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 12: A Morning of Victory
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Egwene al’Vere
Egwene rides with Siuan Sanche, Myrelle, and Gareth Bryne. They discuss the Band of the Red Hand and Talmanes. A caravan is encountered and rumors of Rand being taken to swear fealty to Elaida in Tar Valon are about to spread. Egwene plans to make an announcement to the soldiers that this is untrue, which she knows from her conversations with Amys and Bair in Tel’aran’rhiod the night prior. Bryne is impressed by Egwene’s reaction and suggests that the army is under her command.
After dismissing Gareth, Siuan leads the women through the nearby forest, and it becomes clear she is leading them to a secret place, although Egwene does not quite know what is going on. Eventually it becomes clear Myrelle has been hiding something, and Myrelle leads on to an encampment where they find Lan. He has had a disease of the mind since Moiraine‘s death, with hollow laughter behind his cold blue eyes. Egwene realizes that Myrelle has bonded him and although she is trying to help him recover, she also bonded him without his consent, a serious crime in the eyes of Aes Sedai. She has also been bedding him. Egwene decides Lan needs a mission that requires him to stay alive, and weaves a Gateway for Skimming and takes him 5 days north of Ebou Dar, with instructions to keep Nynaeve safe. Egwene also works out that Nicola and Areina knew about Lan and were blackmailing the two sisters to get what they wanted.
When Egwene returns she convinces Myrelle and Nisao that swearing to her will be better than the punishment they will receive from the Hall for taking Lan’s bond without his consent. Egwene and Suian head back to the camp, but she refuses to eliminate Nicola and Areina when Suian suggests it, saying there will be no end if she begins it. She then shares her plans to force the rest of the Salidar Six to swear to fealty to her also.
Back at the camp she reads the proposals from Romanda and Lelaine to address the Black Ajah. Halima comes in to her tent to help with her headaches and mentions Delana has a proposal about the Black Ajah she plans to put before the Hall.
REACTION:
This is a long chapter but a LOT of important stuff happens.
Jordan leans into the importance of Nynaeve and Elayne’s mission with his Egwene POV to start the chapter. This is an important step because it’s honestly *really* frustrating as a Reader that Elayne isn’t on her way to Caemlyn and doesn’t seem to care about going. I’m guessing Jordan got some feedback on that point after Lord of Chaos and decided to address it. Rand – and through him the world – is DESPERATE for her to actually do her duty to her country. It needs to be more clear why she’s picking the Bowl and the weather over her royal duty.
A thought just occurred to me, though. What if the Pattern has protected Morgase just in case Elayne dies? It makes sense that there’d be a back-up plan… at least on some issues. I doubt Elayne will die (Min’s visions) but in the event she does, there’s a still young-ish Queen ready to take her place.
Another thought. If women who can touch the One Power live longer… does that apply to Morgase, too? Could she realistically live to be 200+ years old like an Aes Sedai? They kept her One Power ability pretty quiet during her rule of Andor, but wouldn’t the people start noticing if she barely aged over the course of decades?
Jordan also addresses another issue from Lord of Chaos. Myrelle refers to Mat’s (Rand’s) army as “Dragonsworn animals.” The fact that this is lunacy should be obvious to the reader, but it’s not to the Aes Sedai. It’s *really* important that the Reader understands we’re supposed to believe the Aes Sedai camp associates these nobility led, highly trained troops with the same people committing atrocities (i.e. Masema’s men.) Do I think it’s a reach that the Aes Sedai cannot see the difference? Yes. But Jordan wants us to believe that they don’t. Remember – Egwene’s leverage over a lot of the Sisters who wanted to stay in place was built around the idea that Rand sent rabid people sworn to him, to their door. It would probably help Jordan to sell this narrative better if we were reminded that the Aes Sedai (and the world) think of the Dragon Reborn as something like an antichrist figure in our world.
We are also told to believe in this chapter that Egwene finds out and believes – FOR THE FIRST TIME – that Mat has a great reputation as a soldier. Sigh. Egwene in particular should have known better. She was in Cairhien when Mat first started leading troops and winning battles. Did she never talk to anyone? She wasn’t paying particular attention to her friend from home? It is believable but it does not put her in the best light.
Finally… Jordan (through Egwene) ties the feelings of the Salidar Aes Sedai, toward the “Dragonsworn” directly to Rand. It’s stupid, yes, but there you have it. They blame him for what people are doing in his name. This makes the explanation for why she doesn’t just go talk to him better. However, it also creates the problem of official Embassy’s talking with him at all. If they *really* believe he’s responsible for the atrocities done in his name, then what do they intend with him? If they really believe that after talking so much to Nynaeve… what do they believe about her?
In short… the quickest way to solve a plot problem would be for Egwene to go talk to Rand and in secret if she must. She could get there immediately via Gateway and everything could be ironed out in a day – probably even with him supporting her as Amyrlin (provided she went as his friend and not to browbeat him.) But since that could be done so easily, Jordan has to do the legwork to explain why it’s not possible. I think he does a fair job.
Bryne gives Eggy, individually, the entire army… though subtly. This dramatically increases her influence. If Egwene, Romanda, and Lelaine are a warring triumvirate, Eggy is putting herself in position to best the other two. They’re too consumed with each other to notice that she’s doing this. I think it’s possible that Siuan put that into motion, but Bryne is certainly capable of having done so on his own. Either way, Siuan gets credit for what happens in the next scene.
