rand being in new surroundings for the first time and being in awe about how beautiful it is/ how terrifying it is.

My Life-Billy Joel

Rand doesn’t WANT to be the dragon reborn. He wants to be a shepherd. He wants to be a normal person but he doesn’t get to. His nature as a ta'veren however said no. Also I believe that Mat and Rand are going to have a falling out between the books and then reconcile at some near-death point

We'll Meet Again-Vera Lynn

From the eye of the world: “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and we are all woven into the Pattern.” Also reincarnation is very real in this universe.

Brother-Madds Buckley

Rand visits the Dragonmount. Idk if this happens but I just feel it will be accurate. Also see the Rand mental health journey and the Mat and Rand falling out but reconciliation.

Always Forever-Cults

Rand and Mat’s friendship. I don’t care that this is definitely more of a love song (well maybe they were a bit in love haha) but those two are very close friends.

Mind Over Matter (Reprise)-Young the Giant

The lines ‘And if the world don't break I'll be shakin' it'Cause I'm a young man after all And when the seasons change Will you stand by me? 'Cause I'm a young man built to fall.’ Really give us Rands character arc. Does he go insane and die, get gentled and die or keep his powers and most likely die.

Hearing-Sleeping At Last

Yes. It’s an instrumental. But I feel that instrumentals tell more of a story than lyrical songs. I really like the repeated motifs throughout the song. It’s almost as Tam teaching Rand about the flame and the void and then when more instruments slowly come in, they start to overshadow but also enter-twine the motif with their own counter melodies. I love how it is so simple but says so much if you knew what to look for. I also love the parts where the main motif isn’t being played at all because you know that something happened there.

I'm Shipping Up To Boston-Dropkick Murphys

Rands week of pirate adventures. Also irish music!!

Dreams-The Cranberries

This song is about the troubles in Ireland right? 1- another Irish song. 2- dreams. Rands dreams have been plagued by that guy with the B name that has an apostrophe in it. Ba’zalmon maybe???(its Ba'alzamon) 3- Rands life is changing so much. That’s the first line of the chorus.

Stairway to Heaven - Remaster-Led Zeppelin

Every person in wheel of time has a story. Each story has a moral or a motto and I’m not sure where I’m going with this.

Mo Ghile Mear-Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill, The C..

Yet again Irish song but bonus because this song is in Gaelic and the title means ‘my gallant darling.’ so that is very cool.

Won't Go Down Easy-JAXSON GAMBLE

For the most part Rand is that person who is very kind until someone harms or threatens his friends and then he turns scary (like this song)

Telephones-Vacations

Rand is still scared of his powers for most of book 2 and there’s a line in this song that is ‘I wish I could live without you. But you're a part of me. Wherever I go. You'll always be next to me’ and that’s how I feel like Rand feels about his being able to channel. Once again he needs a hug, he needs some love, he needs some support and he just doesn’t get that so far (well at least that he can remember because he gets plenty of love when he gets knocked out and is unconscious) and that makes me very sad.

I Bet My Life-lmagine Dragons

Rand as he’s leaving Emonds Field and the Two Rivers not knowing if he’s going to see Tam again.

Vienna-Billy Joel

Someone needs to tell Rand that it’s ok that he doesn’t have the answers. Specifically they need to say ‘And you know that when the truth is told. That you can get what you want or you can just get old. You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through.’ And this is a song that I can also relate to Vin and Kelsier because of their dynamics. (Fun fact!)

Guns for Hire-Woodkid

See the dramatic scenes where Rand is leaving the two rivers or the scenes where he is having a mental breakdown and all his walls and defenses he keeps putting up are breaking and breaking but can’t do anything about it

Can't Pretend-Tom Odell

There is (most likely) going to be one of those scenes like Wanda in age of ultron when Pietro dies and she like falls to the ground and screams and her magic shoots out in all directions. I feel like Rand is going to have one or more of those types of scenes if Tam dies or if any of his friends die but I’m not there yet. This song has those same vibes. However this song also kind of has the vibes of Robert Jordan’s patented main character energy (ta'veren) but less so.

Watch Me-The Phantoms

I think Rand becomes a master with the blade and that would be really cool to see as he channels and is a beast with the blade. This has the vibes of him jumping off a cliff and surviving because of his abilities. (Hey so I was actually wrong. I wrote this before finishing book 2 where his blade like melts or whatever and that just kind of starts a new arc for Rand and I’m excited for that)

Dead Man Walking-City Wolf

Rand as he hears about the false dragons getting gentled and when he realizes he’s the dragon reborn and that he is going to get gentled too. It’s just a matter of time (so he thinks)

Bad Dream Baby-Hippo Campus

Everyone has one of those comfort objects. For Rand it’s the heron-marked blades.

still feel.-half-alive

This song is kind of epic in a way that the immigrant song in thor Ragnarok is epic because he like basically comes back from the dead (and then infinity war happens and I’m NOT talking about that) but the lines ‘Floating in outer space, have I misplaced a part of my soul? Lost in the in-between, or so it seems, I'm out of control. Floating in outer space, have I misplaced a part of my soul? Lost in the in-between, but it can't keep me asleep for long, 'cause I still feel alive.’ Really kind of resonate to me for Rand in a way that he’s going to be hurt and he unconsciously will call the void to him (as he already does) and then channel and heal himself (the aes sedai can’t do that but Rand isn’t an aes sedai now is he??)

The Fall-half-alive

He does not trust the Saidin at all. He believes that he is going to go insane and he might idk. Again I’m only on book 2 for a first read.

Achilles Come Down-Gang of Youths

The call and response in this song really emulate Rand’s struggles with figuring out why he is the one who can channel as well as trying to keep Mat alive without the dagger and struggling against Ba'alzamon and trying to keep him out of his mind in his dreams. Most importantly it’s Rand struggling against his own mind and mental health issues. The French are the words that Tam said while he was almost dying about him rescuing a baby Rand and how he isn’t his true blood.

Come Over (Again)-Crawlers

‘Do you think that you’re happy? Just wait ‘til you’re sure.’ Rand does a lot of self soothing and self talk and working things off with himself internally so on the outside he looks calm and collected but on the inside he’s like the last 30 seconds of the song where there is someone screaming.

Could Have Been Me-The Struts

I’m sure later on in the series there is going to be a scene where Rand stands up to Ba'alzamon as the dragon reborn (that is the real struggle in the books right??? Or am I wrong) and him basically saying fuck you to him.

champagne problems-Taylor Swift

The bridge. Especially ‘How evergreen, our group of friends. Don't think we'll say that word again.’ Because the Emonds Fielders grow apart the further I’ve gotten in the book series.

my tears ricochet-Taylor Swift

The lines ‘And I can go anywhere I want. Anywhere I want, just not home.’ (Actually the whole bridge) That’s all. He can’t go back to Emonds Field. He knows that tam isn’t his biological father but all he wants is to go home to his father and have things go back to the way they were.

Test Drive - From How To Train Your Dragon-John Powell

Ok so some of these are much stupider than others. For example. Rand is the dragon reborn. This is from how to train your dragon. I’m funny. I know.

Avatar: The Last Airbender Theme-Samuel Kim

One of those just for the vibes songs but also like it kind of makes sense. The show pulled from lots of different mythologies and not just Rand but every character seems to have lots of ties to different mythologies, which is cool.

Where No One Goes-John Powell, Jon Thor Birgisson, Jónsi

Ok so this IS another one of those it’s for the vibes songs but also Rand being fascinated (yet terrified) by all the new experiences he has seen in his travels.

Caves-Cody Fry

Ok so all these Cody fry songs are here for instrumental purposes because they’re BEAUTIFULLY composed and they tell a story.

This one truly tells a story. Maybe it’s Rand as he realizes that he can channel and may be the dragon reborn. It’s very mysterious and magical feeling but also incredibly terrified as well. I can chalk that up to flute trills, French horns, low notes and a descending scale pattern as the song reaches its crescendo.

