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 11: Lessons and Teachers
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Verin Mathwin
Verin ponders whether the coming of the Dragon Reborn is going to upset the plans she has been making for seventy years. The Two Rivers girls under her care are still upset from the way Rand behaved. Alanna finally uses a threatening illusion to chase them all to their rooms. The Aes Sedai are also concerned about the amnesty for men channeling that Rand has declared. They decide to see if they can do something to stop a lot of men channeling being loosed on the world.
Point of view: Rand al’Thor
Rand rides his horse back to the palace, outdistancing his Aiel guardians. He just wants to get far away from Alanna, whom he can still feel in his head. At the palace he Travels to the Farm to get farther away, but it is not far enough―he can still feel Alanna. Only seven men from the initial recruits are able to channel and are being trained by Taim. Rand arranged for the students to also receive sword training, but Taim sent the old soldier away. Rand warns Taim to stay away from the Aes Sedai in Caemlyn and keep the students away also. Taim wants to start recruiting instead of just waiting for men to come to Caemlyn to find out if they can channel. Rand gives permission so that they can increases the number of male channelers as fast as possible.
REACTION:
Jordan reminds us in this chapter that Alanna’s bonding of Rand is at least somewhat explainable, if not mitigated, by the recent death of a Warder. Jordan has never given us much reason to spend time thinking about this scenario, but we are at least told that it’s an excruciating emotional ordeal for the Aes Sedai to lose a Warder – and worse for the Warders if they’re the ones that survive the pairing.
That said… she was making cold rational arguments for why she did it and we learn through Verin that she had *every* intention of doing the same to Perrin. [For all the Faile haters, her private threat to kill Alanna is another in a LONG line of reasons to love her.]
Do I think Faile was actually ignorant re: the nature of the Warder bond when she made the threat? I doubt it. But she knew that the Aes Sedai didn’t know she wasn’t ignorant, so the threat worked anyway.
The big focus of the first half of the chapter is Verin. Even though we’re in her POV, we don’t really get a feel for what her end goal is. She doesn’t come across like Black Ajah, but she also doesn’t come across as a champion for the victory of the Light, either. She’s playing her own game.
Rand basically runs as fast as he can to get away from Alanna / Caemlyn. He travels to the Farm, and then falls down in a fit of mad laughter. This is as close as we’ve seen him to a legit metal break (rather than a fit of rage or a momentary manic episode.) Then… he gets to his feet. As the readers, we know the twists and turns of his mind, to the point that he still mostly seems sane to us. But imagine him from the outside? He’s increasingly behaving like a lunatic. He just happens to also be the most powerful man on earth, on whom the fate of everything depends.
Rand travels to the Farm. It seems interesting that in the moment he feels threatened by women channelers, he flees to male channelers.
Rand and Taim argue over whether the men should learn to fight with real weapons, and not just the One Power. Taim points out that it’s contradictory to tell them to focus all their energy on matching the White Tower ASAP, but also to spend considerable time learning to fight with hands and weapons. I think Taim has a point. It’s also not likely to be a regular occurrence that Rand’s men will be in situations where they’re alone fighting channelers – who aren’t also surrounded by fighters / warders / etc. Doesn’t it make sense, at some point, to just surround the male channelers with an actual army under Rand’s control?
On the other hand, the only thing Rand has is his own experience and he learned both types of fighting, and the non-Power type is how he feels most sane. So I get where he’s coming from. Nevertheless, Taim probably thinks he’s cracking.
I liked this from their conversation:
“I don’t suppose you mean to train up men who will turn on you at the first chance they find.” Considering how suspicious Taim is… that’s funny. Either way, the end result of this conversation is that Rand agrees to let Taim go recruiting. I’d guess that this might end up growing the Farm by a lot. If Taim is promising to match the White Tower in less than a year… he probably will. To be honest, that’s not as impressive to me now as it would have been a few books ago. Rand is ta’veren and needs that to happen.
One other weird thing… Taim calls the Aiel “so-called” Aiel. Is there another kind of Aiel? Does he know of (or remember) a pacifist Aiel? You’re SUS, Mazrim Taim.
2 thoughts on “Lord of Chaos (Chapter 11): Lessons and Teachers”