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 31: Red Wax
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Eamon Valda
Valda is unhappy with the orders that recalled him to Amador from Tar Valon where he sensed weakness in the White Tower that he was planning to exploit. He believes Pedron Niall has not taken the proper direction on handling al’Thor or on many other things. He recognizes Dain Bornhald, but is disgusted to discover that the man is drunk. A questioner suggests that Valda visit the Dome of Truth where he meets Rhadam Asunawa. They agree to make plans to remove Niall from his position as Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light.
Point of view: Pedron Niall
Niall notices Valda arrive and speak to Bornhald. He has a feeling that Valda means trouble. Balwer has some reports and a message tube to give to Niall. The message tube talks about Aes Sedai on leashes in Tarabon. Niall plans to send a messenger to his agent in Tanchico.
Point of view: Morgase Trakand
Paitr Conel and his uncle have plans for helping Morgase and her party sneak out of Amador. A Questioner, Einor Saren comes to escort Morgase to a meeting with Niall. Saren takes a ‘shortcut’, different than the way Morgase usually goes. In a courtyard there is a gallows with about fifteen men and women about to be hung. Paitr and his uncle are on the platform. As Morgase watches, the trap doors are opened and all of them fall to their deaths. Paitr’s neck doesn’t break, so he struggles until he strangles. Saren explains that this was a group of Darkfriends that were caught holding some kind of ritual for the Dark One.
When she arrives at Niall’s office she tells him she agrees to a treaty which is already prepared and dictates terms very favorable to the Whitecloaks. Morgase realizes that it could take a long time for Elayne to nullify the terms. As soon as she is done signing the paper and marking it with a copy of her seal, Niall informs her that he won’t be able to move against Rand as soon as he’d thought.
Point of view: Rhadam Asunawa
Asunawa noticed that Morgase reacted to the Darkfriends on the gallows but he never considered questioning if they had dealings with her. He plans a long drawn out trial with a dramatic confession at the end followed by the first execution of a Queen in Whitecloak history.
REACTION:
This is a chapter about *not quite* having enough accurate information.
Eamon Valda has been slaughtering everyone on the road, on his way toward the Fortress of the Light. He can’t sort out who is who, so he is killing everyone and letting the Creator sort them out. So he’s a psychopath. He’s also completely deluded to think the Nations would have rallied to the Children against Rand al’Thor, even if they had acted to make that happen early on. The problem is that the nations have dealt with several False Dragons, even a couple who could channel. Needing to rally against al’Thor indicates he is the Dragon in truth. That truth would have undercut the desire of some leaders to rally to them. So there was no way this was happening under any circumstances. He also kind of sets aside the reality that the White Tower would be a preferable place to which most would have rallied.
Dain Bornhald is present and – as he was toward the end in the Two Rivers – he is drunk. Jordan is leaving him around, as a character, so I assume he’s going to run into Perrin again at some point. He’s another one that has made bad choices on the basis of not knowing as much as he thinks he does.
Niall is an interesting contrast to Valda – almost admirable. After hearing Valda muse in his POV that he would torture Morgase into compliance, Niall is trying to win her voluntary consent. The Whitecloak organization itself attracts psychopaths, but it also attracts men who want to do the right thing (even if they are wrong about what that is.) Geofram Bornhald was one such. Niall doesn’t reflect on the idea that Morgase is plotting an escape. I wonder if he’s failing to believe that it’s possible. That lack indicates he doesn’t know.
Niall has a flaw, and that’s a lack of imagination. He cannot imagine that supernatural things might be real, so it causes him to discount evidence in front of him (Rand channeling he accounts to Aes Sedai, reports of the Seanchan he attributes to his man on the ground going insane, Valda being dangerous to him is something he discounts, too.)
He gives a list of four rules concerning action and information, and he violates one of them pretty overtly.
- Never make a plan without knowing as much as you can about your enemy
- Never be afraid to change your plans when you receive new information
- Never believe you know everything
- Never wait to know everything
Niall violates Rule #3 with both Rand and with the Seanchan. This third rule is one guided a little bit by intuition. Something irrational has to sometimes tell you that what you believe is wrong, despite there being no evidence that it is wrong. That’s the situation he’s in with Rand and the Seanchan. He remembers a time when he “violated” the 3rd rule, based on a feeling, and it proved his salvation. His intuition in a battle years ago told him to watch impassable mountains, because he had a hunch they were passable. They were. As his POV here ends, he notes he has that feeling again.
I think he’s wrong though about having once “violated” the rule. In truth, he followed the rule by trusting that he did not know everything. The thing he thought he knew turned out to be wrong. He hedged and it saved him. He’s starting to worry now that he should be hedging. We’ll see if he comes around quickly enough to save himself.
Morgase’s escape plan with Paitr (the Darkfriend Rand and Mat met in Four Kings, in book #1) fails. She doesn’t know she was plotting with a group of Darkfriends. Paitr and the other Darkfriends in on the plot got caught doing a ritual to the Dark One, so they all hang. Morgase is wrong to think that anyone knew she was plotting with them. We get confirmation at the end of the chapter that Asunawa did not know, and Niall’s POV indicates he did not know, either. That lack of knowing probably saved her life. She thinks they knew and were leveraging their deaths to get her to sign the treaty – which she did.
Asunawa was watching closely to see how she reacts to the hangings. He thinks she’s a Darkfriend and he found a nest of Darkfriends. But he didn’t know they were overtly connected to her. If he had, he would have arranged for her to die or be hang AND he would have been wrong. Asunawa is also conspiring with Valda, who probably *is* a Darkfriend.
Misunderstandings due to lack of complete information abound.
I think we should believe that Niall is genuinely surprised that Morgase agreed to his terms because his POV section didn’t indicate he had this ace up his sleeve. She agreed because she wrongly believed Niall was behind the hangings. Well, kind of. She suspected it might have been Asunawa, but it didn’t occur to her that Niall did not even know they hanged, or that neither Niall nor Asunawa connected them to her. She also wrongly believes that they probably weren’t even Darkfriends.
She also wrongly interprets Rand’s intentions. He’s truly sincere in wanting to put a Trakand back on the throne and to leave. She imagines him using the ruler of Andor as a puppet. If Rand had known Morgase was alive and in Amadicia, he probably would have Traveled to her and rescued her. So Rand did not quite know enough, either.
The chapter ends with Niall not wanting to move immediately. If Morgase had surrendered to him even one day earlier, he would have moved at once. The “feeling” in the back of his mind, regarding the Seanchan, is going to slow him down.
Summing up this tangle: Niall is finally starting to believe the Seanchan might be a real threat, and one that is on his border. He decided to pause his plans with Morgase to investigate them further. Little does he know that Valda and Asunawa are plotting against him inside the Fortress of the Light. So he has multiple growing threats on his door. Morgase gave him permission to enter Andor with armies. She doesn’t know or understand that Rand and his armies would eviscerate them. Neither does Niall.
All of this was set into motion by Niall finally feeling a hunch after another message from Tarabon and also by a group of Darkfriends being caught and hanged – with neither Niall nor Asunawa realizing they were connected to Morgase (and her not realizing they didn’t know they were connected to her.)
Note: One of the bizarre insights into the Children is the fact that they celebrate hanging the corpse of an Aes Sedai, 693 years ago.
“She had been dead already, live witches being somewhat more hard to hang, but that was beside the point.”
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