Fantasietta on a Theme from Photograph-Cody Fry

This one gives me the vibe of a ballroom dance but being preformed while dancing in the air (howls moving castle style) but as the dance progresses you learn that the dance partner isn’t there with you. How it relates to Rand? Idk. I just love it

Interlude: From Across the Room-Cody Fry

This one is Reaching for someone or something that isn’t there in the end as you make the trip to get to them and end up disappointed.

Interlude: Wind at the Edge of a Cliff-Cody Fry

This one is Rand as he dips into the Saidin for the first time. It’s really mysterious but not a scared mysterious but an exciting mysterious. I love the flute and clarinet trills especially as they add a curious element to the music.

Wander Anymore / Dunes-Cody Fry

Rand whenever he uses the portal stones. He wants to channel the power as little as he possibly can. Also he needs a hug but he doesn’t EVER get one which is shitty writing to me. The second half of the song is very much using the ways as a form of traveling because it gives a ‘we’re in danger. Go go go!’ Vibe.

Good Kid-Rob Rokicki, Chris McCarrell

See Rands poor mental health and emotional issues and self soothing. Rand and Percy Jackson actually have quite a few similar parallels. Especially the lines ‘I never try to do anything. I never mean to hurt anyone. I swear, I swear that I'm a good kid. Yeah, Percy, that's a good one. But no one ever will take my side. All I ever do is take the fall. I swear, I swear that I'm a good kid. Guess I'm good for nothing at all.’ But then there’s the i can be good enough for someone and everyone else is just wrong with a crescendo and a accelerando (slowly getting louder and faster for those non music folks) and it’s just beautiful and fits both Rand and Percy Jackson.

Underground-Cody Fry

This song is beautiful. But it’s definitely When Rand finally acknowledged he was the dragon reborn and then like stabs the dark one with the heron sword and burns the heron mark into his flesh (fuckin metal btw that’s crazy) and everyone can see him doing it. The reason for this description is because my boy Rand did it in full view and also this song is so musically gorgeously composed I could talk about it for hours. But I won’t. I’m just saying that I love it.

the fruits-Paris Paloma

Everyone pulls Rand in many different ways because he’s the dragon reborn and he can do all these different things and everyone wants him on their side. He has to choose if he’ll end the world or save it. I feel like Rand is going to have lots of internal conflicts throughout the rest of the series and idk if I want that or not.

Control-Halsey

Rand struggling with the fear of channeling but the fear of also not being able to protect his friends. Oddly enough can be related to Renarin as he figures out his abilities on his own.

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deeplyridiculouslyinlove · 5 months

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I’m realizing my fundamental issue with the Wheel of Time books is that despite the entire point of the series being the importance of saving the world and essentially all of humanity, in some ways there…isn’t a lot of humanity in the series.

Where are the characters weeping for those they’ve lost?* Where are the characters who make a choice and regret it? Or question forever if it was the right one even if they felt they had no other option? There are so many romantic relationships but never do we hear a character thinking about *why* they love the person they supposedly love. What draws them together? Why is that person so unique and special that they stand out above all the other beautiful people in the world? What are all the long-standing friendships in the books built upon besides proximity at a young age? Why are these characters willing to die for their friends? Do the Aiel or the Seafolk get homesick? Does anyone after maybe book 4 even miss their family and friends? Do they worry about them and in what ways? Why does only that one Aes Sedai care about and for any animals that aren’t horses or wolves? Does anyone feel tenderness? Even most of the romantic relationships are full of hitting and insulting each other, even if it is (usually) playful.

Why is everything about “men this” and “women that” and nothing is about the ways people are the same so even lowly strangers are worth risking your entire life for? No one fees like an outcast? (In this crazy gender dichotomy of a world I’d love an internal struggle with the gender roles someone was put into, but I’d take a more general struggle with who a character was told as a child they were supposed to be as an adult.**) Why can’t we see an older woman who can channel thinking about what it means to have lived for hundreds of years, to have seen generations of people pass before her? Imagine how that would raise the stakes for her in confronting the breaking of the world.

The most human part of the books for me so far was Nynaeve confronting how her anger is rooted in fear and a feeling of powerlessness and lack of control - yet she’s the character consistently named as someone a lot of readers dislike?!

I’m only halfway though book 10 so this all may change but like, if it takes until book 11 of 14 (or later) for the humanity to largely manifest I think my point stands.

*Lews Therin is the exception here, and I don’t think he really counts as a character - at least where I’m at.

**It seems like Min might give us this at first, but then by book 7 her whole personality is removed to make her a Rand love vehicle, so sadly that falls immensely flat. Faile sort of rebelled against her role in life, but only sort of, and we also don’t get to hear any of her thinking about this firsthand.

#I can’t tell if this is a fault in jordan’s writing or if it just isn’t something he was interested in exploring #but it’s why I love the show so much so far #I feel like it’s filling in the humanity behind all the characters in a way that makes me so compelled by them #while in the books after this long I’m just sort of like okay cool what’s the next plot point #normally my criticism of big good vs evil stories is that the evil characters don’t have sufficient motivation fleshed out #but here I sort of feel like that’s true of the heroes??#the stakes are simultaneously as high as they can possibly be and absolutely nothing #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #dril reads wot

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youaremysunshine-court · 2 years

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In lieu of the season finale, I'd like to talk about something that has been pointed out to me multiple times (specifically by cishet males). I'd like to preface this by saying this isn't a criticism because I'm pretty sure it's intentional (and if it's unintentional, the show should work on either dialling it back or making it a plot point). But I want to talk about feminism and the empowerment of women in WoT.

Don't get mad just yet, I'm on your side!

Just a few times I've seen men shown as less powerful than women, or "weaker":

Logain in Tar Valon: he comes in, he's all big and bold and sasses the Amyrlin Seat, and then at a few words from her, he crumples. He's led away in tears, kicking and screaming, not great for his honor...

Rand in the Blight: saying it was meant to be Egwene, even though canonically the Dragon can only be male. And moiraine not refuting that.

The Aes Sedai: come on, the White Tower is a huge threat to any male, like they have Warders that they can bond (non-consensually in the books) and the trainees who'll eventually become Warders, but otherwise its completely female-run.

The Seanchan: look at that boat from episode 8. The men were clearly just there as guard dogs, and it was the d*mane that held all the power.

Every single ruler: has an Aes Sedai whispering in their ear. That's a lot of power for women to hold. Are you starting to see a pattern? Good.

Min and Dana(sp?) : both shown as strong women who take no shit from men, who can clearly hold their own. They look cool, they act cool, they may be "barmaids" but they can and will kick your ass. (Yes, she was a darkfriend. She was cool before we found that out.)

Moiraine: she has a man who follows her around like a puppy and never questions her. He appears to be around for her to order around, and to protect her and that's about it. (Shh, no moiraine bashing here, that's how the world was built)

Lan: when he does get his own story, it's falling in love with a powerful woman who (as far as we know) doesn't need anyone. (Yes, his arc expands later, but let's focus on this season.) She makes all the moves in the relationship, and yet he's the one spouting his feelings for her, asking her to stay the night, etc. (We love the Lan speech! It's adorable and the first time I read it I cried)

Now, take all those instances and swap the genders. Thank you. Doesn't it look a lot like our modern world, when you swap the genders? Yeah. Makes you wonder why so many of my friends and YouTubers* online are spitting mad about women being in power. And yet they don't bat an eye when they see it in the real world.

*the amount of videos I've watched that are like oh warders can't fuck each other, oh women have so much power, oh there aren't any sexualised prostitutes (cough cough witcher), oh women are shown as human beings not objects... sorry, I'm a little mad about this.

Now I don't know if this was a conscious choice that the people in charge made. And I cannot tell you whether it's a good or bad thing, because I, as a book fan, am terribly biased. And also you have critical thinking skills for a reason. You come to your own conclusions.

All I can say is, if people are feeling uncomfortable at the amount of power imbalance. If people think that women are abusing their power in certain situations (as we shall see very soon). If people are wondering why men aren't given the "respect they deserve" and why they're "crying" and "having feelings", then I would like to ask how they missed it all in the books. Women had just as much power in the books, maybe more.

