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apocalypticavolition · 6 months

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Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 10: The Hunt Begins

This post probably has spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series, so if that's not what you're into, don't keep reading.

This chapter starts us out with the Horn of Valere icon again, which... hell even if you shouldn't be reading this post because of the spoilers, you can probably piece together why a chapter called "The Hunt Begins" has it.

He kept his mouth shut, though. It was Lord Ingtar’s command; as friendly as he had been to Rand, he still would not appreciate a shepherd giving advice.

Rand demonstrating his keen leadership skills by being aware of the limitations of horses is both a good jibe at fantasy novels of the time (where horses needed less rest than the average car and had better range and mileage) and a nice way of contrasting how towards the end he won't be giving a fuck about anyone's limitations and push them all much harder than Ingtar is pushing these poor horses.

Rand tried to ride with Mat and Perrin, but when Rand let his horse drop back to them, Mat nudged Perrin, and Perrin reluctantly galloped to the head of the column with Mat.

I feel like this little bit of Mat being extra petty about this carries a lot of people's dislike of early Mat, because without the dagger he's actually not that bad even now.

Uno looked at Rand with his one eye, then shrugged and climbed into his saddle.

Uno isn't afraid to voice his opinion to his superiors 'cause he's a cool dude. He also is pretty convinced Rand is a lord too and thus could put Ingtar in his place - and probably has noticed the glances Rand's been giving the horses and is well aware that the boy agrees with him. I wonder how many of this ranging party specifically think that Ingtar being in charge is just the convenient fiction for this outlander lord who wants to pretend to be a shepherd. Like obviously Ingtar doesn't think that but Uno might...

“Do you like to run, Rand?” Loial laughed. “I do. I was the fastest in Stedding Shangtai. I outran a horse, once.”

That poor horse must have died of a heart attack shortly thereafter, what with the whole running at top speed and also having a huge thing like an Ogier keeping up with it.

It was not hard—there were few personal bundles among the supplies—but when he had it open, he let out a shout that brought every man in the camp erect with sword in hand.

Everyone of course just thinks Rand's bitching about the coats is him being pissy that Moiraine won't let him play at being a shepherd.

Also it's adorable how Moiraine thinks she's fulfilling prophecy with the heron-marked jackets.

I can always go naked, he thought bitterly.

*desperately presses random symbols on the nearest Portal Stone to find the nudist!Rand Mirror World*

“We didn’t bloody bring enough for you to be spilling it on the flaming ground.” The one-eyed man looked at Rand and left. Masema rubbed his ear, but his glare followed Rand.

So Masema's obviously pissy about this upstart foreigner Aiel-look-a-like putting on airs and terrifying everyone in the camp, but Uno's just doing whatever it takes to get a chance to challenge Rand to a friendly duel.

“I ask no questions, mind. If Lan Dai Shan and Moiraine Sedai want to say you are from Andor, from the Two Rivers, then you are. But Masema can’t get the look of the Aiel out of his head, and when he sees you. . . .”

It's really fascinating how Masema's perspective on Rand does such a huge 180. Bruh is an absolute fanatic about whatever his beliefs are, they just aren't necessarily logical evolutions from each other.

“I grew up with him, though you’d never know it now. You put this Aiel nonsense in his head on top of what’s already there, and the Light knows what we’ll have. An Aiel lord, maybe.”

Mat: Absolute savage and accidental prophet.

But they do let the Tuatha’an, the Traveling People, cross the Waste. And they don’t see Ogier as enemies, either, though I doubt any of us would want to go out into the Waste.

It's also a nice bit of realism that as soon as someone tries to simplify the Other as seeing the world purely in terms of themselves and their enemies, someone else can point out that no, it's not really that simple. It's not even really the case that the Aiel see the Wetlanders as enemies exactly, since they clearly could have engaged in warfare against them long ago and won.

When Rand finally settled down for the night, his head hummed with unwanted thoughts. Image of an Aielman. Moiraine Sedai wants to say you’re from the Two Rivers. Aiel ravaged all the way to Tar Valon. Born on the slopes of Dragonmount. The Dragon Reborn.

Bro can't even stay in denial anymore, though he does try a little. At this point it would literally take one more person calling him Aiel for him to snap though.

“Is this what a Darkfriend camp looks like? Smells a bit, but I can’t say it looks any different from anybody else’s.” He kicked at one of the ash heaps, knocking out a piece of burned bone, and stooped to pick it up. “What do Darkfriends eat? Doesn’t look like a sheep bone, or a cow.”

The one way in life that Mat isn't lucky is that if he can lose his dignity in literally any way, he absolutely will. It's where all his bad dice rolls go.

