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 49: The Mirror of Mists
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Rand al’Thor
Rand still wants Perrin to help with the plan to take Illian, but Perrin insists he needs to stay close to Rand to avoid a disaster. Loial comes in to the room after having a brief rest at an abandoned stedding. They tell Loial that his mother, and Elder Haman are looking for him with Erith, who is to become his wife. Rand plans to have Loial help place guards on all of the Waygates since they are all located near stedding.
Min rushes in to warn Rand that the Aes Sedai are coming―more than the three they agreed would be the limit. Seven are coming and Rand is not sure he can handle that many, even with the fat man angreal. Rand hastily goes to the throne room and gathers as many Aiel as he can. When the Aes Sedai arrive, they force their way in without ceremony. Demira Eriff speaks to Rand while the Aes Sedai channel an Illusion to make themselves larger. Demira says they will no longer follow Rand’s rules that limit their moving about the city and palace, they will decide themselves how many to bring to an audience with him, and he must show them proper respect. Rand channels, breaking the Illusion and shocking the Aes Sedai. He informs them that the restrictions stand, that they owe him respect as the Dragon Reborn, and they are dismissed.
Point of view: Min Farshaw
Despite Rand’s orders, Min observes the audience from a doorway, but doesn’t see much that helps. She does realize that there is some missing information that the Aes Sedai know and Rand does not that is causing the tension between them. She talks with Mahiro Shukosa, one of the warders staying at the inn.
While Mahiro is considering whether to tell Min anything, Bera Harkin and Kiruna Nachiman enter the room from the baths. Min knew they were sent to the Waste to find Rand so is surprised to find them here. They both show a bruised aura. Both make comments antagonistic to Rand. With the nine sisters from the embassy, Alanna and Verin, and now Bera and Kiruna, there are thirteen sisters, which is a dangerous number since linked they can overwhelm any man and gentle him. She excuses herself from Mahiro as quickly as she can without seeming to be in a hurry.
Point of view: Rand al’Thor
Rand is unhappy about the thirteen sisters in Caemlyn and decides to leave for Cairhien. He gives orders for those that wish to leave to gather at Perrin‘s room. He won’t leave Perrin behind, so Faile and Loial are coming also. He sends for paper so he can write letters. He writes a letter to Taim warning him to stay away from Caemlyn. He writes a letter to Merana. Then he opens a Gateway for everyone to Travel to Cairhien.
Point of view: Merana Ambrey
Merana has Rand’s letter which allows her to bring five other Sisters to Cairhien. She realizes her embassy has failed and is not sure how things will progress, now. When Alanna finally arrives, Kiruna berates her for not controlling Rand after bonding him. Alanna retorts that it is like uprooting an oak tree with bare hands. Alanna speculates that the bond does not work on channelers as it does on others. Kiruna firmly takes control of the group from Merana and chooses the embassy to Cairhien. The other sisters are to escort the Two Rivers girls to Salidar. Kiruna ignores Rand’s letter that allows only five Sisters and selects eight to accompany her.
REACTION:
This is a long chapter, but it’s a good one.
The most relaxed you ever feel in this series are moments when Rand, Mat, and Perrin are together. We get two of them here, and Loial is a more than adequate stand-in for Mat as the third – primarily because the other two are giving him a hard time about Ogier women. It’s a great start to a chapter that gets increasingly tense from this moment forward.
The light moment ends abruptly when Rand gets the idea to send Loial to the steddings to get help form the Ogier in closing the Waygates. Perrin is mad at Rand for suggesting this mere moments after Loial arrived. Rand is mad right back at Perrin, for failing to understand (in his view) that they don’t have time to relax or wait anymore. The tension turns up from there. I am on Rand’s side here. It’s literally the end of the world and Rand often seems to be the only person alive who appreciates the stakes. Min is the only person on the planet who doesn’t push back at Rand or tell him what to do… she just tries to help him. I get where Perrin was coming from there but he needs to just resign himself to this stuff, not complain about it.
We get our time bearings a little bit here. It’s been five days since someone dressed up as an Aiel stabbed one of the Aes Sedai (Demira) in Caemlyn. They’ve stewed for five days. Now they’re suddenly in the palace, breaking Rand’s rules about sending only three of them at once.
I just can’t get over how stupid this whole scene was, from the Aes Sedai side. Sometimes a bully only has one move in the playbook, and doesn’t know what to do when confronted with someone or something that can’t be bullied. They try anyway and the results go as you’d think. If anyone one of these women had thought about this at all, they’d have realized that this was a catastrophically bad idea.