But now that the show has explored that facet just the slightest bit, people are up in arms about it being feminist and modern and catering to women. Okay then, sorry to burst your bubble but the real world is patriarchal and backward and catering to men. So if the power imbalance in WoT makes you uncomfortable, why doesn't the power imbalance in the real world make you uncomfortable?

#wot #wheel of time #jay watches wot #wot on prime #wot meta #robert jordan #wot show spoilers #wot book spoilers #wot book vague #rand al'thor spoilers #rand al'thor #egwene al'vere #nynaeve al'meara #al'lan mandragoran #perrin aybara #matrim cauthon #moiraine damodred #siuan sanche #spoilers in tags #cant wait for them to reach the aiel and be like A MATRIARCHAL SOCIETY absolutely imposible lord save us from this heresy #omg the aiel men can COOK the HORROR #genuinely people can be strong whether or not they show emotions and im so glad they gave lan less stoic and nynaeve less anger #just because Theyre actualy 3d human beings #ugh okay im sorry i needed this off my chest #hi im jay and this has been a rant #look this is passive aggressive but if u ignore that theres actually a point to this rant pls see that #i just dont know how to translate anger to calm words #also to my irls if you see this it is absolutely me bashing u for being a bigot no apologies for you no sirree #oh yeah and pls argue with me in the notes i fully expect a better interpretation from someone

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bookish-bi-mormon · 3 years

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My opinion and understanding of gender in WoT (timeline)

Age 13: i really like the fantasy and magic but there's something that just doesn't sit well with me?? Its like ... reverse sexism or something? Idk but its annoying

Age 15: okay at least the sexism is equal. All women think men are annoying and all men think women are annoying. I get it, I dont need to KEEP reading that thanks. These female characters are cool but kinda annoy me? Also, WHY does Rand care so much about women who died because of him but doesn't seem to care about the MANY men who are dying? Idk this whole thing still makes me uncomfortable

Age 17: why does Min have to go through a "I like a guy so now I care about fashion" plot line? Also ... hmmm the way polygamy works among the Aiel, Rands whole situation with 3 girls... ugh. Not even gonna get into it just ugh.

Age 21: this whole series reeks of gender. Also I found this article about how sexist this series is, especially with the portrayal of the red Ajah. It pretends to be empowering to women while simultaneously showing many of them as evil, manipulative, or just plain annoying. Its bad.

Age 23: The Wheel of Time was first written in the 1990s during the tail end of second-wave feminism. Although that movement did a lot for women's rights, it also was based around bioessentialism, which seems to have influenced Robert Jordan's world, which emphasizes the differences between men and women not only in how they practice magic, but in how they rationalize, plan, and socialize. This view of gender is incomplete and harmful to many, however Jordan clearly was trying to make female characters who were important and powerful within their femininity, and feminine in different ways. Some of the choices he made could be problematic and the worldbuilding doesn't make room for trans characters. As a nonbinary person I feel particularly alienated by this strict binary of genders, and have a hard time relating to any of the characters. However this does not make it a bad book, just something to be aware of as one is reading it, and potentially a reason some people would rather read something else.

#wheel of time #ray's ramblings #gender #wot #criticism #also yes i started this series 10 years ago #no im not done reading it #leave me alone #im on book 11 #I'll finish it one day

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fedonciadale · 2 years

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So, just watched episode 7 and I loved it! The actors are all so good and really 'channel' the characters.

Cold open was amazing! The choreography of the fighting was very good and I think we got a good idea of how Aiel fight.

I guess they had to do something with the actor of Mat leaving and I think it was a good idea to have some tension in the group because of that. They are all stressed out and that leads people to lash out against each other, even people they love. Not sure I'm sold on the idea that Perrin holds a torch for Egwene. In hindsight some of the scenes could be understood that way.

The ways were creepy and I loved them. They gave me the feeling of cobble stone pavement that had gone completely wrong.

Loved how Machin Shin was done, visually and with the self-doubt voices. That was a good idea to show some of the conflicts of the characters.

And another bad-ass Nynaeve moment with ragged weaves instead of Aes Sedai orderly weaves! Nynaeve!

What can I even say to Lan / Nynaeve? That was well done. Loved that Lan basically introduced her to his family. Loved that Nynaeve was the bold one. She was also the bold one to talk about feelings first in the books!

I think that Moiraine still had no idea who the Dragon was and that she thought the person themselves might know. So she tried to instigate a reveal. Or she wanted to prepare everyone for possible death?

I don't know why she set the Red Ajah on Mat? Does she want to tie up lose ends? In case he is the Dragon he must be gentled? Or did she want to teach him a lesson?

I think the visuals for Min's viewings were great. I really dislike the character so I'm a bit wary but the scenes fit well.

I loved how they did the reveal. Rand must have realized in the ways at the latest. The black wind plays into fears that are already there, so he must have thought about that for some time. In hindsight that makes his conversations with Mat and Thom even more interesting. And the acting was top notch. The arrows that struck in the bull's eye with each puzzle piece was well done.

And Moiraine and Rand leaving together is so much in character!

I guess the rest of the team will decide to follow them next week. So much for self- sacrifice. 🤣

*book spoilers below *

I never thought of Perrin and Egwene as a couple - and I thought about many possible pairings because of my general dissatisfaction with the canon pairings. Lol. We'll see where this will lead. As of now I don't really see what the change adds to the story?

I have no idea what Min's viewing of Rand with the baby means. I'm intrigued about that.

She viewed three beautiful women. So I guess we'll get that awkward male fantasy of three beautiful women (a dark haired, a redhead and a blonde 🙄🙄🙄) falling in love at first sight with a man just because the pattern wants it. Here's to hoping that Min will do more than stalk Rand and that Elayne will not behave so ridiculous (I always thought that her love was the least believable because she basically doesn't know the man, like at all). Here's to hoping that they will at least give Aviendha and Elayne a wlw relationship in addition. That would at least tone down the whole male fantasy part. (Be still my heart, you knew you wouldn't get Mat/Elayne. 😭)

I like that Rand just accepts he is the Dragon. His reluctance to accept that was almost a bit annoying in the books (I always wanted to scream at him: you basically channeled the biggest amount of saidin that was ever collected, the dragon banner was found at the Eye. How could you not be it?) It was a good decision they let Moiraine be open about the fact that she looks for the dragon.

I liked the little world building at the side with Lady Amalisa who didn't get past accepted (and has no stone in her ring)

Also I liked the proud Borderlanders. Their fight against the shadow is such an important part of their identity that I didn't mind that Agelmar was unfriendly towards Moiraine.

And we got Lan's back story! And Lanaeve really sped forward. I guess Lan will have a bad conscience about Moiraine leaving without him and it will possibly put their blossoming relationship under strain.

I really like that book readers cannot be sure what happens. I'm ready to get surprises on the way. 😃

#wheel of time #wot on prime #wot spoilers #book spoilers #book spoilers marked #wot episode 7 #it's getting better and better

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butterflydm · 1 year

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wot reread: the gathering storm (chapter 26-33)

spoilers for the gathering storm

1. Genuinely so ridiculous that I’m meant to believe that Aviendha didn’t go talk to Rand after The Event of the last section. It’s not like the Wise Ones have forbidden it or anything! yep, @markantonys - Aviendha thinks here that she ~dismissed Rand’s pain~ last night as a nightmare and I just... this does not seem believable to me on any level and just sounds like an excuse not to have her in the scene.

2. Anyway, after a month of Min completely ignoring this situation and taking advantage of Aviendha's avoidance of Rand (because she is inherently a selfish and jealous person who should NOT be in any kind of poly-adjacent relationship*), she’s decided to talk to Aviendha. But even now, Min is here because of “me me ME” reasons and not actually any genuine concern about Aviendha -- she wants someone to complain about Rand to, because she feels like he doesn’t trust her anymore. Maybe you should try being trustworthy, Min.