“We’ll waste no time burying Darkfriends,” Ingtar growled. “We ride south.” He suited his own words almost before they were out of his mouth.

Oftentimes, truly hateful vehemence comes from those who are closest to that which they despise. Just saying.

He reminded them of the charge the Amyrlin Seat had given them, to recover the Horn of Valere, and let nothing bar their way. He spoke of the glory they would have, their names remembered in story and history, in gleemen’s tales and bards’ songs, the men who found the Horn.

Ironically, we don't know the names of the whole party, so that didn't really work for them.

“I don’t like the smell of this place,” Perrin muttered as they came among the houses. Hurin gave him a look, and he stared back until Hurin dropped his eyes. “It smells wrong.”

Perrin the Yellow-Eyed Wolf Boy: Don't think we're the same, nose freak!

“Don’t frighten her!” Ingtar shouted. “Uno, we need information. The Light blind you, Uno, don’t frighten her!” The one-eyed man disappeared through the open door. Ingtar raised his voice again. “We will not harm you, good lady. We are Lord Agelmar’s oathmen, from Fal Dara. Do not be afraid! We will not harm you.”

I wonder if Lanfear really meant to be seen here to increase the sense of unease or if she was totally just going, "It won't hurt if I take a little peak at Lews through the window, these dumb third agers probably don't even know what up is, oh crap!"

“I fear the Darkfriends took them, Rand,” Loial said slowly. He grimaced, almost a snarl with his broad nose like a snout. “For the Trollocs.” Rand swallowed and wished he had not asked; it was never pleasant to think on how Trollocs fed.

Rand: They're okay right?

Loial: They. Were. Eaten. By. Demons. We're. Hunting. Demons. DEMONS!

He's so patient with the country boy.

“My Lord, you must see for yourself. The big stoneoak, fifty paces south from the landing. I cannot say the words. You must see it yourself.”

Jesus, it's like a Star Trek episode.

Mat waited until the last minute, when one of the Shienarans was untying the ferry, before he kicked his horse and crowded aboard. “I have to come sooner or later, don’t I?” he said, breathless, to no one in particular. “I have to find it.”

It's kind of a shame Mat didn't get any POVs in this book, because whatever the hell is going on in his head has to be a lot more interesting than the fandom gives him credit for. This is one of at least two big internal struggles we hear almost nothing about. Is he extra unhappy with Rand because he thinks that unlike him and Perrin, he's only benefiting from the adventure they're on? Does he think Rand's being selfish by being all, "Fuck you guys, I'm out" while Mat desperately wants out (he always does) but is forced to admit here that he has no future that doesn't pass through the Dagger?

“This is how we left home,” Perrin said suddenly. “At Taren Ferry. The ferrymen’s boots clunking on the deck, and the water gurgling around the ferry. This is how we left. It will be worse, this time.”

Likewise it sucks that we don't get any fun Perrin POVs just yet because he too is clearly going through all kinds of bullshit and Rand's even less aware of it than he is of Mat's stuff. "How can it be worse?" he asks, as if there's a Baerlon waiting for them only a week out. As if they have the world's most competent Aes Sedai/Warder duo at their side. As if Egwene is there, and Nynaeve to join soon, to help them think of home. As if all three boys aren't already changed permanently by what's happened but are nowhere near done with their transformations.

Rand's hilariously oblivious sometimes, you know? And so's Mat, since he agrees.

Then he recognized the two faces. Changu, and the other man who had been on guard with him. Nidao. Eyes staring, teeth bared in a rictus of pain. They had lived a long time after it began.

Poor bastards.

“Cut them down,” Ingtar said harshly. He hesitated a moment, then added, “Bury them. We cannot be sure they were Darkfriends. They could have been taken prisoner. They could have been. Let them know the last embrace of the mother, at least.”

Even Ingtar's had character growth this chapter! Is he already realizing that his extremism means he deserves the same ignominy and is softening himself in the hopes of mercy for himself? Is he genuinely uncertain as to Changu and Nidao's affiliation (perhaps they weren't in his sect of Darkfriends or even really were innocent) and thus erring on the side of kindness? Hard to say!

“Shienarans believe we all came from earth, and must return to earth. They never use coffins or shrouds, and the bodies are never clothed. The earth must hold the body. The last embrace of the mother, they call it. And there are never any words except ‘The Light shine on you, and the Creator shelter you. The last embrace of the mother welcome you home.’ ”

The Shienarans seem to have a very prototypical Earth Mother belief that will no doubt blossom into that very concept given enough time. It seems pretty early for that though; either Jordan thinks Earth Mother is very universal or he expected that there'd be some extra steps along the way (perhaps eventually the descendant organizations of Aes Sedai / Wise Ones etc. become the monopoly on the Singing?)

