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 41: The Craft of Kin Tovere
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes rom wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Rand al’Thor
Rand is surveying his forces camped a few miles from the city of Cairhien while talking with the Tairen High Lord Weiramon. Weiramon is very arrogant and assumes that if he attacks the Shaido with his cavalry he will win without any other help. Aviendha is nearby with the Wise Ones and so are the Aiel clan chiefs. Aviendha has been acting friendly but not intimate to Rand since their return from Seanchan. Rand makes his way to a log tower that has been built for observing. Egwene has agreed to use the One Power in the coming battle with the Shaido, but Moiraine can’t because the Three Oaths of an Aes Sedai prevent it.
Rand climbs the tower along with the clan chiefs. Kin Tovere is setting up the second of his far-seeing tubes which allows Rand and the chiefs to observe the Shaido much better than they could otherwise. Couladin has blockaded the river to prevent supplies or reinforcements from reaching the city. Rand spots Couladin on a hilltop, then sees something streak past his field of vision, which kills two of the Shaido on the hilltop. It appears to be a spear, but it was shot from the city. Rand can’t understand how it was done.
REACTION:
Weiramon is either stupid to the point of madness… or he’s a Darkfriend. Which is the better guess? It’s hard to imagine that Be’lal did not have Darkfriends among the High Lords of Tear, when he ruled there. I’d guess someone else has started giving Be’lal’s Darkfriend commands.
It’s interesting to be in Rand’s head for this. He acts like he’s a seasoned battle commander. He has never been in charge of the military in any capacity… at least in this lifetime. At the end of the chapter, he finally starts admitting that he doesn’t actually know anything, except that he thinks the voice in his head does. So… Rand is going crazy. It’s interesting though that it doesn’t seem obvious while inside his head. You’d think otherwise. Maybe part of madness is expertly decieving yourself.
Re: Rand and Aviendha. I guess we are to believe that nobody but the Maidens is aware that anything happened between the two of them. That seems unlikely given how public they were with the whole “cheering them on” from outside the tent business. But at least as the plot requires, Egwene appears not to know anything has happened. HOWEVER… Rand notices that she is staring at him more. Maybe she does know and is dealing with it internally. She broke up with him (and IMO didn’t mean it.) That much has worked out for Egwene so far (she ended up with him, and without Elayne, almost immediately after. Elayne even messed things up when they parted.) Aviendha – her good friend – might not be something she reckoned with.
Sidenote: It’s funny that Rand doesn’t realize that by asking Egwene to help in the battle, and not Moiraine, that he all but told the Wise Ones her big secret — that she is not actually Aes Sedai.
Re: Kin Tovere… did Rand use him to invent a telescope / spyglass? Rand already invented gunpowder (though Mat is the one that understood what he’d done.) I guess if you’re going to fight in the Last Battle, you need to push military innovation forward to meet the need. Speaking of… someone inside besieged Cairhien seems to be able to fire spears at long distances now.
At this point, everything seems a little too easy for Rand. There needs to be a big wrench to make taking own the Shaido a lot harder. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. We know that the Forsaken (Lanfear, Rahvin, Sammael, Graendal) are planning on the other side of this fight. They’re baiting him into attacking Sammael… who is in Illian.
Plenty of time for this situation to get weird.