*I will note here that there's nothing wrong with Min being monogamous! That is 100% not the issue. The issue is that she KNEW she was unhappy with the idea of sharing her boyfriend with other people and yet actively chased after and seduced someone that she KNEW already was going to be involved with two other women! She knew! And yet she CAUSED the situation that makes her miserable out of her belief that since her prophecies are inevitable, she might as well actively try to hurt herself using them. And that's just... I'm sorry, that's just a stupid choice for her to make and I feel zero pity over all her ~internal suffering~ over this situation that SHE CREATED for herself (and again, Mat does the exact same thing with Tuon but his situation is even more frustrating because at least Min was set up as this character who believes so deeply in her own infallibility that she traps herself into her own unhappiness -- Mat was NOT set up as that character but inexplicably becomes just like Min when ~the moment~ arrives). Min would, otoh, probably be very happy in a relationship with someone like Perrin, who would be eager to focus on her to the exclusion of everything else in the world.

3. Min says she was ~worried~ when Aviendha didn’t come talk to her when she first arrived here with the rest of the Aiel. lol, liar. You were relieved you didn’t have to share Rand yet. I read your PoVs earlier in the book! Anyway, Min soon reveals that her true worry was that Aviendha might challenge her for Rand (...has everyone forgotten the shared confession & bonding?), and when Aviendha is basically like ‘lol I would only fight someone if they actually have skill at fighting’ (and Elayne asked her to be nice to Min, so she’s doing her best, lol), Min gets offended and tries to show off her ~knife flourishing skills~ which just makes Aviendha even more dubious that she has any real skill at all. “Why was it that wetlanders always showed off such flourishes with their knives? Thom Merrillin had been prone to that as well. Didn’t Min understand that Aviendha could have slit the woman’s throat thrice over during the time it took to flash that knife like a street performer?” Like... it’s not a competition, but it’s clear that if there ever WAS any competition between Min & either of the other two girls, Min would get smoked in a heartbeat.

Maybe that’s why Min remains so insecure and jealous, even when she’s the one in Rand’s bed. She knows that she only ‘wins’ her precious private non-sharing time with Rand because the other two are staying away right now for personal reasons.

4. The conversation with Min does annoy/frustrate Aviendha to the point of stalking away from her latest punishment from the Wise Ones. She sees Rand, who actually raises a hand and clearly wants to speak with her (I guess the events of last night woke him out of his month-long apathy?), and Aviendha lets herself get ANGRY over how unfair the situation is. Min “gets what [she] wish[es]” and Aviendha only gets punishments even while the day when the man she loves dies is coming closer and closer. She confronts the Wise Ones, and is told that her unwillingness to accept the unfair punishments that they are giving her is the sign that she is ready for the final test of becoming a Wise One and going to Rhuidean. ...and of course, Aviendha leaves without saying goodbye to Rand. They exchanged a SINGLE WORD in A WHOLE MONTH. That is so frustrating. Why was Aviendha even in Rand’s plotline if she had zero impact on it?

5. Here’s my opinion on what should have happened with Aviendha (though, obviously, my guesses are entirely my own): there was zero indication before this book that Aviendha needed to be a Wise One to romance Rand? In fact, her romancing Rand as an apprentice was ENCOURAGED by the Wise Ones back in The Fires of Heaven. So, cut out all that nonsense about her not having enough honor to hang out with Rand. Aviendha should have gotten private/personal time with Rand. This also should have been a time when Aviendha and Min actually learned each other as people instead of avoiding each other for a month. And, big change: Aviendha should have been studying Callandor because she literally can touch magic objects (ter’angreal) and detect what sort of magic (weaves) they do! I will die on this hill, lol. Aviendha working past her cultural taboos about swords to touch Callandor to help Rand & save the world sounds like it would have been a more engaging struggle to read about than her enduring endless punishments from the Wise Ones, at least for me. And it would even fit into a similar theme -- Aviendha standing up to the others and saying “To save the world, it is worth me doing this thing that breaks our taboos” could also have been something to serve as a trigger for the Wise Ones to say “yes, you have proven that you will stand up for yourself as a Wise One should”. It's so frustrating that Aviendha has a Talent that was used really only one time in the entire series despite... obviously being very useful.

6. Alternatively: do Aviendha’s plotline in another location. Because having Aviendha in Rand’s plotline and yet not actually intersect it at all is just silly.

7. At least Mat IS still heading north, even if it’s at an annoyingly slow pace. Slaver princess has made it all the way back to Ebou Dar (a distance that took them two books to cover) and he’s still in bloody Altara! Mat whines about the Aes Sedai not letting him go to the village on his own. Yeah, they don’t trust you. For good reason. You can’t DO untrustworthy things and then still expect people to trust you. (my issues with pod!Mat from Crossroads onward really are pretty similar to my issues with Min - the constant whining about the consequences of their own actions). You sheltered, protected, and defended the woman who wants to enslave them. Of course they don’t trust you anymore!

8. One of Mat’s first thoughts when he’s talking to Thom about rescuing Moiraine is how Rand will react to seeing her alive. Aw. That’s sweet! Mat can occasionally still make me feel An Emotion that isn’t related to irritation. That’s nice. It’s nice to see that a tiny hint of pre-CoT Mat still survives in there. We get him thinking about Rand again a couple of pages later, fretting over his missing hand and worrying about him. He tries to convince himself that he’s glad to be well away from Rand, and this moment does capture, I think, that vibe of Mat loudly lying to himself in his own head. This moment is the first time that Mat has really felt like MAT is a long while. He defends Rand instinctively here when Thom tries to insult him, flaring up very protectively.

9. Mat thinks here that he’s not a hero, just a fool. And, at this point in the book series, I agree with him. He IS a fool now, and certainly no hero.

10. Thom’s speech here about the Wheel and people reminds me of what Moiraine said in the show to Logain: “The Wheel is not hope, and the Wheel does not care, the Wheel simply is. But as long as it turns, folk may hope, folk may care.” vs Moiraine’s - “The Wheel doesn’t want things. It’s people that want.”

11. And Thom joins the gang of going “lol Mat is married” and not caring about the kind of the person that he’s married to. I mean, Mat’s wife literally would put a collar around the neck of the woman that Thom is currently trying to rescue, but apparently that doesn’t matter at all to Thom. He doesn’t care that Tuon would strip Moiraine of her name, of her dignity, of her sense of self. Tuon’s quality as a person doesn’t matter at all, just that he gets to laugh at Mat for ~acting married~.

12. We also come back here to something that I find annoying: the implication that marriage just changes you as a person, all on its own, even in the absence of your spouse or any good qualities on their part! Wedding vows are a magic spell! I don’t think that the show will play the marriage that way (if we get there), because the show has already shown an awareness with Mat’s parents’ marriage that marriage doesn’t magically make irresponsible people responsible or cruel people kind. Marriage is a specific legal way of forming a relationship, but it’s the relationship itself that defines the marriage and the people in it. Mat showed plenty of responsibility BEFORE he ever Said The Words to Tuon (in fact, he Said The Words while he was in the middle of committing a crime of deep responsibility and saving people from slavery) and Thom should know that. Thom has witnessed some of Mat’s greatest acts of responsibility. He should know better than anyone (except Rand) that Mat has ALWAYS lied about not being a responsible person. This is not a new thing that has been brought about by the mystical influence of marriage vows.

12. Mat wants to know where Rand is! ...so that he knows where to avoid, of course, lol. Oh, Mat. It feels like it’s been a while since I said “Oh, Mat” in a fond way instead of an irritated way. “I feel like I’ve been traveling through a tunnel for months now, with no sight or sound of the outside world.” Yeah, abusive relationships can thrive when they’re able to take root at times when the person is isolated from their other meaningful relationships, and when they’re deeply vulnerable. And now Tuon’s hooks are deep into Mat, unfortunately. That's such a depressing sentence but it also shows a clear awareness of the type of relationship that Mat is in with Tuon so... idk. That's interesting.