“Then who shot the arrow at—at the Amyrlin?” Rand swallowed. Who shot at me? Loial said nothing.

Lucky for Rand, Loial's not street smart enough to realize that his stuttering isn't a natural effect of the horrifying treatment of the corpses but because of a near slip. He's also not street smart enough to realize that Ingtar did the Dog Gate slaying, which further points to the innocence of these two poor bastards. But on the other hand I already said they were guilty so they're definitely burning in hell. Can't change my mind. Looks weak.

“They saved Lord Agelmar at Tarwin’s Gap,” he said. Several of the lancers nodded.

Ingtar's probably extra uncomfortable about this because his Darkfriend orders at the time were to get Agelmar killed or something.

Occasionally Rand saw what might have been a farmhouse in the distance, and once what he thought was a village, with smoke rising from chimneys a few miles off and something flashing white in the sun, but the land near them stayed empty of human life, long swathes of grass dotted with brush and occasional trees, with now and again a small thicket, never more than a hundred paces across.

Fascinating that the villages of Shienar, which presumably face all kinds of population problems what with the state of eternal warfare and all, manage to be denser and more prosperous than people living in this relatively decent grassland where there's no military pressures on them at all.

“It is not there any longer, Builder. When Hawkwing died, the ones who fought over his empire could not bear to leave a monument to a victory of his, even if it did not mention his name. There’s nothing left but the mound where it stood. In three or four days we can see that, at least.”

Maybe the bad juju of tearing down a perfectly good monument mixed with all the contaminating Trolloc blood led to them all dying out en masse, you know?

“I’ve seen an old map,” Rand replied in a tight voice. “I know about the nations that aren’t there anymore. Maredo, and Goaban, and Caralain. But there wasn’t any Hardan on it.”

Well that's very confusing, because all of those nations collapsed before Hardan. Must be a shit map.

Crops failed, or trade failed. People failed. Something failed in each case, and the nation dwindled.

I wonder if the Dark One's been able to affect the weather to some degree or another this whole time and only once the first seal broke was he able to pull out the "eternal winter over the whole land" gambit. It would explain just how badly humanity's been doing the past thousand years, with the long game finally paying off.

We are being swept away, humankind. Swept away like flotsam on a flood. How long until there is nothing left but the Borderlands? How long before we, too, go under, and there is nothing left but Trollocs and Myrddraal all the way to the Sea of Storms?

And so Ingtar explains why he fell to the Shadow - but even without all of the upheaval Rand brings, we've already got some clear rumblings that the game was going to change and that Ingtar's giving into despair was a personal failing. Elayne was being set up to be an Aes Sedai queen of Andor, ruling for hundreds of years and hopefully keeping the land unified. Pedron Niall wanted to restore Almoth to its former glory - under his hand, but still. The Seanchan invasion would have, without interruption, restored "civilization" to a good deal of the wilderness.

Also points to Ingtar for some realistic blind spots in another way: he assumes the Borderlands will be the last to fall even though the most recent national failing was Malkier.

There was no gate in the one opening he could see in the wall, but he supposed it could be blocked easily enough with a cart or wagon.

Honestly with population density and armed banditry being as rare as it is, blocking the gate may genuinely not be something these people feel they need to resort to.

Cairhien did claim this land, once the last King of Hardan died. All the way to the Erinin, they claimed it. They could not hold it, though. They gave up the claim nearly a hundred years ago.

Well if the Cairhieniens wanted it, and the former Hardani wanted it, what exactly was the issue? Were the tax collectors just unable to make it this far north consistently?

The table was set for a meal, ladder-back chairs gathered around, some plates already served. A few flies buzzed above bowls of turnips and peas, and more crawled on a cold roast sitting in its own congealed grease. There was a slice half carved from the roast, the fork still standing stuck in the meat and the carving knife lying partway in the platter as if dropped. Rand stepped inside. Blink.

Look I'm just gonna say it. The blinking and the flickering is some of the top tier Wheel stuff and people would have been infinitely more forgiving of the slog if it involved more of it. Even if the only thing flickering about Elayne's bath scene was that every time she blinked the fragrance of the soap she was using changed, people would have eaten that shit up and rated Crossroads of Twilight 7 out of 5 stars.

Rand could not move. The flies buzzing over the table sounded louder. His breath made a cloud in front of his mouth.

The flies are pretty strongly emphasized in this sequence, which make me wonder if they're connected to whatever weird magic Fain was using in this scene.

