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 14: Dreams and Nightmares
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Egwene al’Vere
Egwene fled to a formless area of tel’aran’rhiod when she encountered Nynaeve and Elayne, where what appear to be stars really represent the dreams of everyone that is asleep. She is still driven to learn everything she can―even though it means trying things and going places that she shouldn’t. She is frustrated because she wants to get information from the White Tower, but keeps running into dreamers she doesn’t know who are using ter’angreal to enter the dream. One of the dream lights begins to approach her, then rushes in even though she tries to avoid it.
She finds herself in Gawyn‘s dream where he is rescuing her from Rand. She tries to leave the dream, but her efforts fail. Despite herself she begins to accept the dream and becomes part of it. Gawyn begins to profess his love for her in flowery terms. Finally she tells him she loves him also and gives in completely to his dream.
Point of view: Nynaeve al’Meara
Nynaeve is trying to stay awake per Theodrin‘s orders, trying to see if this will help remove her block on channeling. A scream in the distance followed by furniture in her room moving shows a bubble of evil has hit Salidar. Inanimate objects appear to be alive and intent on injury to everyone around. Anaiya has her and Elayne link because she believes this is an attack by one of the Forsaken. Elayne has the foresight to remove the a’dam before linking. Nicola has a foretelling relating to the Last Battle but Anaiya doesn’t seem to recognize it as such. The linked group begins to move through Salidar, trying to deal with the various inanimate objects that have taken on a semblance of destructive life.
When all the objects have been dealt with Anaiya breaks the link and sends many of her party off to bed. Nynaeve again says that it was a bubble of evil, not a Forsaken but is sent off to bed. Elayne is tasked with helping Heal those injured.
REACTION:
The first part of this chapter is Egwene reflecting on all the people she keeps running into, in the World of Dreams. She comments on seeing someone that we know to be Leane, but Egwene doesn’t recognize her. Is that possible? Even if Egwene knows Siuan and Leane are alive and in Salidar, she wouldn’t have a reason to recognize them with their new / younger faces. She assumes that Leane must be using a dream ter’angreal that requires channeling, but it’s possible / likely that Leane is using one of the copies Elayne has made of the original, that doesn’t require channeling to use it.
Egwene does not know that Elayne is making ter’angreals.
Egwene enters Gawyn’s dreams… bow chicka bow wow. So this plays into a conspiracy I have espoused for a while. Back in Book 4, Lanfear tells Rand that Egwene has scandalous dreams about Galad and Gawyn. Yet here we are, in book 6, lots of Eggy POVs later, with Egwene seeming to experience this with Dream Gawyn for the first time. Was Lanfear lying to Rand in Book 4? Or had Lanfear used compulsion on Egwene while they were in the Stone of Tear together to make this happen? Hear me out:
- She knew who Egwene was, having met her in the White Tower previously.
- Eggy planned to marry Rand her entire life.
- One of Eggy’s primary motivations for becoming Aes Sedai is to help and protect Rand.
- Eggy worries non-stop for him during Book 2, dreaming about him often.
- During The Dragon Reborn, Eggy does her Accepted tests and they’re all about Rand. Those tests reveal what her innermost thoughts are. She had a baby with Rand in one of those tests.
- Aviendha attaches herself to Egwene (an action, that we know in hindsight, is probably driven consciously or not by a wild desire to be a sister wife to Rand.) Avi’s actions re: Rand in book four make much more sense if you read them as frustration over the fact that the guy she wanted became single and then immediately attached to someone she doesn’t know well and with whom she cannot spend time.
- But before they leave, Eggy abruptly tells Rand at the beginning of The Shadow Rising that she only now loves him like a brother. This means she went very quickly (weeks) from “having babies with Rand in my Accepted testing” to “I love him like a brother.” The switch felt unnaturally fast.
What changed? Well, one big thing is that she was in the same place as Lanfear (the Stone of Tear), when Lanfear decided to claim Rand openly. Lanfear wasn’t stupid enough to think she could kill Lews Therin’s childhood sweetie, so it was *awfully* convenient that said childhood sweetheart broke things off with Rand herself at almost the same time she claimed him for herself. (Lanfear does not know about Elayne at that point.)
What happens after Egwene breaks things off?
- Eggy ends up in the Waste with Rand and without Elayne
- Eggy very subtly negs Elayne, re: the second letter of doom (almost like she’s resisting compulsion.)
- Lanfear appears to Rand and tells him that Eggy is having sexy dreams about Galad and Gawyn. (Unbeknownst to Rand, Eggy is training herself in Dreamwalking at that very moment, so idle/stray dreaming is not something she’s necessarily doing a lot of.)
Two books later, and without any evidence that those dreams have been occurring in the interim, Eggy and Gawyn have a steamy dream together. She ends up picking Gawyn over Galad, who she had seemed to prefer previously. Is it also noteworthy that Gawn is a very tall red haired guy who is good at using a sword? It’s like her subconscious is struggling toward what she really wants, landing on a similar substitution.
The other end of this is that it’s entirely possible Lanfear did the same thing to Gawyn and Galad, re: Egwene, to help things along. Why else would two young good-looking princelings pine away for the Innkeeper’s daughter as if she is the only woman on earth? Dream Gawyn tells Egwene that Galad joined the Whitecloaks in large part over worry about her. That’s a bit much, isn’t it?
What if this isn’t just young people acting recklessly? What if their is a hidden hand pulling the strings? I’m just saying.
Is this the first “bubble of evil” that we’ve seen where at least one of the ta’veren is not present? I cannot remember an earlier one. It makes sense that this would be a problem that grows worse, but I do wonder if something specific drew it to Salidar. Maybe Moggy?
The other interesting thing from this chapter was Nicola’s Foretelling.
“The lion sword, the dedicated spear, she who sees beyond. Three on the boat, and he who is dead yet lives. The great battle done, but the world not done with battle. The land divided by the Return, and the guardians balance the servants. The future teeters on the edge of a blade.”
The first part of that refers to (I’m pretty sure) Elayne, Aviendha, and Min… on a boat.
Someone is both dead and alive. The “great battle” indicates the Last Battle, so that thing with those three and a boat and the dead/not-dead guy happens after the Last Battle.
The Return is the Seanchan, almost certainly.
We’ll need to keep an eye out for something about guardians going forward.