13. Honestly, given that Mat has already let Tuon normalize slavery for Olver, I don’t see how hanging out with the Band can ‘corrupt’ him any worse than that.

14. Hinderstap itself is an interesting enough horror-eske town but it’s just annoying how much it further delays Mat getting back to the main storyline. It’s hard for me to be invested when I want Mat to interact with people that I already know and care about rather than complete randoms. I kinda feel like that’s all I really have to say about this whole section. I feel like I would have a lot more patience for this if it were coming directly after Winter’s Heart, as Mat was originally escaping Ebou Dar, but I’m just so annoyed with the side quest vibes of the ~Mat and Tuon Pointless Circus Journey~ that it bleeds over into just wanting him the FUCK out of Altara already.

I've spent a lot of time during this reread trying to figure out where exactly the hitch was that slowed everything down in the writing and I kinda have it narrowed down to Mat or Perrin. Egwene's timeline is flexible -- Jordan could have said it needed less than a month for her to gather supplies before Traveling directly to Tar Valon (Gawyn's timeline was wholly dependent on Egwene's). So, Egwene isn't the problem. Elayne's also could have been given earlier inciting incidents to wrap up sooner (she spends a lot of time just waiting for the other side to do something too), so she wasn't causing the slowdown. Rand was literally sitting around a mansion waiting for a whole month for the Seanchan to reply to his messages. Nynaeve is just attached to Rand's storyline at this point and not helming her own.

And as much as Perrin's storyline bored/frustrated me at times... his timeline is also flexible, like Egwene's is -- there was no specific need for Faile to spend two months captive. She was captive as long as she was because Perrin's rescue of her involved the Seanchan and his slaver BFF Tylee is the person who proves to Tuon that Trollocs really exist... and Tylee can't do that if Tuon isn't back in Ebou Dar.

We were waiting on the Seanchan domino to fall before anything else could happen. Mat and Tuon's storyline is the one that bogged everyone else down logistically, in CoT & KoD. Both Perrin and Rand, especially, have to wait until Tuon is on the cusp of returning to Ebou Dar before their plotlines can progress. The Mat and Tuon enemies-to-spouses speedrun novella is what made everything else slow down to a crawl during CoT/KoD. Looking at the logistics, that's what makes the most sense to me. Jordan DID realize that he needed to do his best to make Mat and Tuon believable in order for the endgame of the story to work, so he invested a lot of time into it. imo he failed. But he put everyone else on pause while he forced the square peg into the round hole so that at least they LOOKED like they fit together, for now. (it's just that his solution was to carve out pieces of Mat so that Tuon would fit -- snip away his independence here, trim off his objections to slavery there, shave away his feelings about nobles abusing their power, etc -- and that's why the end result felt like a failure to me, because CoT/KoD Mat didn't feel like MAT to me).

15. There is another good moment here when Mat is talking about how running away doesn’t actually help and he bitterly says that he wishes everything would go bother Rand (prompting another vision) and then admits to Thom that he doesn’t mean it and that he doesn’t believe that Rand likes all the horrible things either. (also, for all that the narrative keeps trying to tell us that the “three ta’veren boys” are the ones connected through the visions, Mat and Rand have a MUCH higher ratio of thinking of/having visions of each other than either of them does with Perrin; and Perrin is very good at quickly dismissing any thoughts of them without dwelling for paragraphs).

I’m honestly still puzzled at how Mat knows that the woman in Rand’s bed is Min. He’s been in the same city as her only twice in the entire book series (both very early on and not for a long period of time) and never got a proper introduction - one of those times was Baerlon and the other time was in Falme and they might not have ever seen each other at all that time, since we know Mat & co left before Rand ever woke up and Min was hovering very possessively over Rand during that time. It’s honestly not confirmed that Mat EVER saw her at all before he ‘recognized’ her in his visions of Rand having sex with her.

(this is not a Sanderson thing -- Mat was able to instantly recognize Min in his visions back in CoT/KoD as well).

I think I may have mentioned this before, but I suspect that in some original version of Lord of Chaos, Mat and Min’s paths actually crossed in Caemlyn rather than them missing each other by three days. But Mat being able to recognize Min instantly in his rainbow ta’veren visions feels off because Jordan was normally impressively good at keeping in mind what the characters actually knew about each other. Because even if Mat did see her in Falme, Min has changed her look up a lot! Her previously straight and super-short hair is now in ringlets that she curls daily (...which I have my suspicions is because Elayne has natural curls and Min is VERY competitive), and while she’s still wearing trousers, the TYPE has changed drastically. Back in EOTW, her clothing was simply described as “she wore a man’s shirt and trousers” but now her shirts are cut low to show cleavage and her breeches are so tight that she has trouble pulling them on and she wears boots so tall that it adds a pronounced sway to her walk. That’s drastically different than just “a man’s shirt and trousers”. She used to wear practical clothes and now she’s basically doing her own episode of Project Runway every day.

Here’s the quote from EotW where Rand tells Mat about Min:

After a while he found himself telling Mat about Min.

“A dagger with a ruby, eh?” Mat said. “I like that. I don’t know about the eye, though. Are you sure she wasn’t making it up? It seems to me she would know what it all means if she really is a soothsayer.”

“She didn’t say she’s a soothsayer,” Rand said. “I believe she does see things. Remember, Moiraine was talking to her when we finished our baths. And she knows who Moiraine is.”

And then the conversation moves on to Moiraine. The conversation was focused on Min’s abilities and not her looks.

Then in TGH:

“Gone.” Min’s face colored. “They’re all gone. Egwene and Nynaeve, and Mat, and Hurin, and Verin.”

That’s the only time that Min and Mat would have potentially actually met and Mat was, well, not exactly himself. Min did see the Horn of Valere, so she may have met Mat during that time. Once, briefly, lol.

Per TDR, Mat was so sick during the journey to Tar Valon that he’s unconscious for days at a time. And, of course, when he does finally wake up, he has those famous holes in his memory that he becomes desperate to fill. Mat and Min do not know each other! Potentially briefly when one of them was so sick that he lost almost all his memories of that time does not count as ‘knowing each other’. They know OF each other (because of Rand), but they do not know each other.

16. Definitely out of character for Joline to call Mat ‘Matrim’. She’s never done it before and she wouldn’t taint herself by calling him the same name that the slaver woman calls him anyway.

17. Mat does mention here that the worse things get and the more tragic his life is, the more he feels the urge to try to laugh it away. I feel like that ties back into Mat’s hysterical laughter at the end of Crossroads of Twilight when Tuon has made herself grand-captain-owner of the circus or whatever and he’s feeling well and truly trapped by her but... yeah. It’s just... frustrating. The entire Mat and Tuon ‘relationship’ rests on the foundation of Mat straight-up ignoring the majority of Tuon’s personality in order to focus on the tiny bits of her that aren’t a toxic horror show and force himself into loving those teeny-tiny non-trash parts of her, but it also feels like that text only ever glancingly acknowledges that this is what he’s doing? So it just all feels super weird that the narration tries really hard to ignore (in Mat PoV) that he’s married to a slaver (and not just by Mat! By the other characters too!) but in Tuon's PoV, it’s clear how deeply that part of her is foundational to her personality and her life choices. It’s jarring but in a way that doesn’t feel... intentional? I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. But I’m going to keep that “the worse things get for me personally, the more I laugh about it” note in mind as we continue with Mat.

