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.
Prologue: Lightnings
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Elaida
Elaida watches from the top of the tallest tower in Tar Valon as workmen below work to construct her new palace on what used be the Warders‘ practice yard. She lives and usually works in her rooms in the Tower even though it means many stairs to climb. She recognizes that the Last Battle is approaching due to the unseasonable heat that persists into winter. She re-reads a message from Cairhien, telling her that Rand al’Thor has been captured by Galina‘s forces twelve days ago.
Alviarin enters with reports. Elayne and Nynaeve are in Ebou Dar, so Elaida orders them to be taken, using Forkroot, and brought to the Tower. She also orders that Toveine, a former Red Sitter who was exiled for her involvement in the Vileness, is to take fifty sisters and two hundred of the guard to take the men who can channel at the Black Tower, despite Alviarin saying there may be four hundred men there who can channel. Alviarin also reports that the Salidar Aes Sedai are on the move, with Egwene al’Vere as their chosen Amyrlin and Gareth Bryne leading an army of twenty thousand for them. Alviarin suggests increasing the Tower Guard, but Elaida scoffs at the idea. Then she has a Foretelling:
“The White Tower will be whole again, except for remnants cast out and scorned, whole and stronger than ever. Rand al’Thor will face the Amyrlin Seat and know her anger. The Black Tower will be rent in blood and fire, and sisters will walk its grounds. This I Foretell.”
— Elaida
Point of view: Sevanna
Sevanna is readying the Shaido for the attack on the Aes Sedai at Dumai’s Wells so she can capture Rand al’Thor, the Car’a’carn. She is already making plans for her wedding and on how to prevent the Wise Ones from sending a man to Rhuidean to become the new clan chief of the Shaido so she can remain in charge. One of the Aiel reports a scout for the Aes Sedai escaped, so Sevanna orders all of the spears to attack immediately, ignoring counsel from the sept chiefs to keep back a screen.
The Aes Sedai erect a barrier of Air that keeps the Aiel out. A battle between the Wise Ones and the Aes Sedai begins with fireballs and lighting. A lightning strike near Sevanna knocks her back to the ground and kills some of the Wise Ones near her. Then, without warning, a wolf kills one of the Wise Ones near Sevanna and then she sees wetlander and Aiel forces attacking from the south. A loud boom sounds from the direction of the Aes Sedai, then some some strange flashes of light that Sevanna doesn’t understand. The Aes Sedai efforts appear to be waning, but then a dome appears around the encampment, stopping all efforts by the Wise Ones and the algai’d’siswai to attack.
Then a slaughter of the Shaido begins when the earth begins erupting all around the dome. They finally break and try to run even while those behind press forward. Finally Sevanna leaves the battle with the rest of the survivors. She still has the call box.
Point of view: Alviarin Freidhen
Alviarin notes to herself all of the different factions among the Aes Sedai as well as the fear of what Elaida might do next. Alviarin wonders if she will need to kill Elaida as she has killed others. Mesaana is in her room to receive information and give orders. Alviarin believes Mesaana must be hiding in the White Tower, as one of the sisters that had been absent for many years. Mesaana decides to teach Alviarin how to weave a Gateway, but warns her to not teach anyone else or use it without permission.
Point of view: Pedron Niall
Niall is losing at stones to Morgase. She requests to see her son Galad, but Niall does not want him to know his mother is kept as a prisoner by the Whitecloaks. Their talk is interrupted by Abdel Omerna, the faux spymaster for the Whitecloaks. He brings a message from Tarabon, then moves close to Niall and stabs him with a knife. Eamon Valda enters and kills Omerna. The message is about the existence of the Seanchan army and Niall considers it of the highest importance.
Point of view: Eamon Valda
Asunawa enters and prevents Valda from finishing off Niall. Valda plans to engage the Prophet‘s mob and then enter Andor with Morgase even though Asunawa wants to put Morgase to the question immediately. Niall’s final act is to try to draw Valda’s attention to the message. However, the ink is destroyed by the wine spilt over the floor.
Point of view: Gawyn Trakand
Gawyn is trying to regroup the Younglings that survived the Dumai’s Wells and escaped from Perrin‘s force. He has around two hundred men left from almost six hundred that left Tar Valon. He spies an Aes Sedai nearby but her horse is killed and there are Aiel nearby. Before he can rescue her, another group of Aiel attack his men and by the time the skirmish is over, the Sister is gone.
REACTION:
This is a LOOOONG prologue. I’ve read entire books shorter than this prologue. If I remember correctly, a few books into the series, the publisher started selling the prologues prior to the rest of the book, as something like an appetizer. This incentivized Jordan to make the prologues enormous. The strategy wouldn’t have worked if the prologue was 20 pages.
Anyways… let’s jump in.
