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 47: The Wandering Woman
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Matrim Cauthon
Mat, Olver, Thom, Juilin, and some of the soldiers from the Band are traveling to Ebou Dar with Elayne, Nynaeve, Aviendha, Birgitte, Vandene, and Adeleas.
After the evening meal, Elayne tells Mat that each evening he is to give her his ter’angreal for her to study, and that he will receive it back the following morning. She reasons that since according to the Law of the White Tower, all ter’ angreal are the property of the White Tower, she technically has a right to take it from him.
Mat refuses, and Elayne starts commenting on his handling of his men and camp as if she were in charge. For the rest of the trip, the Aes Sedai periodically channel at Mat, trying different weaves to see if all weaves are neutralized by his foxhead medallion.
Although Mat only wants to talk to her, Nynaeve avoids him, as she is still worried about the kick she gave him.
After four days of mostly ignoring the channeling the Aes Sedai subject him to, one of them uses saidar to throw horse dung at him, which makes him aware that the medallion does have certain limitations on its protections. They arrive in Ebou Dar and move into the city until they are in a large square with the Tarasin Palace on one side. Everything seems so peaceful that Mat doesn’t understand why the dice start rolling around in his head. The women plan to go in to the palace where Queen Tylin resides and other Aes Sedai from Salidar expect them. Mat decides he wants no queen, no palace, and especially no nobles, so he randomly picks an inn instead. He heads over to the inn he chose, the Wandering Woman and meets the innkeeper, Setalle Anan, at which point the dice stop rolling.
REACTION:
Elayne is insufferable. If this series has any long stretches that are hard to slog through, it’s the sections of the story where Elayne is a heavily-featured character. Her vice here is insinuating that Mat’s medallion is hers by right and then telling him to give it to her daily, for study. Mat has every right to play dumb and this infuriates her.
“Do you remember something from the Stone that gives you a right to make demands of me? I don’t.”
My internal monologue: “TELL HER OFF!”
She, of course, doesn’t self-reflect. She just immediately sets out to undermine him in front of his men. INSUFFERABLE. Then to make it worse, all the women start channeling at him in what can only be described as being in abusive fashion, masquerading as “study.” They eventually figure out that while the power can’t touch him, they can use it to throw things at him. Adeleas throws dung at him. DUNG.
The whole group of these women are bullies and they feel justified in bullying Mat because they’ve convinced themselves, somehow, that he deserves it. All he’s ever done to them is save them from the Black Ajah and being forcibly turned to the Shadow by one of the Forsaken. You know, the sort of thing that should have led to them weeping and groveling their thanks at his feet. He traveled across a continent to do it, had to have multiple fights to the death along the way, and then successfully sieged the Stone – which had never fallen before in 3,000 years – BY HIMSELF.
They never even said thank you. They acted like he was bothering them. In one of their most recent interactions, Nynny kicked Mat so hard that she seriously bruised his backside.
Ungrateful. Narcissistic. Self-important. Awful.
Nynaeve… maybe you make *some* excuses for her for all of this due to her prior relationship with Mat. We don’t actually know what that looked like, as it pre-dated the start of the series. He might have earned his reputation with her, though I doubt it. But Elayne? She has no excuse at all. And unlike Nynaeve, she’s never done anything to make up for her behavior, not just with Mat, but with the Readers. Nynny beat Moggy twice. She led the rescue effort to save Egwene. Elayne is just… pretty?
I think the whole sequence of them torturing Mat is supposed to be funny. But to get there, you need to think Mat deserves this in some way as repayment for his orneriness, or that mild torture is humorous. He doesn’t deserve any of this. It’s crazy. Maybe Jordan just thinks Mat deserves this to balance out his luck. Jordan was big on balance within his cosmology.
I do think at some point that Birgitte and Avi will find out the whole story with Mat saving them in the Stone. I don’t think either will be impressed with Nyn or Elayne. But we as the Readers need a genuine and sincere about-face from Elayne… just so we can have the option to like her. Ordinarily, her relationship with Mat is the type of relationship that ends up romantic. That’s not an option here, I don’t think, so I don’t know how Jordan fixes this.
One conversation from this chapter that was actually funny was Thom and Juilin assuring Mat that Birgitte could actually shoot her bow. They know her real identity but they’re keeping it secret from Mat because they said they would. I wonder what would have happened if she had accepted Mat’s challenge to see who shot better? She’s the more naturally gifted but he’s wildly lucky and ta’veren. Maybe a tie? Maybe he loses but losing works to his benefit? (Mat is *very* good with a bow, and was so at the start of the books, and there’s no way that the additional memories didn’t improve his skills further.)
Speaking of Mat being ta’veren, given that he picked the inn, The Wandering Woman, at random, we should guess that this was the plan of the Pattern for some reason. If that wasn’t enough, Jordan tells us that the dice stopped rolling in his head when he walked inside. So… maybe the girls getting on Mat’s nerves so much that he refused to stay with them in the Royal Palace was all part of the Pattern’s plan? Seems that way. I guess we’ll find out why. I really like this as a way to clue in the readers to really be paying attention to what happens in the next chapter. Obviously something or someone at this inn is very important to the future of the world… or at least to the future of Mat and through him the world.
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