18. imo, the main part where Sanderson falls down here in comparison to Jordan is not in Mat’s characterization (Mat’s character was thoroughly trashed in CoT & KoD already; frankly, there have been genuine moments in this section of TGS where I have actually Kinda Liked Mat Again, something that I was beginning to doubt would ever happen after CoT & KoD crushed my affection for him out of me) -- but in the absence in the text so far of Juilin, Amathera, Egeanin, etc. Jordan was... and I really do wish that he’d left more notes behind on the Seanchan, because I DESPERATELY wish that I knew what was going on in his brain... even as the Mat & Tuon storyline was... a horrific waste of potential... Jordan had the secondary characters basically doing the storyline that Tuon SHOULD have been doing. And that secondary storyline is something that we have lost here -- with Juilin and Amathera, with Egeanin and Doman, with Aludra, and with the two remaining ex-sul’dam. The Aes Sedai still exist here as part of Mat’s story, as well as Thom, Talmanes, and Olver, but the rest of the secondary characters have faded into being fully background characters, at least for now. And given that in CoT & KoD Jordan stripped all the anti-slavery sentiment out of Mat’s character and only let it exist in the secondary characters, that means that any anti-slavery sentiment is now entirely gone from Mat’s storyline. I feel like this was probably more an artifact of trying to focus on “the main story” rather than any other intentions, but I feel the loss of it.

19. Rand’s List (of Women he has gotten killed that reminds him Never Kill Women) is running through his head, featuring such hits as:

Moiraine, who ‘died’ entirely because Rand refuses to kill women

a woman who was literally trying to kill him

the woman who sold him to the White Tower for a crown

an actual Forsaken who was actively trying to force him to murder his girlfriend

20. Rand wonders here if Lanfear is alive again, the way that Ishamael is alive as Moridin, making Moiraine’s sacrifice mean nothing. “The list would remain, but he would never again be too weak to do what must be done”. *hums thoughtfully*

21. Rand’s paranoia is starting to touch even people who haven’t ever hidden things from him, like Dobraine (...hey, wait, if Dobraine is here, then who is running Cairhien right now? Wasn’t he in charge of Cairhien? yeah, it mentions here that he was recently Steward of Cairhien. I do not remember Dobraine being sent off to Arad Doman. Did that happen in KoD and my brain just skipped over it?). lol, Rand’s revisionist history here about “mostly” trusting Moiraine. You “mostly” did not trust her, bro. I was there. This is retroactive trust based on the fact that she ‘died’ for you.

22. lol, Cadsuane is trailing along behind Rand’s group, making sure to stay out of sight in order to Technically be following his threat to her. Rand is basically just like “yeah fine, as long as she doesn’t try to bother me, whatever”. He did take back the Choden Kal that she’d stolen from him. I’m assuming he took back anything else she might have stolen too.

23. Min gets to be added to Rand’s Fridged Ladies list even though she’s still alive! Why is that so funny to me? Also, sheesh, Rand, tell LTT to at least call her by her preferred name. Seriously, though, if nearly killing Min traumatized Rand (which I agree that it SHOULD have done) then... she absolutely should not still be in the same city as him and definitely not in the same bed. Rand not sending Min away to somewhere he deems ‘safe’ would be very very out of character (though this isn't new with Rand & Min). He NEARLY KILLED HER. He shouldn’t want her anywhere near him, in case he actually DOES kill her the next time. But Min has nowhere else to go and nothing to contribute, so she’ll probably stay in Rand’s storyline for now, despite it making zero sense.

The way that it’s justified in Rand’s plotline here is that he’s “stopped caring”. Not about Min, per se, just about whether or not Min dies because of his actions. Seems like a distinction without a difference, but okay, lol. “If she died, he would add her to the list and suffer for it.”

The thing is... okay, I see what Sanderson is trying to do here -- showing that Rand’s nihilism is reaching the breaking point by using Min as the “he’s willing to risk even Min’s death because he no longer sees escaping death as possible or even desirable” marker line but the problem is that Rand was ALREADY dragging Min into dangerous situations even before the event with Semirhage. Like, he was keeping Min in his bed while avoiding Aviendha. He took Min to the cleansing and to Far Madding to kill the traitors even while trying to limit how much danger would come to Elayne or Aviendha. He let Min ‘talk’ him into taking her to the meeting with ‘the Daughter of the Nine Moons’. So there’s already a precedent of Rand being willing to risk Min’s dying on his account, so the change is not as striking as it would be if he were thinking this about Elayne, Aviendha, or his dad, or literally ANY of the Two Rivers’ soldiers who came along with Perrin in LoC, all of whom he has been avoiding to try to protect them. This is basically the same thing that Jordan did with Rand and Min SEVERAL times, where Rand has ~hardened himself~ yet again but is always ~too weak and soft~ to send Min away. I think this exact scenario happens at least three or four times in the series, lol.

24. Now this conversation with Merise, where Rand is cold and quiet (and thinking deeply disturbing things about why get worked up about people annoying him if he can just ~snuff them out like a candle~ if they bother him too much) much more effectively conveys Rand’s shift in mindstate, imo. Rand is deeply right at that intersection of scary/sexy, where he projects being cold and ruthless yet is still... on the side of the good guys. But in a way that is somewhat worrisome. Sure, he’s definitely still planning to save the world... but how much of the world would he let burn in the name of ‘the ends justify the means’?

25. Oooh, Rand is carrying the sa’angreal as a way of distracting himself from wanting to reach out to the True Power again. He thinks here how the Dark One was originally rediscovered as a limitless source of power. Now that he’s used the True Power, it’s a temptation to use it again, so he’s using the additional temptation of near-limitless saidin at his fingertips to help trap him between the two so that he won’t use either of them. That’s clever -- it reminds me of how he played the evil of Shadar Logoth against the evil of the Dark One.

26. Rand thinking fiercely here about how he “would not be collared again” which mirrors Egwene thinking about it during her last dinner with Elaida when Elaida was dismissing the danger of the Seanchan. Mirrors! Foils! Why doesn’t the narrative ever let Rand directly identify with the people who share so much in common with him? (again, a frustration that dates back into the Jordan books)

27. Hmm, Rand misses Aviendha, and wishes she hadn’t avoided him during their shared month in Arad Doman, but thinks that it’s probably better that she left, so that Rand won’t. You know. Accidentally kill her or be the reason she gets killed. The exact thing that he’s given up on worrying about re: Min, in other words. “His enemies didn’t know of her yet.” (which is implied is the real reason that Rand didn’t try to bridge the gap between them when they were all together). But the only reason that your enemies know about Min is because you publicly parade her around as your mistress, so that kinda seems like it’s on you. Again it’s... that same weird dynamic comes up where Rand expresses his love for EVERYONE ELSE (Aviendha, Elayne, his father, literally all the Two Rivers’ soldiers) by trying to stay away from them, but he’s given up on trying to ‘protect’ Min and just figures he’ll ~add her to the list~ if he gets her killed/unintentionally kills her. Rand’s protectiveness hasn’t changed! This is exactly what he was doing before the Event with Semirhage! It’s not that he’s any colder when it comes to the people he cares about; it’s that he’s always been willing to risk Min’s life.

(again: I don’t even think that this attitude of his is healthy! I think he should be willing to let the people he cares about make their own choices about the risks they choose but! the contrast between how he treats the other people he loves vs Min is... just weird, especially since she’s much more vulnerable/helpless than either Aviendha or Elayne, or his father and the Two Rivers’ soldiers, for that matter. The most helpless one is also the one that he feels the least willpower to actually protect. It’s SUCH a strange dynamic. Like, if Min and Rand’s relationship had been outed due to no choice of their own, so Rand was just rolling with the consequences of that, that would be one thing, but he was literally parading her around in public and she was ~famous~ in Cairhien for being in his bed. like, the only reason that their relationship is public is because they chose to make it that way -- again, the obvious contrast is Min saying how it’s smart that Elayne tore down his banners, so that the Forsaken would be less likely to go after Elayne as Rand’s love, and Rand reluctantly agreeing with that logic. Elayne and Aviendha are to be protected from Rand’s enemies, but Min has practically been held out as bait - and, like, if that were a deliberate strategy, that would be one thing and potentially very clever as long as Min DID have a secret way of protecting herself (like Mat's medallion, for example, lol), but it’s clear in both Rand and Min’s thoughts that this is NOT a deliberate strategy so all it does is make it look like Rand subconsciously has already written off Min as dead and thus expendable -- I mean, now she’s even already on his list of Dead Ladies!)