The Elaida POV
The book opens with an extremely clever insight into a now power-mad Elaida’s mind. Jordan is fantastic at portrayals of madness from inside the mind of the mad person (as we’ve seen with Rand already.) He writes Elaida in such a way where the internal logic makes a certain amount of sense, but looks less coherent from farther away. She’s building a palace for herself. She’s convinced she’s about to have the White Tower in hand, and maybe she will if she gets Rand in hand… yet she simultaneously admits that everything seems to run through Alviarin. “I will be the greatest woman of al time” doesn’t jibe with “my Keeper might outrank me.”
The most interesting bit of news is that I think Jordan clarifies in this prologue that Elaida is not a Darkfriend. I don’t remember there being such a clear confirmation before. She attached herself to the royal family of Andor because she had a Foretelling that the royal family of Andor was the key to winning the Last Battle. Her thoughts indicate she plans to send Rand to win the Last Battle. Does she misinterpret her own Foretelling? I think so. She doesn’t know that Rand’s mother is Tigraine (i.e. that the previous Royal Family of Andor was the key via Rand, and not the one that succeeded them.) But her intentions, however misguided, are for the Light to win.
She obviously misinterprets a lot of things, including Egwene’s appointment. That said, her interpretation (Egwene was chosen to be a sacrificial lamb by the Salidar group) makes sense. She touches on the actual truth – that she’d be a handle on Rand when thinking about what a pity it will be to have to execute Egwene. She doesn’t seem to have any malice in those thoughts. She genuinely views it as a pity.
Why is she so crazy? To some extent, I think she was always ambitious – evident by her actions re: Siuan. Of course, ambition is not crazy and even Siuan said repeatedly, before her downfall, that if anyone ever found out what she and Moiraine were up to that she’d be doomed. But lest we forget, Elaida got a blast of whatever it is that Padan Fain does to people. That madness seed to be bearing madness fruit now. Whatever she does, and however bad things go from here as a result… to some extent it’s probably fair to view Elaida as a bit of a victim. Would Elaida sans Fain be building her own palace? Probably not.
Elaida ends her section with a Foretelling. This is so good. She definitely contines her lifelong tragedy of misinterprets it (we know though she doesn’t that Rand has already escaped his capture) but Alviarin also misinterprets it, which will have interesting consequences. She’ll have to re-think the extent and degree to which she manipulates Elaida because this Foretelling strongly implies an Elaida victory. Nothing Mesaana says later really changes that part of it, for Alviarin.
“The White Tower will be whole again, except for remnants cast out and scorned, whole and stronger than ever. Rand al’Thor will face the Amyrlin Seat and know her anger. The Black Tower will be rent in blood and fire, and sisters will walk its grounds. This I Foretell.”
— Elaida
Alternative interpretation: The Rebels win, Egwene is Amyrlin Seat of a united White Tower, she adds to the WT’s strength her newly formed friendship with the Aiel Wise Ones (and maybe the Sea Folk?), and Rand makes her angry (as usual.) There is a battle at the Black Tower, involving Aes Sedai, though the outcome is not specified.
The Sevanna POV
In her own way, Sevanna is as power mad as Elaida, except that she cannot blame anyone outside of herself (so far as we know.) Though if Asmodean had enough access to Couladin to put Car’a’carn tattoos on his arms, he might have messed with Sevanna’s brain as well, via Compulsion. At least in Sevanna’s case we don’t know.
We get to see Dumai’s Wells again from her perspective. I am not complaining. This is the best battle sequence in the series, to date, and this section provided more detail. The net result here is that we see with confidence that the Aes Sedai are not as far above the Wise Ones as we might have believed before. The best moment of that whole section is her fear (unusual for Aiel) over seeing wolves fighting. She’s wrong about why they’re there, but it’s fun to see.
We learn – and this makes sense – that the reason the Shaido attacked the Aes Sedai wagons, without taking into account Perrin’s group that is following, is because Sevanna overrode and ignored what her scouts wanted to warn her about. This was obviously a critical tactical error. If she’d waited, she might have been in position to attack the backs of Perrin’s group (though that would have meant the risk of Rand being freed first.)
Either way, there was no way to prepare for the Ashaman. Rand’s male channelers were a wall of death. It’s important to remember here just how much the entire world – Aiel included – dread male channelers. The Aiel deal with their fear in their own way (but not showing it and accepting death,) but they still get rid of every man who can channel. This whole section is so well-written, especially Sevanna’s wrong belief (and excitement) that Rand might be doing all of the male channeling by himself. She is excited about how much power she might wield through him. Then grim reality sets in and they all run. Jordan is so great at writing battle. It’s unbelievable to watch the Aiel run for their lives.
