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 21: Swovan Night
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Matrim Cauthon
Mat is attacked again, this time by beggars. He believes it is a robbery attempt, but it is really a kidnapping attempt. He kills or injures all of the attackers. To the north he can see some fireworks. A dance is in progress when he returns to the Wandering Woman and he joins right in. Caira, in a huff, informs him that there is a “gilded” woman in his room, so he climbs the stairs and finds Birgitte in his room. The dice are still rattling in his head. Just as he starts to speak to her he remembers what he saw at Falme when he blew the Horn of Valere. He recognizes her as a Hero of the Horn, not just a woman with the name Birgitte. She is relieved that he remembers but isn’t affected by the knowledge. Mat tries to tell her she should make Elayne and Nynaeve leave because Ebou Dar is too dangerous. However, Birgitte explains that she is now Elayne’s Warder and must obey Elayne. They decide to continue their talk downstairs over a pitcher of wine.
Point of view: Nynaeve al’Meara
Nynaeve, Elayne, and Aviendha skipped the Swovan Night Ball, instead sitting around worrying about what Mat will do when Birgitte talks to him. Nynaeve senses a storm coming, but this is another kind of storm, not wind and rain. Elayne begins to act strange, tapping her foot with gaiety instead of the somberness of earlier. Elayne begins to dance around the room. Thom is playing stones with Juilin while making comments to the women on the political situation. Elayne changes her appearance, which gives away to Thom and Juilin how they have been leaving the palace without being seen.
Birgitte enters, and she is quite drunk. The warder bond between Birgitte and Elayne can transfer and amplify emotions in some situations, which is why Elayne seems to be drunk. Elayne says the bond is not supposed to work that way, but a Warder has never been the same sex as the Aes Sedai before. Nynaeve demands to know if Mat is going to show up in the morning as she ordered. Mat is still upset with the women for when he rescued them in the Stone of Tear, for which he received a scolding instead of thanks. Aviendha tells Elayne that she has toh to Mat. Elayne concedes the necessity of apologizing to Mat, but Nynaeve keeps ranting that she will never apologize.
REACTION:
It seems likely that Darkfriends are trying to kidnap Mat, though we cannot entirely rule out one of the White Tower Aes Sedai. Mat’s a hard man to take down, though. I’d guess the effort will only increase from here.
Birgitte is waiting for him in his room when he returns. He finally remembers that she’s a Hero of the Horn. This “Mat finally remember” section is a really fun read because Jordan provides a lot of detail about other Heroes, too. I am particularly interested in Shivan the Hunter, who is a herald of the end of ages. In theory, we should be keeping an eye on pregnancies and very young babies. (He can’t have been born into the world as of Falme.)
One cool detail of this conversation is that Mat realizes Nynaeve and Elayne have not told her that he blew the Horn. This adds a lot for them both in his loyalty column, I think. He finds out that they haven’t told Birgitte about him blowing the Horn because Birgitte suggests Mat did not tell them. She thinks he did not tell them, because they did not tell her. Of course, she knows anyway. Mat also knows now that she did not tell them about him, either. (That’s a tangle to think through.)
Another cool element of this conversation is that Jordan makes some subtle changes to the way they both usually speak. The conversation feels vaguely formal and antiquated – from a grammatical sense. This then makes total sense after we find out the whole thing happened in the Old Tongue. It’s one of those small “quality of the writing” details that adds a lot to the world-building.
Imagine a famous historical figure showing up in the present, from antiquity, and then unknowingly conversing with that person in Latin. This whole scene is just enormously cool. I didn’t know how badly I wanted these two people to hang out. They belong on the page together. Birgitte and Mat are the only two people alive who remember the world as it was – really remember – before and during Hawkwing.
Nynaeve is being a bit of a ninny in her POV. She admits to herself that it never even occurred to her to use Mat, or the other men, to help in their search. But you know, rather than owning that fully as a mistake, she says they would have just gone carousing in taverns and such. We don’t get too far into what might have been an argument with her and Thom before Elayne starts showing signs of visible drunkenness. She then accidentally – in her state – shows Thom and Juilin that they can disguise themselves with the One Power. (This then lets the men know how they’ve been getting out of the Palace undetected for weeks. This was a big secret to give away.)
She then hilariously adds disguises to Avi and Ninny – making the latter a completely topless Sea Folk woman. Everyone laughs except Nyn. She goes through enough situations like that in this series to make her prickly personality more tolerable to read. I understand her anger though. This is Jordan’s version of DeepFaking (via magic) a person’s face onto a pornographic image. Nynaeve could probably sue Elayne in the 21st century.
