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 1: To Keep the Bargain
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Narrator
A wind rises in Tremalking where the Amayar farm for the Sea Folk. The wind continues over the Sea of Storms where fishermen see a great fleet bearing the Seanchan banner. Onward the wind blows to Ebou Dar where many Sea Folk vessels wait for word of the Coramoor, their Chosen One.
Point of view: Aviendha
Aviendha worries about Olver, who is playing in the streets and may not be present for the move to the Kin retreat. Nynaeve is arguing with Lan about his promise to protect her. Aviendha nearly runs into Teslyn Baradon, former Sitter of the Red Ajah, as they round a corner. Teslyn promises to not interfere with Elayne‘s plans even though she doesn’t know what they are. Nynaeve tells Teslyn of the gholam, Moghedien, the Black Ajah, and the storm that is coming to Ebou Dar, but Teslyn dismisses all of it as nonsense. Twenty Sea Folk Windfinders, lead by Renaile din Calon Blue Star, wait in the largest stable yard of the Palace. Nynaeve and Elayne go to make sure the other Aes Sedai and the Kin are ready.
Reanne and the Kin are unhappy that they are still in charge of guarding captive Black Sister, Ispan Shefar, but Nynaeve won’t assign the duty to the other Aes Sedai. The Kin and the Sea Folk begin to bicker until Nynaeve intervenes. Elayne asks Aviendha to open the Gateway so they can leave Ebou Dar. The warders move through to scout, followed by the rest of the large group. Feeling watched, Aviendha looks around and sees a man observing from a building high above. She fears he may be the gholam.
REACTION:
The chapter begins by telling us where the other great sa’angreal is located. We know the male half of the Choedan Kal is in Cairhien, but the female half is among the Amayar. Interesting. It’s a notable reminder. Rand still has both of the “access key” ter’angreal for both. But that wouldn’t necessarily stop someone from using the things directly, right? Rand almost did in Cairhien.
We get some time in Aviendha’s mind. She’s struggling with (or rather, against) the fact that she is adapting to the Wetlands. She finds herself caring deeply about Olver – a “Treekiller” boy from Cairhien. She also finds herself caring about how she looks in fine clothing. This makes her more relatable and it makes the Aiel feel a bit more like humans, instead of like a people of plot devices.
She also gives a great line about Nynaeve:
Aviendha had begun to suspect that the other woman often used silence, and supposedly significant looks to cover ignorance. She suspected that Nynaeve knew little more about men, about dealing with one man, than she did herself.
Her slow realization that Nynaeve doesn’t know as much as she lets on has been fun, both in the previous book and here. Keep in mind that these two met all the way back in The Dragon Reborn, when the Superigrls were traveling to Tear. It makes sense that everyone who doesn’t know Nynaeve well might give her more credit than she deserves. Avi knows Nyn defeated Moggy (one of the FORSAKEN) in a one-on-one fight. But powerful skill and ability in one area means nothing toward other areas.
I’ve struggled to find a real world parallel for Avi’s confusion regarding men (Rand in particular.) The best I can come up with is to imagine a “tomboy” girl, who unexpectedly finds herself smitten with a man. She doesn’t have the foggiest idea of how to do “girly” things. She never thought about it before, or imagined it for herself.
Avi’s observations of Nyn are endearing for both women, though. Avi’s ignorance and her emergence from it is endearing. Nyn being so happy that she giggles for no reason at all is endearing. It’s important to remember this about Nyn. She is an orphan. She has a kind of bone deep loneliness from that. That’s the thing that drives her desire to heal things. She probably wishes deep down she’d been able to save her parents and feels some profound regret that she couldn’t. It might even be a kind of cruel fate that she eventually developed the ability to save them, but only after they were gone. She became Wisdom not expecting to ever marry (Wisdoms almost never do.) She also became Aes Sedai not expecting to marry (believing she’d lost Lan to Moiraine, or his belief in his own personal fate.) She felt cursed and she was angry about it.
Lan showing up (let alone to save her) was the answer to the deepest and most desperate desire of her heart. The ring she wore around her neck was a symbol of the slim remaining personal hope she kept for herself. That his arrival coincided with her breaking her One Power block made this moment even stronger.
Anyway.
Elayne and Nyn are both mad (or they are performatively mad, anyway) at Lan and Birgitte for promising to Mat that they’d keep them safe. Is the performative anger exhausting? Yes. Elayne at least should know better.
I think the encounter with Teslyn is designed to tell us 1) that she won’t escape the Seanchan invasion “unleashed” and 2) that she is a good character, through wrong. Jordan must have plans for her in the plot, otherwise sharing this much with us was kind of pointless. Nyn warns her of the dangers in the city (gholam, Black Ajah, Moghedien) and Teslyn ignores them.
Elayne calling Teslyn a “summer ham” and tells her to “pull her nose out of their coats” – slurs that surprises even Lan. I think this is supposed to make Elayne young-ish seeming and charming via innocense. It’s like a little girl using swear words and using them wrong. Jordan’s goal with Elayne in general is to make her a blend of wildly sheltered and naive, mixed with very educated and worldly. That fits for a palace princess. It just doesn’t land for me.
The best POV line for Avi, maybe ever, happens in this chapter.
Nose rings – a good grip on that chain and Renaile din Calon Blue Star would wear a very different expression.
Holy cow. That thought was so surprisingly violent that I burst out laughing. Let’s not forget that Avi is violent and has killed a LOT of people.
We know the Seanchan are beginning an invasion of Ebou Dar, as this chapter transpires, thanks to how A Crown of Swords ended. So.. significantly, this chapter lets us know that these women get away without being leashed. That’s probably a pretty enormous victory for Rand and the Pattern because as we know, the Seanchan just missed out on adding almost 2,000 new damane to their army, not to mention all the tricks these potential new damane would have shared with the Seanchan Empire (improved healing via Sumeko, etc.)
The big mystery of this chapter is the person who watches everyone from the rooftop as they flee via Gateway away from the city. Is it the gholam? Possibly. Avi thinks so. It might also be Moridin. I guess it doesn’t overtly matter which of the two it was, except that Moridin is probably the more dangerous threat. I’m not sure what the gholam can do with the knowledge, provided they get through the Gateway before he can climb down to their location. Moridin on the other hand can probably track them down relatively easily even if they do – and it’s significant if he knows they fled.
With Sammael gone, is the gholam taking orders from anyone else now? Moridin definitely needs to show up and take charge of it and I assume that will happen. On the other hand, a free agent gholam is kind of a terrifying thought. Imagine that thing surviving past the end of the series. Or imagine that thing hanging around to torment the Seanchan. I guess we’ll find out its plot direction sometime soon. The chapter ends before everyone is through the Gateway. We’ll see if they get attacked before they do.
2 thoughts on “The Path of Daggers (Chapter 1): To Keep the Bargain”