Also worth noting that originally this was supposed to be Lanfear's trap, but that this got changed. Frankly it's a damn shame she couldn't take time out of her stalker ex practices to quickly kill Fain before he became an actual kerfuffle.

Suddenly he was tearing at . . . something. He did not know what, or how. Cobwebs made of steel. Moonbeams carved from stone. They crumbled at his touch, but he knew he had not touched anything. They shriveled and melted with the heat that surged through him, heat like a forge fire, heat like the world burning, heat like—

Fain really breaks the magic systems, doesn't he? It's way less coherent than the established magical systems And yet Rand's use of saidin manages to take care of things.

Those black clothes, blacker than black, had never been worn by any human. The wind flapped an end of the cloak caught behind the body—which it did not always, he knew too well; the wind did not always touch those clothes—but there had never been any eyes in that pale, bloodless face.

I love how terrifying this early Fain stuff is, which really just makes it all the more frustrating that he completely loses all relevance as the series goes on. Book 7 Fain could never be this cool. Book 14 Fain couldn't even get into the same sentence as. These other Fains. What was Jordan planning on doing with him? Why did he lose the plot so thoroughly? Will we ever find something in his notes that makes it make sense?

We'll probably never know. Oh well. Next time: more hunting!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #rand al'thor #ingtar shinowa #hurin #mat cauthon #perrin aybara #uno nomesta #loial #masema dagar #lanfear #ragan

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apocalypticavolition · 2 days

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Let's (re)Read The Dragon Reborn! Chapter 2: Saidin

I am running out of pictures so rapidly it's alarming. It's as if I've moved beyond the territory of the show and the comic books and so all we've got left is text, which is apparently terrible for engagement. Also terrible for engagement is warning people about spoilers, which is why I won't tell anyone who doesn't already know that this post contains spoilers for the whole of The Wheel of Time series. Come right in and make lots of outraged replies about how I've ruined everything for you instead.

This chapter starts with the dragon's fang symbol, probably because it's literally called "Saidin" and Rand will be fucking things up with it.

All the women who came insisted on speaking to Moiraine immediately, and alone. The news that Moiraine chose to share with the rest of them did not always seem very important, but the women held the intensity of a hunter stalking the last rabbit in the world for his starving family.

It's almost like they're working for an Aes Sedai, and not just any Aes Sedai but one of the few left who tries to live up to the old standard. I'd think that pretty important too unless I was literally dyingn of thirst.

Or ever, he added to himself. Moiraine had kept them there all winter. The Shienarans did not think she gave the orders, not here, but Perrin knew that Aes Sedai somehow always seemed to get their way. Especially Moiraine.

I get that you're stir-crazy bro but do you really WANT to be wandering the wilderness in the middle of winter, fighting battles that you can avoid by staying still? What alternatives do you have other than "Don't do what Moiraine wants because she's Aes Sedai"?

“The Tinker woman is going to die,” she said softly, eyeing the others near the fires. None was close enough to hear.

It's times like this you can remember why Min doesn't particularly want her powers. She's probably seen quite a few people who were going to die soon by this point, just because when you walk by so many people in a city it's bound to happen sooner or later.

“Is that her name? I wish I didn’t know. It always makes it worse, knowing and not being able to. . . . Perrin, I saw her own face floating over her shoulder, covered in blood, eyes staring. It’s never any clearer than that.” She shivered and rubbed her hands together briskly.

I wonder if these omens she sees are realistic enough to be as traumatizing as seeing the actual thing.

He thought of the wolves. No! The scouts would find anyone or anything trying to approach the camp.

Good job helping fulfill Min's prophecy, Perrin. Things might have been different if you'd used your resources to your fullest advantage.

She had told him; she had tried warning people about bad things when, at six or seven, she had first realized not everyone could see what she saw. She would not say more, but he had the impression that her warnings had only made matters worse, when they were believed at all.

Poor Min.

It had made him cautious and careful, and regretful of his anger when he let it show. “I am sorry, Min. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I did not mean to hurt you.” She gave him a surprised look.

Really I think my problem with Perrin is that it's very obvious that he has completely over-corrected for problems in the past to the point where he's now too afraid to do much of anything on his own.

“Strange,” she said softly, “how you seem to care so much about the Tuatha’an. They are utterly peaceful, and I always see violence around—” He turned his head away, and she cut off abruptly.

And again, it's other women tearing Perrin apart with words much more than him hurting them physically or emotionally. Perrin's problem is that at heart he absolutely agrees that violence is damaging even in self-defense but he exists in an Age where that self-defense is very necessary.