This whole thing is played as funny, and I suppose to a degree it is, but would even a drunk Nyn ever do that to Elayne? No. She might do so now to get revenge, though. There’s something… mean… about Elayne. Her aggressive efforts to poach Rand from Eggy always felt off to me. Her total inability to tolerate the present political situation in the Two Rivers is off. Stuff like this. I dunno.
We learn quickly enough that Elayne’s behavior is because Birgitte got super drunk with Mat. Elayne felt the effects via the Warder Bond.
There is something very satisfactory in Drunk Birgitte setting them straight and putting them in their place. She starts by telling them that they’re wrong re: Queen Tylin’s son, Beslan. (They assumed Mat was the corrupting influence there because they are both inexplicably biased against Mat.) MORE IMPORTANTLY….
Ninny and Elayne are both confronted by Birgitte regarding their abhorrent behavior toward Mat in Tear. Mat told Birgy (I like that better than Birg) about events in the Stone. For a quick refresher… after learning they were in danger of an assassination plot, and after crossing a continent to find them ahead of the execution of that plot, Mat stormed an impregnable fortress, fought and killed several people, and then rescued them from the Black Ajah… by himself. He was not only not thanked, they were angry with him and rude toward him. After… (we learn this happened off the page between Book #3 and #4) they held him with the One Power and forcibly went through his things to take back the letter they had given him from Siuan Sanche that enabled him to escape Tar Valon.
Both of them should also now realize that Mat went right into the lair of Rahvin on their instruction, to deliver a letter, and as far as I know have not given that decision a single thought. He then subsequently went voluntarily into the lair of Be’lal upon learning they were in danger (I don’t think he knew about Be’lal ahead of time, but he definitely knew about bad Aes Sedai who beat the heck out of them with the One Power to take them into the Stone.)
Birgy tells them she wouldn’t have gone into the Stone, alone, for ANYONE except maybe Gaidal.
Nyn tries to defend their behavior toward him and brings up the Black Ajah and the Forsaken to downplay them – only to learn that Mat had not even told Birgy about them when mentioning the rescue.
“You owe him thanks on your knees Elayne. Both of you do.” – Birgitte flippin’ Silverbow
THANK YOU. Someone- anyone – calling them out on this is FOUR BOOKS in the making.
Nyn then reacts to this by being furious at Mat for not even mentioning the Black Ajah or Be’lal. Avi has to explain to Elayne that she not only has toh to Mat, but that she’s made things worse just by the actions Avi has seen since arriving. Avi saying this in the way that she does indicates pretty clearly that Elayne has a LOT of toh. Because she does. In my opinion, what Elayne has done to Mat is quite a bit worse than the lie Eggy told the Wise Ones about being Aes Sedai. We remember how that was sorted out.
Elayne – to her credit or because she’s smart enough to see she’s lost this game – acknowledges that she’s been wrong toward Mat and asks for help and guidance from Avi in making things right. This whole exchange is weird because she clearly cares way more about what Avi thinks about her than how she has wronged Mat. Nyn meanwhile is exploding with emotion, growling that she will never apologize.
The odd thing is that I believe Nyn is shamed to her bones by this confrontation and Elayne isn’t. The giveaway isn’t the direction of how they react (apology vs. not), but rather the size of the reaction. Nyn explodes. She has huge feelings. She’s overwhelmed by shame but is too proud to admit it. The pride is self-preservation, because I think if she did admit it, she’d kind of have a breakdown. Elayne doesn’t react at all except to just agree she was wrong. It’s an android’s reaction. The rush of realization that she was *that* wrong should have elicited… something emotional.
Elayne also never had the growing up together backstory with Mat to explain her treatment of him. Nyn does. In Elayne’s case, the treatment was even more unjust in that respect.
Nynaeve obviously looks horrible in this whole scene, and I am absolutely looking forward to her apology, but beneath the surface Elayne comes off worse in my opinion. We’ll see how the apology goes. My guess is that Nyn will grumble through an apology and mean it (even if she grumbles in such a way that Mat doesn’t believe her) but Elayne will smile, show a dimple, apologize outright, and not mean it.
In any case… I am looking forward to this apology. Jordan set this up four books ago. It’s time for a payoff. Further, I am very happy that Birgitte and Avi both now have a much better measure of their two companions than they had before. Maybe they can reign them in a bit.