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 38: A Sudden Chill
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Matrim Cauthon
Mat and the Band are riding toward Salidar in the burning heat of what should be a fall day. Aviendha is walking beside him as she has all three days of the journey since Rand put them through a Gateway from Cairhien. Vanin returns and reports Warders captured two of their scouts and Salidar is only eight to ten miles away. Vanin slipped into the village and figures there are three hundred Aes Sedai, perhaps more, plus an army twice the size of Mat’s off to the north.
Aviendha heads off on her own, so Mat gives command of the Band to Talmanes and catches up to her with just a few others of the Band, including the bannermen. To Mat’s surprise, Aviendha insists on riding behind him on the horse. In the village, Mat sees Birgitte with a bow, but doesn’t recognize her from Falme when he blew the Horn of Valere (or from the memories given him by the Finn). Mat asks after Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve and an Aes Sedai leads him to the Little Tower to meet with the Amyrlin. A crowd begins to gather around. Anaiya brings Nicola who can see a glow around Mat since she has the Talent for seeing ta’veren. The rest of the Aes Sedai are focused on Aviendha, recognizing that she can channel and has enormous strength compared to them. The Aes Sedai begin asking Aviendha questions with the intention of getting her to become a Novice.
Nynaeve appears and asks Mat if he has anything to do with the dragonsworn army nearby and he replies that he is in command, but they are not dragonsworn. Nynaeve leads him to a room with Elayne and Egwene, with Egwene wearing the Amyrlin’s stole. Mat snatches it off her shoulders and dresses her down for pretending to be the Amyrlin. The foxhead medallion goes cold when one of the women tries to use the Power to stop him. Mat begins a long string of orders to the three women and won’t listen to what they are trying to tell them. A Novice comes in to see if Egwene needs anything and addresses her as Mother.
REACTION:
It just occurred to me that when Rand told Mat there there might only be 50 Aes Sedai here, and to loom a little and to intimidate them… he very likely knew that this was bad intel. He probably gave it to convince Mat to go at all. He’s gotten good at manipulation. We saw Rand lie right to Egwene’s face a few chapters back when he promised to treat the White Tower Aes Sedai as she asked – knowing full well she wanted and expected him to do the opposite of what she was telling him. He lied to her, did what she said, what she really wanted (the opposite of what she said) and he let her know he could see through her tactics. He probably did something similar with Mat to send him on this journey.
Mat asks for the Supergirls once he arrived in Salidar and is told he’d be taken to see the Amyrlin Seat. This leads to one of the funniest interactions in the series. I want to confess and then explain away what might sound like hypocrisy on my part as the Reader. The women in the series are CONSTANTLY acting as though the men are not capable of tying their shoes in the correct way without assistance. It annoys me and I complain about it. Mat, Perrin, and especially Rand all grow, display overt competency, and Eggy/Nyn are the very last to accept that their friends from back home have changed, evolved, become competent at something new, etc. Nynaeve acts like Mat leading troops is an insane idea, when she sees him, but it’s not like this is a new development. He’s been doing it for months and Egwene knows that nearly all of the military people consider Mat a genius. She hasn’t told the Wisdom what Mat’s been up to yet? To be fair, I guess they’ve been busy. But for people allegedly focused on saving the world, they’re quick to forget two of the three ta’veren. This is the same mistake Moiraine made.
It might seem like Mat is doing the same thing (not accepting growth/competence) here with Egwene as Amyrlin and if I weren’t being hypocritical his failure should annoy me… except that in his case he’s spent time with her, including recently, he has rescued her personally more than once (and not been thanked after), and as of about three or four days ago, he knows – KNOWS – that she was an Accepted. He has every reason to doubt that she’s Amyrlin and they have every obligation to explain it to him… not that he lets them. They don’t try very hard, though, and they put his back up by trying to use the One Power on him before the conversation even had a chance to start. So he lays into them and they deserve it.
The humor of that whole exchange is that what Mat tells Egwene really isn’t wrong. He says that whoever let herself be named Amyrlin, in a village in the middle of nowhere, must not be very bright. This is the negative spin of what Egwene has thought herself about this situation. She’s accepted it and is trying to make the best of it, but he’s essentially speaking her anxiety out loud.
Then the humor is piled on by Mat finding out that they aren’t lying. That doesn’t make what he just said wrong. It’s probably funnier because it’s true and the situation is worse than he thought. The women feel like they won the exchange though. The way that the next chapter *should* go is that they calmly admit the situation is crazy, but explain it’s more under control than he thinks. It won’t go that way, though. It’s likely they’ll act as though he’s insane for his completely reasonable reaction.
Note 1: Aviendha is swarmed by Aes Sedai who want her to be a novice. We haven’t really seen her (or any of the Aiel, really) play the fish out of water role yet, so that’s fun. None of the Aiel in the Two Rivers were really fish out of water, there. This is the inverse of Egwene among the Wise Ones. How will Avi do? Will an Aes Sedai end up being her Sorilea? What would the Aes Sedai version of Sorilea even be? She’ll return to the Three Fold Land a genius at the Game of Houses? She’ll be able to lie to people without actually technically lying?
I guess she’ll have Egwene to report to, at the top end anyway. Maybe Eggy will be her Sorilea?
Note 2: Nicola can see Ta’veren. She seems to have a lot of interesting talents. We saw her have the Foretelling back in Chapter 14. We also know she’s *almost* as strong in the One Power as Eggy and Elayne. It’s easy to forget that she arrived in the story alongside Moggy. We should keep an eye on Nicole Treehill.
Related to nothing, her name always reminds me of the greatest television show in history:
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