28. (Rand does wonder here if “Min’s presence” had kept Aviendha away during their month together -- again, no thoughts about... you know. That big group Bonding? Apparently not. They all confessed their love to him at the same time and said they would share him, but Rand shows no memory of this event, lol)

29. While Rand is definitely having some very concerning moments here re: ruthless calculus of war and all that... he’s not wrong that Graendal needs to die by balefire in order to ensure that she won’t pop up again later to be a continuing issue. Ruthless!Rand makes some good points, is all I’m saying.

30. Ah, we get a nice reminder that Taringail was an awful person -- one of the few bits of ~fatherly advice~ that he gave Galad in Gawyn’s hearing was “never trust Aes Sedai” and “never trust pretty women” (and definitely never trust a woman who is both). It is a TRADITION for the Daughter-Heirs of Andor to be sent to the White Tower to get training, even if the vast majority of them never reach the level of Aes Sedai or even Accepted/Novice. This sounds like him trying to alienate Galad (and Gawyn as a bonus) from Morgase tbh, and to alienate him from the culture of Andor in general, which is a matriarchal monarchy that historically maintains friendly relations with Tar Valon.

31. ...I feel like the story/hints we’ve gotten about Taringail’s death is that Thom killed him because he was planning to assassinate Morgase in order to take the throne of Andor himself? Trying to sell all this to Galad does seem like he was grooming Galad to accept the idea of himself as Taringail’s heir rather than Elayne as Morgase’s heir. Can’t trust pretty women; can’t trust Aes Sedai... but the queen is a very pretty woman who trained in Tar Valon? Taringail was 100% trying to poison Galad against Morgase (and he failed to make Galad hate MORGASE but maybe planted seeds about mistrusting Aes Sedai in general, seeds that later blossomed into, well. Being a Whitecloak).

32. Ah, Gawyn is in the same trap here than he was back in the White Tower after Elayne, Egwene, & Nynaeve had disappeared -- growing increasingly frustrated because everyone refuses to give him any information. Honestly, you’d think that Siuan would see the signs here that she saw last time and throw him a bone, considering how poorly keeping him out of the loop went last time. He does compare Egwene’s rise to power here to his mother’s - a young woman proving that she had the political grit to win everyone’s respect. That's sweet.

33. Gawyn is SO STUBBORN (haha you'd almost think he was from the Two Rivers). Even now, he insists on believing that Rand is the cause of all his troubles, and he’s still trying to straddle the fence between two loyalties -- he came to ‘help’ Egwene but not Egwene’s forces (even though he does admit to himself now that they ARE her forces), just as he promised not to hurt Rand himself but not to help him avoid being hurt by others. Ah, Bryne brings the “who do you serve?” question back around to Gawyn, pointing out the flaws in his thinking -- are you still First Prince of the Sword if you’re nowhere near Andor and your sister, the (almost) Queen? What will you do if you ‘rescue’ Egwene and she refuses to quit the field of battle to come to Caemlyn with you? So, you know. He’s got a lot to think about.

34. For all that Cadsuane is complaining about the Domani here, they sound much more sensible than the people in Ebou Dar -- instead of constant duels that frequently end in scars or death, people just shout at each other for a while, and then come to terms and buy each other drinks. “Fights were common; bloodshed infrequent. Injuries were bad for business”. Cadsuane doesn’t understand the innkeeper who works here, though she appreciates him as one of her contacts, but honestly his relationship with his wife sounds really sweet -- he keeps the books for her business as a silk merchant and because of her popularity as a merchant, they’ve made enough money where he’s able to open a ‘hobby inn’, essentially, where he does all the serving and cleaning himself while she does the ‘big business’ for the family. Ah, he’s a good contact because one of his daughters went to the White Tower (Brown Ajah; works in the library... we don’t know her current status).

35. Ah, a purpose of this chapter is to show us that Rand’s ta’veren luck twisting is now predominately negative rather than being a balance of positive and negative. The bad is now happening without the good to balance it. We also get a reminder here that apparently no one on Rand’s side has been told that the change in weather was the Wondergirls and not the Dark One, as Cadsuane blames both the drought and the sudden change to cold winter on the Dark One. I guess that’s another thing that Nynaeve could have told Rand but never got around to doing.

36. “Min had resisted every attempt that Cadsuane had made at involving her.” Okay, that is a hilarious sentence. That’s so untrue! That is rewriting history! Min was fully willing to be Cadsuane’s mood ring for Rand, fully willing to spill out Rand’s trauma to Cadsuane -- Min is the whole reason that Cadsuane knows about “the times he had been beaten and caged by Aes Sedai”. Like, Jordan also didn’t own the fact that Min is textually a blabbermouth but... Min is a blabbermouth. She’s also literally the ONLY reason that Cadsuane was allowed to stick around Rand for this long -- which Cadsuane knows (because Min TOLD HER, lol). However, I will note that Rand letting Aviendha avoid him for that month does mean that Cadsuane doesn’t appear to have any notion that the two of them are also entangled. That relationship does seem to be fairly well protected.

37. Rand is overseeing the grain distribution himself, because he’s noticed that it’s more likely to actually get to the people who need it if there’s direct oversight from him personally (though he wishes that weren’t the case). Rand learns from one of his Asha’man sent to try to negotiate another face-to-face meeting with the DotNM that they keep getting balked, with the implication being that the DotNM will refuse to meet on neutral territory (insisting on meeting on her stolen ‘home’ turf). Rand suggests they offer Falme as a meeting location, for ~historical significance~ and says that the Seanchan have enough honor that they won’t attack. I feel like he keeps forgetting that the Seanchan do not see channelers as people. You don’t need to honor an oath that you made to a chair. That being said, Falme is an interesting location for... intimidation reasons. “This is where I summoned dead champions to drive you into the sea” basically. Ah, Naeff tries to point out to Rand what I said -- that the Seanchan don’t look at Rand & the Asha’man as people but as potential slaves. Hmm, they do mention collars here again, which might just be them assuming that the Seanchan have more of the a’dam that can be used on men.

38. Thank you, Damer Flinn! “Differences?” Flinn asked. “I don’t think I’d rightly call that a difference, my Lord. They want to enslave every one of us, maybe execute us. They think it’s a favor to do either!” Rand doesn’t like it either but (because of the Aelfinn’s words) he doesn’t believe he has a choice.

39. Rand manages to get out of Nynaeve what’s happened with Lan (that she took him to Saldaea to ride across the Borderlands to face the Blight). It’s so... baffling that he needed to work to get it out of her. Why does Nynaeve resist so strongly telling Rand literally any information at all, no matter how helpful or relevant it might be? She DOES tell him about Lan when he pushes her, at least, which might not have happened if Jordan were still writing, lol. Wow, did he ever hate people sharing information with Rand.

Things Nynaeve Never Told Rand:

I guess that she and Elayne are the ones who changed the weather (on Egwene’s orders/permission)

That Mat was left behind in Ebou Dar when the Seanchan invaded

That the sul’dam are channeling learners, with damane being sparkers (Min could also tell him this, if she ever felt like being helpful and telling him something he doesn’t already know)

Literally ALL things relevant to his ability to make plans! What it feels like (from Winter’s Heart through Knife of Dreams) is that Jordan wanted Nynaeve in Rand’s storyline but absolutely didn’t want Rand to have any knowledge from Egwene’s section of the plotline (to make it easier for them to have a big misunderstanding once the White Tower is whole, I can only assume, and also to make it harder for Rand to wage any battles against the Seanchan) so Jordan just... had Nynaeve straight-up keep major secrets from Rand for no reason.

And that’s likely also why Elayne only got one night with Rand before he bounced, and possibly (if there were notes about Aviendha and Rand not interacting in Arad Doman) why Aviendha avoids Rand. Because Jordan very much always had Rand starved for information, so that he could make mistakes based on not having enough information. This also might be part of why Mat was slow-walked across Altara in CoT & KoD -- because Jordan didn’t want any of his plot-relevant information to make it into Rand’s hands.