The bully doesn’t know how to react when a tougher bully enters the room. The Aes Sedai have been Billy Bob Thornton for most of the last 3,000 years. Then Rand al’Earp is born and takes over.
What are the likely outcomes from the Mirror of Mists tactic?
1) They fight him and win. They can never let him go again if that happens. If they do let him go, he almost certainly views them as an enemy after. That’s a loss for their cause. If they don’t let him go, well, given that the world (universe, reality itself, etc.) need him to be free, this is a loss for them, too.
2) They fight him and lose. That’s a more straightforward one.
3) They successfully intimidate him without a fight. If they do this, doesn’t that send him to the White Tower Aes Sedai much more readily after they part ways? Yes. And that’s a loss for their cause.
4) They fail to intimidate him without it leading to a fight. This increases Rand’s position with them, makes them look weaker, makes his distrust of them grow, etc. Again… they lose.
They got option four, but what were they hoping for here? That Rand would sheepishly apologize for having Demira stabbed and then soften toward them moving forward? Does that make any sense at all? That’s delusional.
Rand is smart enough to realize that something has happened with the Aes Sedai about which he knows nothing, but the Aes Sedai (the people who negotiate with royals as a career) never bothered to mention why they were angry or give him an opportunity to deny the accusations. SIGH. Min is right that her warning him that they were on their way probably saved a lot of lives.
I laughed out loud to hear that one of the warders nicknamed Min, “cabbage.” I know that the 1980s gave us “cabbage patch” dolls. Is there some longer association culturally between human youth and cabbages? It’s a great nickname either way because it’s so odd.
Rand has to leave Caemlyn abruptly here. He – at least for now – abandons his rule over the country. It sure would be nice if Elayne had bothered showing up at some point to be the ruler here. But even if not, it would be nice if it seemed like she had any urgency about doing that. It was smart of Rand to realize that one of them would try to bond Perrin and it was also disgustingly true that they would since he wouldn’t have consented and it amounts to rape. As far as I can tell, these Salidar Aes Sedai are the Aes Sedai who we are kind of supposed to be siding with. They’re awful.
Rand comments to Min that he’d cut off his arm before he hurts her and she looks at him weirdly. So…. Rand is going to lose an arm? She’s the seer. That was clearly Jordan giving us a hint.
“That anyone could send such a letter to Aes Sedai disgusts me.” – Kiruna
The Salidar Embassy, new members recently arrived included, has learned nothing. None of them are questioning their assumption about Rand and the Aiel yet, either. They would if they thought about it at all. But… when a bully finally finds someone who cannot be bullied, it can sometimes unhinge said bully. That’s what is happening here with a lot of the Aes Sedai. Given Rand’s Black Tower and Taim, that will almost certainly grow worse and very soon.
We learn that Verin is the one who manipulated the group into that stupid confrontation idea. Did she want the Salidar Embassy to fail? As we noted above, it’s hard to imagine any scenario wherein their Mirror of Mists tactic was going to work. She’s portrayed as being incredibly clever, so she sent them to Rand knowing that what they’d do would fail. She then smiles when Merana tells them openly that they need Rand more than he needs them. Did she go through all of this to plant this truth seed? Did it take all of this just to plant that truth seed? What game is she playing? Is she trying to get them to realize that they need to bend the knee to him?
The end of the chapter reveals that the Aes Sedai Embassy’s “plan” had been to get Rand to leave Caemlyn “so that” Elayne could go there and be crowned. He’s gone. Did they arrange for Elayne to arrive? No. Rand is desperate for her to be crowned. Despite having the same goal, they worked against him… to what end? They wanted to avoid legitimacy concerns associated with the optics of him handing her a crown? Because they feared he wouldn’t leave despite his public statements to the contrary? They easily could have told him, when they met with him, what they were about, why he needed to leave first, etc., and the whole thing would have been arranged easily, and with Rand pleased besides. The whole world is at risk because Aes Sedai cannot / will not exercise power openly, and honestly, and instead rely on manipulation. They resorted to manipulation because they were afraid. They were afraid because they were listening to rumors instead of communicating openly and honestly. It’s a big circle of dumb.
Rand has now gone back to Cairhien, the Salidar Aes Sedai are following, and so is the Two Rivers military. It seems our end of the book showdown is going to happen in Cairhien, though we still don’t know who the combatants will be.