Welcome back to my re-read, recap, and reaction to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. This post will only have spoilers through the current chapter.
You can find my previous chapter recaps HERE.
Chapter 10: Figs and Mice
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Elayne Trakand
After being drugged by forkroot tea, Elayne and Nynaeve are carried to an upstairs bedroom in Ronde Macura‘s house. Ronde leaves to make arrangements to transport the girls to the White Tower, leaving a fearful Luci to watch over them. Luci does not give them the follow-up dose on time and they are able to start moving their fingers and limbs. Luci bursts in though and gives them more forkroot before they are able to stop her. They wake up again and are starting to move a bit when Thom enters the room with Luci. Despite orders, Juilin followed them to town, then Thom came later when none of them returned.
Juilin arrives in the room with Ronde Macura and the men help the girls walk off the forkroot effects. When questioned, Ronde says she has orders from the Amyrlin to capture or delay a girl that looks just like Elayne. She was going to send them off with Therin Lugay who would be given enough forkroot to keep them drugged. Ronde sent a message to the White Tower that she had captured Elayne before returning to the house.
Nynaeve gives a rare apology to Thom and Juilin for underestimating their ability to help when channeling isn’t sufficient. Nynaeve and Elayne decide to disguise themselves by changing their dresses and hair color. They use dresses from the seamstress shop and acquire a carriage so they can travel as two ladies with their servants.
Point of view: Omni
The residents of Mardecin are surprised to see that someone purchased the coach from Noy Torvald. Two ladies enter the coach at Ronde Macura’s shop and the coach quickly leaves town.
Therin Lugay arrives to take Elayne and Nynaeve to Tar Valon but instead finds Ronde and Luci tied up and asleep upstairs. Pondering on his nagging wife and shrewish mother-in-law, he decides to use the money he was paid to see the world rather than returning home.
Ronde Macura wakes from the forkroot she was given and hurries to send another pigeon to Tar Valon saying she no longer has Elayne captive. She sends a similar note somewhere else to the west. The cote keeper, Avi Shendar, sends a third copy of the message to somewhere else.
REACTION
You sometimes read about people who suffer from sleep paralysis. It’s an actual condition, but it’s also the sort of thing people talk about when they claim a ghost or a demon or an extra-terrestrial are visiting them in their rooms while they are sleeping. You’re too frightened to move. Being drugged on forkroot seems to be something like that. That doesn’t seem like an ideal way to travel.
I absolutely loved reading about the interrogation sequence. “Not the salt!” Lol. There is a lot of intelligence to Juilin’s approach. He weaponizes the captive’s imagination against its owner. Imagine being held captive and someone sends for “figs and mice” to use in torturing you? You’d invent some WILD stuff. So this technique is legit. Of course, it’s only funny because we as the reader know he isn’t going to actually torture anyone AND we know that these women kind of deserved it.
In case you doubt that they deserved a very brief bit of mental distress… let’s say that it’s unlikely a pair of pretty young women would travel safely to Tar Valon, over a period of weeks, when drugged so heavily they can barely move.
Nynaeve, when given a moment to compose herself post-rescue, thanks Thom and Juilin. That’s why she’s great. EVERYONE knows she hates doing it. She says it anyway. The thank you is worth about 10 times more under those circumstances. She is immensely proud, but she is almost always guided by a desire to do the right thing.
For some reason, Nynaeve saying thank you makes me think of this Parks & Rec scene:
And… that represents growth for the Wisdom! She still owes Mat a thank you AND an apology, but I am pretty sure that if literally anyone else on earth had rescued her from the Stone of Tear, that person would have gotten a thank you.
“I do love Rand but he is far away, and Thom is sophisticated and intelligent and…” – Elayne
I think I would have liked Elayne more if she had been a few years younger than the rest of the super girls. She behaves like you might expect a 14 or 15 year old to behave. She is sharp of mind but woefully immature emotionally. We did not get a younger Elayne, though, so we have to make sense of her as she was actually written. My working theory in the re-read is that she and Egwene are lowkey rivals and that this undercurrent is driving a lot of what is happening. To *some* extent, I think once Elayne finally got Rand, she lost interest a little bit. She’s also lost her mind a little bit with him being out of sight and out of her control. Are a loss of interest AND a jealousy-based loss of mind possible simultaneously? Yes.
We saw in her last chapter that she’s imagining that he is seeing other people. She suspects about Min’s vision of her sharing him AND she knows that she wrote him an insane “I hate you” letter before leaving Tear. In summation… she doesn’t make sense. She knows she doesn’t make sense. I think Egwene knew she didn’t make sense, too, and therefore didn’t take her too seriously with Rand. (And that’s before we factor in that Lanfear might have been manipulating Egwene to break up with Rand.)
To Elayne’s credit, she is the first to start thinking about the “welcome to return to the Tower” message. We obviously know that Elaida is the Amyrlin. They still don’t, but this is the first clue. They will need to find the truth before they travel too far toward Tar Valon. I don’t think they’d like the new management in Tar Valon.
Interestingly… after the good guys are gone, Ronde sends out pigeons, as does Avi. One of those – which includes a description of Nynaeve – is going back to the White Tower. The other, though? To other Yellows? And to whom is Avi sending messages? He could definitely be writing to Darkfriends. We knows that this little adventure is going to set some things into motion, at least.
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