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 36: Blades
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Min Farshaw
Rand has agreed to fight Toram Riatin with practice swords at the Cairhienin rebels camp. Rand easily defends himself against Toram’s attacks until a scream from outside startles Rand and breaks his concentration. The tent is snatched away in the same moment and they see that they are surrounded by fog.[1] Toram uses the distraction to hit Rand in the side and plans to kill him until he sees something in the fog snatch one of the Red sisters away. Everyone begins to scatter and run from the tent but some, including Rand, Min, Toram, and Cadsuane, form a defensive group to try to escape the fog. Rand channels balefire to help a fleeing woman which allows Toram to recognize him. Toram leaves the group accusing Rand of causing the fog. Cadsuane slaps Rand and tells him he is never to use balefire. Padan Fain comes out of the fog and slices Rand in the side with the ruby-hilted dagger. The wound is in the same place as the half-healed scar Rand received at Falme. Rand collapses and Samitsu heals him but it is not fully effective. Samitsu believes he will still eventually die but Cadsuane will not give up. Samitsu says that the old wound and the new contain two different types of evil.
Darlin Sisnera carries Rand while the Aes Sedai continue to protect the party as they move through the fog. At last they escape from it and begin the journey back to Cairhien. They stop a turnip cart and Cadsuane pays the owner, Ander Tol, for the use of the cart. The Aes Sedai unload the turnips using the One Power, then head for the Sun Palace as fast as possible. Cadsuane wants to carry Rand to Lady Arilyn‘s palace but Min is emphatic that Rand must not wake up in a strange place surrounded by Aes Sedai again. Cadsuane begins to question Min about Rand’s kidnapping by the Tower Aes Sedai. Samitsu and Niande sick up when they learn that Rand stilled three sisters. When they reach the Sun Palace Rand is put to bed and others begin to gather including Bera and Kiruna. Dashiva comes in and orders Flinn to see if he can heal Rand. Flinn says that the old wound and the new contain two different types of darkness. Despite the objections of the Aes Sedai, Flinn begins. He chatters about his life story while he works. Eventually Flinn manages to seal the two wounds away from Rand so they will war against each other and subsequently cannot affect him for a while. Samitsu demands and begs, at the same time, that he explain to her how he did that.
REACTION:
Great chapter title. It refers both to the fight to start the chapter, the later revelation that Rand is a blademaster, and then what Fain slashes Rand with later.
It’s safe to say that Padan Fain has leveled up his power. He is a walking, talking version of Shadar Logoth now, with the ability to unleash a localized Mashadar on everything around him. Except that he’s actually worse than that because while Mashadar was somewhat mindless, what Fain can do is not. Instead of just tendrils of fog poking holes in people, it takes the shape of monsters and kills maliciously. His “fog” was also pretty resistant to the One Power, too. As Moiraine told us back in the 2nd book, he was touched by both Mordeth and the Dark One directly.
If that wasn’t enough, he’s also unnaturally dangerous in his physical body. His dagger kills almost instantly. He avoided knives and sword strikes (despite probably being a guy in his 40s or 50s) by twisting and turning just in time. Is that luck? Maybe. It might be that something about the evil that infected the city also alters luck. That might be some explanation for Mat’s luck upgrade after he had the dagger, too.
So, needless to say… Padan Fain is a problem. He’s probably a legit problem for the Forsaken, too. (We already knew that because they sent the Shadow’s best assassin Luc to kill him, and Luc failed.)
Before and in addition to all of that, this was a *great* chapter. I loved Rand’s practice sword fight with Toram Riatin. One of the things the Amazon show got wrong was its erasure of the “swords” aspect of this swords and sorcery story. Keep in mind, that this entire series is heavily influenced by the King Arthur tales. al’Thor pulled the Sword out of the Stone (of Tear) to prove his identity. Rand is the Dragon. Arthur was a Pendragon. Lan(celot.) Etc. There’s a million little references throughout the book series. The TV series skipped nearly all of that and – before it was canceled – straight out skipped Callandor and pulling the Sword from the Stone. Sigh.
Anyway. The fight here was incredible and it was exactly the sort of moment I’d love to see on screen someday.
The rest of the chapter and especially the escape with Rand were really well-written, too. My instincts re: Caraline and Darlin seems to have been correct. They are absolutely getting “enemies to allies” treatment. I think Jordan is making a point with their story that sometimes good people can disagree fiercely without ceasing to be good. Thus when the circumstances change, they can become allies again. It’s hard to imagine Darlin – who has been a thorn in Rand’s side for three books – not ultimately ending up as his ally.
If I have another moment from the chapter that I liked almost as much as Rand’s sword fight with Toram, it was Cadsuane making Min tell her about Rand’s captivity. Cads is definitely getting a “tough but good (great) grandmother” treatment from Jordan. She’s going to try to help Rand but she’s going to be the boss of herself and probably also Rand. (This approach has failed with everyone else, but maybe she’ll do it differently in some way.)
It’s objectively true that Rand needs an independent Aes Sedai advisor who isn’t a fool. Something like that will protect against what happened to Rand in Book #6. He wants it – as was made evident by his trying to convince her about the voice in his head because her believing was important to him. It’s objectively true that nearly all of the Aes Sedai we’ve met are fools. A non-foolish Aes Sedai might be exactly what he needs. In that sense, Cadsy feels like an in-story replacement for Moiraine. She’s an older and maybe wiser Moiraine. That said… it feels like the lesson Moiraine eventually learned (that Rand is so powerfully ta’veren that nobody can bully Rand into a particular direction) might also be a much more difficult lesson for Cads to learn. Min both instinctively trusts her, and doesn’t, and that feels about right.
Jordan also overtly sets up an eventual meeting between Cadsuane and Sorilea, with Min thinking that the confrontation between those two is inevitable and that it will be memorable. We’re probably getting that in the next book. I look forward to that.
Something about Dashiva feels off, but he arranges for Rand to survive the Fain wound by getting Flinn to heal him a bit more. I laughed at Samitsu offering to bear Flinn’s children if he’ll explain what he did to her. In that sense, we see that she is also ultimately a good person. That felt kind of real. Samitsu is a healing nerd – the best in the world other than Nyn – and she just discovered something very exciting to nerd out about.
Both Flinn and Samitsu, independently of each other, explain the two wounds as being filled with two different types of evil. Flinn notes that it feels like the two evils are fighting with each other. This feels like a significant bit of information.
Finally, I just want to give some thoughts about the series as a whole. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but sometimes people kind of struggle with defining the type of fantasy that is The Wheel of Time. It’s not High Fantasy. It’s not grim, gritty low fantasy (or whatever it is that you’d called A Song of Ice and Fire.) In my opinion, the series is Horror Fantasy, and as such lives between those two types and is also a bit adjacent. This chapter is a great example of really overt “horror.” If anyone ever attempts a live action of this series again, I hope they recruit someone with a background in horror. But as it’s Robert Jordan, who did a lot of “fade to black” to keep his stories approachable to younger readers, they’d need to make it somewhere between a PG-13 and rated R horror, with a lot of implying in addition to a little bit of actual showing.
Anyway. Those are my two cents. Awesome chapter. I’m looking forward to where this goes next.
2 thoughts on “A Crown of Swords (Chapter 36): Blades”