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 19: Matters of Toh
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Rand al’Thor
Rand dreams of sho-wings and jo-cars. When he wakes he realizes that it was Lews Therin‘s dreams, which is the first time that has happened to him. As he leaves his sleeping chamber, he encounters a large crowd which includes Aviendha and a Wise One delegation. Various nobles are also waiting. Rand is about to leave for Caemlyn when Berelain reminds him his orders for Mangin to hang today are ready to be carried out. He announces that he does not intend to watch each murderer hang and heads to the Traveling room with the crowd following in his wake.
Back in Caemlyn Rand decides that two Aiel guards are enough. Aviendha goes with him to his room where they talk for a while. She tells him that the Wise Ones have been having Dreams about him:
- Rand on a boat with three women whose faces they could not see, and a scale teetering back and forth
- A man standing by Rand’s side with a dagger to his throat, but Rand doesn’t see him
- Rand cutting the wetlands in two with a sword
- Rain that comes from a bowl, but there are snares and pitfalls around it. If the right hands pick up the bowl, they will find a treasure perhaps as great as the bowl. But if the wrong hands pick it up, the world is doomed. The key to finding the bowl is to find the one who is no longer.
Rand is sure the second Dream is a Gray Man and he thinks the the third means the turmoil he has caused in the wetlands. Aviendha is not so sure. Eventually she leaves.
Point of view: Aviendha
Outside Rand’s room Aviendha remembers the obligation, toh, she has because of the time she Traveled to Seanchan. She has toh to Rand because he saved her life. She has toh to Elayne because she slept with Rand. To fulfill her toh to Elayne, she must kill Rand. To fulfill her toh to Rand, she must kill herself. They are mutually incompatible.
REACTION:
Rand is having Age of Legends themed dreams. He vaguely remembers / dreams of killing Ilyena. That’s crazy.
I really enjoyed how torn Avienha was with Rand’s “setting down” of Sulin, publicly. She is torn because she agreed with Sulin for being angry at Rand, but bordering on gleeful to see someone capable of talking that way to Sulin. I don’t know what that might be like for comparison. I guess if you had a really stern but usually correct schoolteacher who was put in his/her place by the school principal (maybe the teacher was overheard using too mean a tone or something)- even though you also knew the teacher was probably right. Avi was a Maiden so this was like seeing her former too-mean commanding officer rebuked, I guess.
I don’t know if we can get much from the dreams Avi reports to Rand. The most immediate concern is probably the unseen man with the knife at Rand’s throat. Part of me thinks Rand might be right, and that this is a Gray Man. Part of me thinks it’s Taim. The “bowl” is obviously the ter’angreal that Elayne and Nynaeve found in the World of Dreams. I don’t have any ideas about who “the one who is no longer” could be. It sounds like someone who is believed to be dead. Moiraine seems like an option, but not one that feels right. Any other big good guy deaths? I dunno. Birgitte?
I’m not sure that Avi is a reliable narrator in the last section, regarding her toh to Rand and Elayne. Toh to one means killing Rand and toh to the other means killing herself? It doesn’t many *any* sense that she’d meet toh to Rand for saving her life either by killing him, or killing herself. On the other hand, depending on Elayne’s mood, and which direction her fury goes, I could see her wanting Avi to either kill Rand or herself, or both.
So I think it’s safe to assume Avi is not making any sense.
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