40. This conversation here, with Rand musing that Lan’s death at the Blight could serve him overall in the Last Battle, does a good job showing him as having become ruthless. Because, sure, not necessarily wrong tactically-speaking but, as a voice inside him also whispers, what a terrible way to treat a friend.

41. It grates on Rand what a fragile position he may end up leaving the world after the Last Battle -- even with a hopeful peace with the Seanchan and food for Arad Doman, things would remain very uncertain here. He wants to do what he can to buffer the world from another Breaking. But there are too many problems and only one him (another reason that it’s so baffling that Jordan had him spend a month chilling and waiting on the Seanchan to reply to his messages, post-cleansing. There is SO MUCH for him to do. Honestly, it’s such a relief to see Rand actually Doing Things again, let me tell you). But that is the reason that he wants to find the Council of Merchants to appoint a king here rather than doing it himself -- because his authority will die when he dies. Rand is again, very aware here of the Seanchan as a potential threat, assuming that they would immediately move in to scoop up Arad Doman if it were left vulnerable post-Last Battle, even if a peace were theoretically in place. I’m keeping an eye out to see if this belief ever changes.

42. Okay, part of this conversation between Nynaeve and Rand is very good, but her throwing “do you even know where Mat is?” in his face when she... purposefully kept Mat’s location a secret from him is... just a baffling addition. But I like how it shows us that despite Rand THINKING about how he is hardened and cold, he is actually clearly a simmering volcano of potential violence at this point, because it doesn’t take much for him to start yelling at Nynaeve and threatening to exile her as he exiled Cadsuane. Rand’s perception of himself doesn’t match his behavior.

43. Rand & Egwene both time-jumped a month into the future in their narration but Perrin & Mat haven’t, so we get hints into Perrin and Mat’s future plotlines here in Rand’s rainbow ta’veren vision, seeing Perrin talking with Galad (dressed as a Whitecloak) and Mat riding into Caemlyn with Thom (I guess that explains why Mat is still slow-crawling across Altara while slaver girl is already in Ebou Dar -- Tuon joined the time-skip with Rand & Egwene). “They both needed to be with him for the Last Battle.” STABBING the narrative with shearing scissors. I do wonder if this conversation with Nynaeve would have gone differently if it were in private? Rand explicitly has thought in the past about how he needs to pretend that the Two Rivers and everyone from the Two Rivers are unimportant to him, and they are in front of Domani nobles right now. I don’t imagine he wants them (any of whom could be Darkfriends) to think that he cares at all about Mat, Perrin, or the Two Rivers. That being said, Rand’s passively suicidal streak is also becoming worryingly active, and his temper is on a very short leash.

44. Nynaeve does Investigative Work and uncovers the actual person who killed the messenger from “the king” (actually Graendal), capturing him and bringing him to Rand. Rand was in bed with Min before Nynaeve woke them up. You know, the person that he almost killed with his own hands only a handful of nights ago. But it’s okay! If he kills her by accident, he’ll just add her to the list (again). No big deal! And that Min apparently has ZERO trauma from being STRANGLED by the man that she loves/maybe trusts is another big illustration of her being a plot device and not a character. The plushie that you need to cuddle to get to sleep isn’t allowed to have nightmares of her own. She still has BRUISES on her neck from when Rand NEARLY KILLED her and she has absolutely zero issue sharing a bed with him? Min is immune to trauma! How lucky! Min silently follows him into the room in a thin robe, to be a Sexy Set Decoration.

45. lol, Min is in this entire scene and doesn’t say a word the whole time. She’s literally just there for decorative purposes. I mean, I laugh about it because it’s so frustrating (their entire relationship) but... their relationship really does add so little to the story. And it’s frustrating Because I think there actually could have been something interesting in the Seer and Prophecy Child interacting, but because it’s A Romance, it’s watered down to the point of absurdity.

46. The other sad thing about Rand and Min’s ‘relationship’ is how it can distract from the actual point of the scene -- it’s heartbreaking how much Rand is completely treating Nynaeve like an outsider at this point! Yet it’s undercut by Min Sexy Lamping all over the scene. Every so often, Nynaeve has to note how Min is silently moving to a new pose, lol. Min has NOTHING TO DO HERE and simply should not have been in the scene. This scene, which is fairly tragic and intense otherwise, does not need Sexy Set Decoration, any more than we needed Min sexily swaying her way across a battlefield of corpses in Knife of Dreams.

47. Min falls asleep and thus achieves her final form: she is now LITERALLY a burden that Rand hauls around, leaving him less able to protect himself, instead of just being that metaphorically. Narrative poetry. I can’t believe she was literally in that scene just to be a pretty piece of set decoration, lol wow.

48. Anyway, Nynaeve Heals Graendal’s Compulsion on the assassin’s mind, but the Compulsion was layered so deeply and so thoroughly in his mind that there’s nothing really left anymore after all the Compulsion is gone. Nynaeve notes how Rand speaks of how he has seen this dozens of times, and she wonders if Lews Therin is the one dominating Rand’s mind right now, and how much she’s actually dealing with Rand. Though there is little of the person still left, Rand is able to get a location out of him -- Natrin’s Barrow.

49. During her conversation with Rand, Nynaeve realizes that he has completely extinguished any ounce of hope for himself or any future for himself. In order to make it to the Last Battle, Rand’s decided he can’t afford to hold anything back, that he has to use himself up to the last drop (oh that is Frodo in Mordor vibes). Now, how much of that is Lews Therin’s death wish bleeding through? How much of that is the crushing trauma after trauma that Rand has suffered? It’s a painful conversation to listen to (and, again, mildly undercut by Min the Sexy Set Dressing, lol -- but that makes me... hmm. Rand has essentially written both himself AND MIN off as dead, it seems, as Min is now officially on his list of Dead Ladies alongside Ilyena. Aviendha and Elayne (and Nynaeve, as he mentions here, as being allowed to still dream of the future when Rand cannot), he has not written off as dead, and so he accepts separation from them as part of that -- they are the living and he, and Min, are the dead. huh. I am going to consider that angle as a potential way to explain Rand’s otherwise very out-of-character behavior around Min. This is a very new idea for me, but I’ll poke at it and see what I think. Is it possible that Rand as been thinking of Min as his living dead girl for longer than just the Event with Semirhage?).

Side note: talking about how Rand appears to have written Min off as already dead actually reminds me of something in Origins that I disagreed with! The author of that book noted that one of Tuon’s names is associated with death & Persephone (Kore being another name for Persephone) and had basically a surface-level read of “well, Mat kidnaps her and takes her to a ‘hell’ (tavern)” so that’s the reference related to the name and... imo MAT is actually a much better version of Persephone in this story. A core part of the Persephone story is about being torn between two worlds -- the living world and the underworld -- Mat is tricked into his marriage vows (he has no reason to believe that merely stating his future prophecy will lock him into it) like Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds without knowing what it meant for her future, trapping him halfway into the Seanchan culture, just as Persephone is trapped. Mat is the character who stands between two worlds who comes from one of the worlds and marries into the second, not Tuon, who is firmly the RULER of the world that she exists in (like Hades is the ruler of hell). And the arrival of the Seanchan in Ebou Dar, when Mat is first ‘trapped’ away from his other friends (the living world), also coincides with the ‘change in seasons’ because that’s when the Bowl was used by Elayne and Nynaeve -- Mat’s ‘kidnapping’ via the Ebou Dar invasion literally heralds the coming of winter. MAT is Persephone. Not Tuon.

Now, if Tuon had actually undergone character growth in CoT & KoD, then she COULD have (also) been Persephone. That would have been a much more interesting story imo, if both Tuon and Mat were bridging two worlds through marriage and felt torn between the new world that their spouse had introduced to them and the old one that they'd been born into. But it's clearly only Mat who is standing in two worlds, not Tuon. She firmly has both her feet in Seanchan territory.

#wot reread #the gathering storm #wot #wheel of time #the wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #aviendha #mat cauthon #rand al'thor

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