She rolled her eyes at Perrin, a wry twist to her mouth. “All I wanted was to live as I pleased, fall in love with a man I chose. . . .” Her cheeks reddened suddenly, and she cleared her throat.

1. Min, almost no one chooses who they fall in love with. 2. You're lucky you're blabbering in front of Perrin and Loial and not anyone with an understanding of love because for all your "don't like to talk about your visions" thing, you sure are signposting it for everyone.

The Ogier looked at them, suddenly shy, his ears twitching. “Promise you will not laugh? I think I might write a book about it. I have been taking notes.”

Really, you could argue that Loial has hardly been swept up into the ta'veren stuff at all yet. If he'd met anyone so interesting as Rand and crew, he might have chosen to go traveling with them anyway. After all, his choosing to leave the groves had nothing to do with them.

Uno, who could hardly say a sentence without a curse, spoke now with the deepest respect. The others echoed him. “Honor to serve.” Masema, who saw ill in everything, and whose eyes now shone with utter devotion; Ragan; all of them, awaiting a command if it were Rand’s pleasure to give one.

While Rand of course dislikes this treatment, I do think that having to deal with this for a few months is the start of his arrogance. You can't be treated like this by every normal person you spend time with without it starting to rub off on you.

And aside from Moiraine and Lan, there were only the three of them—Min, Loial, and him—who did not stare at Rand as if he stood above kings. And of the three only Perrin knew him from before.

It's rather unfortunate that Perrin instinctively understands why Rand needs him here and tosses that aside much later on in the story. All three of the boys seem to backslide a bit as a result of what happens to them.

A man—a thing!—everyone was taught to loathe and fear from childhood. Only . . . it was hard to stop seeing the boy he had grown up with. How do you just stop being somebody’s friend?

Prejudices - even really rational ones like "Don't trust the dudes who can and will melt you in their sleep" - tend to have a hard time sticking around in the face of empathy, which Perrin to his credit does have a lot of. It's why he's a little better at dealing with this stuff than Mat.

He began to laugh mirthlessly, his shoulders shaking. “I have the duty, because there isn’t anybody else, now is there?”

Rand's not going mad from the taint here, but rather from the reality of his position finally setting in. The weight of the world is on his shoulders so it's understandable that he's cracking under the strain. And that more than anything is why Moiraine is right to have him wait - if he did go out onto the Plain in this state he'd probably snap in battle instead of thrive like he has before.

Perrin almost laughed himself, in confusion. “If you agree with her, why in the Light do you argue all the time?” “Because I have to do something. Or I’ll . . . I’ll—burst like a rotted melon!”

Like Perrin, Rand's big problem in this sequence is that he doesn't have any viable alternatives and just whines a lot instead. There's a lot Rand could be doing (more training with Lan, trying to learn politics from Moiraine, studying with Loial, etc.) but instead of dedicating himself to his fate he just laments all the deaths that are happening in his name instead. This is naturally only going to lead to more problems down the line.

Rand shivered; despite the chill, there was sweat on his face. His eyes were still shut tight. “Oh, Light,” he groaned, “it pulls so.”

Nope, this isn't taint madness either (I will be doing my best to demonstrate to you why NONE of his craziness in this book can be chalked up to that specifically). Remember: Rand is a wilder and he's still in that awkward "could easily draw enough power to burn himself out because he doesn't even know the proper exercises for starting out with the power" phase.

Rand stood with his head thrown back, his eyes still shut tight. He did not seem to feel the thrashing of the ground that had him now at one angle, now at another. His balance never shifted, no matter how he was tossed. Perrin could not be certain, being shaken as he was, but he thought Rand wore a sad smile. The trees flailed about, and the leatherleaf suddenly cracked in two, the greater part of its trunk crashing down not three paces from Rand. He noticed it no more than he noticed any of the rest.

The land and Rand are one, so he externalizes his temper tantrum out onto the world to avoid having to acknowledge his actual feelings.

Rand looked around as if seeing things for the first time. The fallen leatherleaf, and the broken branches. There was, Perrin realized, surprisingly little damage. He had expected gaping rents in the earth. The wall of trees looked almost whole.

And of course, Rand hasn't really addressed any of his internal issues so while he's a little disheveled, nothing has actually changed.

“They’re always there, dreams,” Rand said, so softly Perrin barely heard. “Maybe they tell us things. True things.” He fell silent, brooding.

Rand is of course also snapping under the pressure of Ba'alsy's TAR campaign. The lack of good sleep is already catching up to him here and it's not going to be getting better anytime soon.

Ah well. Next time: News!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #perrin aybara #leya #min farshaw #loial #rand al'thor #uno nomesta #masema dagar #ragan

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