Siuan ferreted out that Lan has arrived, due to seeing that Myrelle bought coin peppers – local to Shienar and Malkier. I think Siuan knew ahead of time (since meeting with Moiraine in Shienar in The Great Hunt) that Moiraine had planned to pass the bond to Myrelle, just in case, so she was probably on the look-out for something like this. Otherwise the purchase of the peppers causing her to conclude that Lan is in the camp is just too much.
Is passing a bond, without the consent of the bonded, a significant moral dilemma? On first glance, the answer is no. You’re keeping someone alive. Looking deeper though, to keep the person alive, you’re violating him to the nth degree. Lan as a Warder can be compelled to do Myrelle’s will. He was bedded by her whether he wanted it or not. She literally lives inside his mind and feels his body, almost as if it were her own, without touching him. So the question is would you want to be left alive if it meant being the mind / sex slave of a genuinely well-intentioned person? It’s not an easy answer and it’s understandable why tradition forbade this.
Eggy is kind of relieved about this though, on behalf of Nynaeve, and the Wisdom will be happy that Moiraine kept him alive, too. So… I assume Lan will also eventually be happy to have had this done to him. Given that Moiraine knew this too, maybe it wasn’t entirely without Lan’s consent.
Myrelle already had three warders, and allegedly is *married* to all three. The Wheel of Time has a reverse harem situation here, with Myrelle, so the TV series wasn’t really too off base by transferring that same situation to Alanna. The TV series implied the sex was kind of an orgy situation, but the books doesn’t imply either way. It may be that Myrelle only takes one to her bed at a time.
Siuan delivers Eggy one and maybe two victories. Eggy then wins a couple of fights on her own, sending Lan to Ebou Dar and uncovering on her own the fact that the two little silverpike were blackmailing Myrelle and Nisao. Then she picks up a third victory by making (more or less) Myrelle and Nisao swear fealty to her.
Man, these Two Rivers folks are good at making Aes Sedai swear fealty. I think Rand still leads Eggy as to sheer numbers but she’s closing the lead. They’re the King and Queen that Randland deserved during another turning of the Wheel. al’Thor and his gwene al’Vere. It was really satisfying to read Nisao realizing that Egwene “is a dangerous woman.” My favorite thing in a fantasy story is the self-realization of one’s own power / ability / cleverness, but just behind that is when it’s realized by someone else for the first time. I love that eyes-opening moment of “you’re more than I thought” and Jordan does a great job with this one.
It is SO GOOD to have Lan back in the story. And hopefully he’ll be more involved going forward than he was as Moiraine’s sidekick. Early Book 2 Lan was epic and I miss that guy. I am also way more than ready for Nynaeve to finally land her man.
Siuan tells Eggy that Nicola and Areina need to be murdered with a casualness that tells me she’s definitely had people killed before. She’s not wrong that they have a club over Eggy’s head (they know she pretended previously to be Aes Sedai and could tell the Hall.) But the casual and almost off-handed way that Siuan says they’re going to have accidents is jarring. It’s jarring not because it felt out of character, but because it felt in-character. Now I’m realizing that I didn’t know Siuan as well as I thought.
So… lots of winning. But lest you think there’s too much winning, Eggy’s headache returns immediately after reaching the tent. That doesn’t clue her in that it’s not natural? I guess I understand how it didn’t but still. If Halima is doing this via saidin, eventually someone will notice when they try to heal Eggy, right? Maybe it requires a super-highly skilled Aes Sedai Healer – and maybe Nynaeve is the only one who might qualify. Either way, I think Halima is also using very mild Compulsion on Egwene. Halima basically walks into the tent, starts telling Egwene what to do (so subtly you don’t notice it because it’s not serious-seeming or overt commands), and starts giving Egwene a head rub. That’s pretty intimate but is explainable with the One Power. Egwene’s POV turns into rambling incoherence and she also mentions not telling *anyone* about the headaches, which is a weird choice in a camp of Aes Sedai Healers. It’s explainable if she’s being Compelled.
I mean… imagine giving a world leader you just met five minutes ago a scalp massage if you aren’t a masseuse. It would require magic. That’s not the worst of it, dear Reader friends. Jordan hides it extremely well, but think this situation through. Imagine you’re one of the most evil people ever. Imagine you’re not just evil, but a renowned pervert. Imagine you are Compelling the young, attractive, Amyrlin Seat and that you like to have your hands all over her. I have strong suspicions about what might be happening here, off page, but as Egwene might not be allowed to remember all of it… well… how could I confirm it? Eww. I mean, “let’s get together tonight after your bath so I can get the rest of you” (paraphrase) is more than suggestive. She even talked about how she wanted to see Eggy to bend her body.
Maybe she does see it.
While we only see likely mild Compulsion on the page, my guess is that it’s likely much more than mild Compulsion, but that most of it is off the page… at least, so far. I suspect Egwene is telling Halma everything about everything and just not remembering that she does so. I also suspect – and Eggy implied as much even if she didn’t understand she was implying it – that this might be keeping Egwene from Dreaming properly. If my suspicions are right, do I want Egwene to ever know that this happened to her? Probably not. It’s REALLY messed up, though.
So this chapter gives us a morning of victory but then hints at a dark night of defeat.
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