The Alviarin POV
You don’t really pity her, but you understand how stressful her job is. She’s got a madwoman with delusions of grandeur, that she’s supposed to control, on one side and one of the Forsaken on the other. Both want to squish her, but if the latter does she probably suffers endless torment by the Dark One.
As suspected, Alviarin is freaked out by Elaida’s Foretelling. She reports to Mesaana while simultaneously knowing that the latter had eavesdropped on the meeting She also thinks that she’s also met Lanfear and Graendal in the White Tower. We saw Lanfear there, and doing stuff, but this tells us that Lanfear was busier than what we saw on the page. (Another hint of that was that we know Lanfear – disguised as Else – visited the Warders in their practice yard and was surprised by mat there.)
*Side note… my theory that Lanfear might have Compulsed Gawyn to hate Rand has not just motive but ON THE PAGE opportunity.
She’s also met Be’lal and Ishamael. The former indicates she was involved in the flight of the Black Ajah to Tear and/or the plot to send the Supergirls after them. Ishy appointed her head of the Black Ajah – a position she still has. Did we know that already? That’s important, I think.
Alviarin reasons out that Mesaana is hiding in the Tower, but doesn’t have a good guess as to who she is.
Note for later: Alviarin decides not to send *any* Black Sisters to the Black Tower. The chapter ends with Alviarin learning how to Travel. That feels like a significant rebalancing against the fact that Egwene’s crew knows how to do this already.
The Pedron Niall POV
We hear yet again just how clever Morgase is. The proof is that she’s good at the game of Stones. HOWEVER… what exactly have we seen from her to indicate that being good at Stones translates to being clever in life?
- Thom is credited as the primary political weapon she had when taking the Thrones
- When we meet her (years after Thom is exiled) her rule is being questioned openly by riots in the streets
- We can’t really blame her for Gaebril, but
- It never made any sense to ask the Whitecloaks for help.
Niall gets assassinated by his fake Spymaster. Niall – like Siuan Sanche before him – spent so much time looking at the world that he was undone by the realities locally. Before he dies, we learn via a stray thought that Carridin has orders concerning Elayne.
Omerna gives Niall a sealed message, which confirms the Seanchan. But as Niall reads, Omerna kills him so that’s a larger threat that feels like it’s about to strike. Omerna then dies at the hands of Valda. He was probably put up to do this by Valda and also set up by Valda to take the fall. Valda’s hands remain clean of the act that clears his path to the power among the Children.
Jordan writes Niall’s thoughts as he dies. It’s again… such good writing. We get to read as his coherence slips away from him. However, he does succeed – we think – in getting Omerna’s message about the Seanchan into his hand before dying.
The Valda POV
We get to see him argue with Asunawa over Morgase. Valda wants to use her to gain control over Andor. I’d guess he’ll do it less gently than Niall would have. We also learn this whole assassination plot was Asunawa’s idea.
Balwer witnesses the aftermath of the killings with neither Valda nor Asunawa realizing his actual role. Valda actually considers him a useless embarrassment.
Here we learn that Niall failed in death at saving the Omerna message about the Seanchan. It ended up in a puddle of wine and the message was lost. We don’t actually know what the message says but Niall’s level of panic over making sure Valda sees it is telling.
He had to know that Valda was behind the Omerna plot. Even still… he wanted Valda to be warned. So… the Seanchan must be a threat to the Children themselves. That’s the direction of the clues, anyway.
The Gawyn POV
He still wants to kill Rand. He just witnesses his brutal torture for a week? Two weeks? No sympathy for him at all. No pity. No thought that he might be wrong re: Rand killing his mother. In this section, he thinks to himself that Elayne loving Rand was justification for killing Rand. That’s… crazy.
I’m in the camp of “Lanfear, disguised as Else Grinwell, compulsed Gawyn at the Warder yards in Tar Valon into hating Rand.” It seems fair to guess now that Egwene’s demand that he promise not to lay a hand against Rand is the only thing that kept him from assassinating Rand while he was a captive.
If we’re keeping score as to “who saved who,” this one goes in Egwene’s column for a change. She definitely owed Rand one. The crazy thing is that neither of Rand nor Egwene are likely ever to know that she saved his life. It’s extra ironic that Gawyn’s devotion to Egwene – which might also have been comulsed into him by Lanfear – is the thing that holds him back against his unnatural (and probably compulsed) hatred of Rand.
Balance.
Gawyn sees an Aes Sedai in the aftermath of the battle but doesn’t get to her before he is overtaken by the battle. After… she’s gone. The implication of the writing is that she was taken captive by the Shaido during their retreat.
In the interim, Gawyn kills three veiled Aiel in a 3 on 1 situation. The implication of this – not to mention that Gawyn earlier killed the guy who trained the Warders when Siuan was deposed – is that Gawyn is INCREDIBLE with a sword.
And while there are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time, that takes us to the end of the Prologue of A Crown of Swords.