Welcome! After many months of chapter-by-chapter re-read and reaction blogging of Robert Jordan’s Lord of Chaos – the sixth book of The Wheel of Time series – I have made it to yet another end and another beginning in this circle-themed series. You can find my chapter recaps HERE.
Now I will endeavor to review the entire book as a completed project. There will be no spoilers beyond this book in my review. There will be spoilers for *this* book and all of the volumes that preceded it, though.
The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule.– Chant from a children’s game heard in Great Arvalon, the Fourth Age
The Plot
via wiki
With many of the seals on his prison broken, the Dark One has grown in power. He causes global warming, revives the Forsaken Aginor and Balthamel as Osan’gar and Aran’gar, and creates Shaidar Haran, his Myrddraal incarnation.
In response to Rand al’Thor‘s amnesty on male channelers, Mazrim Taim swears allegiance to him. Together they form the Black Tower, which trains male channelers called Asha’man. Rand is diplomatically courted by both the rebel Aes Sedai in Salidar, who send an envoy to Caemlyn, and the Aes Sedai of the White Tower, who send an envoy (many of which are in fact Black Ajah) to Cairhien. In an unsuccessful attempt to control Rand, Alanna Mosvani of the rebel Aes Sedai bonds Rand as her Warder against his will. Additionally, Min Farshaw, who had traveled with the Salidar Aes Sedai, reunites with Rand and gives him much-needed emotional support. Rand later discovers Salidar’s location and sends Mat Cauthon there, to retrieve Elayne Trakand who will rule Caemlyn and Cairhien in his stead.
Perrin Aybara leaves the Two Rivers to join Rand in Caemlyn.
The deposed Queen of Andor, Morgase Trakand, goes to Amadicia for aid in returning to the throne but is instead taken captive by the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light, Pedron Niall.
In Salidar, Elayne and Nynaeve al’Meara have made numerous magical discoveries thanks to Moghedien, who they secretly hold in captivity. In a feat previously believed to be impossible even in the Age of Legends, Nynaeve Heals Siuan Sanche, Leane Sharif, and Logain Ablar, restoring their abilities to channel. Egwene al’Vere is named the Amyrlin of the rebel Aes Sedai and travels to Salidar through Tel’aran’rhiod. Upon arrival, she unofficially raises Nynaeve and Elayne to Aes Sedai and sends them and Aviendha to Ebou Dar to search for a ter’angreal called the “Bowl of the Winds” to break the Dark One‘s control of the climate. Mat arrives at this time and reluctantly goes with them. After their departure, Egwene secretly arranges the escape of Logain, who then goes to the Black Tower. Aran’gar infiltrates Salidar and frees Moghedien.
Shortly after Perrin joins him, Rand is kidnapped by Elaida‘s Aes Sedai, who torture him en route to Tar Valon. Learning of the kidnapping, Perrin leads Rand’s followers to the climactic Battle of Dumai’s Wells. At the end of the battle, the rebel Aes Sedai are forced to swear fealty to the Dragon Reborn while the surviving White Tower Aes Sedai remain captives.
WHAT I LIKED
The Narrative Reset
The first five books were all excellent, but there was a pretty consistent narrative expectation from each. The good guys were going to face a scheme from the bad guys, become initially ensnared by it, but then grow enough to overcome the plot. Every book so far has ended with the good guy(s) leveling up in some incredible and enjoyable way. The problem at the halfway point of the series is that each book arc has felt too familiar and too easy. The other problem is that the plot seems to have overcome the two highest ranking and most dangerous of Rand and his friends’ Forsaken opponents. How can the bad guys that remain live up to that?
This book has largely been Jordan’s answer to those problems. We learn in this book that unless one of the Forsaken dies via Balefire, the Dark One can resurrect him or her in a new body. As a result, a not insignificant amount of the work done to this point feels lost – which is to the story’s benefit. The book also successfully shift’s Rand’s successes into burdens. The weight of rule – over the Aiel, Cairhien, Andor, etc., is weighing on Rand. Jordan also now has a greater number of schemes that seem to be happening simultaneously. We aren’t just dealing primarily with something dreamed up by Ba’alzamon, or Lanfear, but instead we have Demandred, Sammael, Graendal Moghedien, Halima (formerly Balthamel), the Black Ajah, and others all working against Rand at once.
On top of all of that, and probably because of all of that, Jordan successfully sells the threat of Rand’s insanity. The end result is that Lord of Chaos shifts the tone of the series from one where victory feels inevitable to one where it seems much less likely.
The Ending
Jordan is famous for the big endings to his books. This one might have been his best effort so far in the series. The hero with the built-in plot armor is the one who needed rescuing. This allowed the hero’s allies to step forward. The change from Rand doing the heavy lifting to his friends doing it was narratively refreshing.
The ending built on the sense of this book serving as a reset for the series. After it ended, it felt as though the in-book universe had dramatically changed. The Ashaman arguably wrestled away from the White Tower the mantle of “most powerful group of channelers on the continent” for the first time in 3,000 years. Yes, we know that the Black Tower did not fight all of the women who can channel. But they absolutely obliterated a large group of them and they got to this point in the span of only this book.
Further, this book changes our understanding of war going forward, too. The most fierce fighters that we know of are the Aiel. The Ashaman used the One Power against them in battle, to such a degree, that they had the Shaido running for their lives. It felt, as a reader, like the story dropped the equivalent of 1,000 heavily armed modern day U.S. Marines into the middle of a Medieval battle and turned them loose. The absolute carnage of just this one battle changes the in-world story.
To then top it all off, the epilogue implies strongly that this rescue operation went exactly as the Dark One wanted it to go. For the first time in the series, this book left me wondering whether the good guys won, or if they’re even winning in general.
WHAT I DID NOT LIKE
Perhaps this is to be expected in a book wherein the author needs to rebuild doubt about the ultimate victory of his protagonists, but other than at the end, there just weren’t a lot of really great moments for the series’ growing cast of characters. None of Nynaeve, Elayne, Egwene, Mat, or Perrin had any really great moments. Egwene got the second most amount of page time, behind Rand, and even her elevation to Amyrlin Seat felt like a thing that happened to her, rather than a thing she accomplished.
In the same vein, Jordan sets up a lot of bad guy plots and the book ended without any clear or obvious wins or losses. Sammael is still free, doing whatever he wants, and seeming to be the most pressing imminent threat. Demandred ends the book laughing with the Dark One about what he’s done, but we haven’t seen him do much on the page (though we should assume he is involved with, or leading, Taim’s Black Tower.) Moghedien is freed without any big battles. Halima is in Egwene’s camp, but did not actually do anything there. We learned that Mesaana is in the White Tower, but if she was directing events in this book, her hand of involvement was hidden. We saw Semirhage break an Aes Sedai and a Warder, via torture, but we do not yet know to what end she did so.
It feels as though, as a result of this book, that an attack might come from any direction at any time, to any of our protagonists, which should make the story-telling easier going forward, but a lot of this book was simply set-up for the future rather than plot that paid off right here.
INTERESTING NEW STORY ELEMENTS
- Rand created a place for men to learn to channel, and in the span of one book, it grew so rapidly that it might now be more powerful than the White Tower. He also put that place in the care of Mazrim Taim, who gives every appearance of being a Darkfriend.
- Rand’s insanity has progressed to a point where he’s now conversing, back and forth, with the voice in his head. He’s also going to have serious mental health problems following his captivity and torture. So he’s moving toward an ‘Anakin becomes Darth Vader’ stage of his character arc development.
- The Aiel are now openly hostile to the White Tower AND we’ve learned they have enough female channelers to pose a threat to them.
- Egwene – loyal to the Aiel Wise Ones to some degree – is now the Amyrlin Seat of the Rebel Aes Sedai.
- Nynaeve, Elayne, and Mat are in Ebou Dar looking for a ter’angreal to fix the Randland climate change crisis. This arc was largely a setup for future books, but in addition to the ter’angreal, we know there are a cache of other One Power objects present, a group of red-belt wearing women who channel in the city, and that the city is being scouted for an attack by the recent returned Seanchan.
- The Seanchan appear to have taken Tanchico off-page with further plans to grab Ebou Dar soon, as well. I’m guessing round two with them will be more difficult than was round one.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This is not a bad book, but it is probably the weakest book in the series so far. It also has the best ending. Those two things end up being pretty difficult to weigh against each other, when deciding how I feel about it. Jordan uses Lord of Chaos to reset the story’s growing number of plot threads and to build doubt about whether the Light will defeat the Dark – a victory which felt increasingly assured through the first five books. This was necessary work on the author’s part, and well-written for what it was, but it just wasn’t as much fun to read as the earlier books which gave us more victories to celebrate alongside the characters and moments of catharsis. Jordan does reward his readers for sticking with the book, by delivering an incredible finish.
I’m looking forward to digging into A Crown of Swords next.
