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 4: A Quiet Place
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Elayne Trakand
Elayne and the group from Ebou Dar arrive at the Farm. Alise arrives to meet them but notices that Careane did not pull her hood up far enough. Other women on the farm notice and a cry goes up that it is Aes Sedai and the women begin to scatter in a panic. Alise is upset with Reanne, believing that she betrayed the Kin. Reanne explains that the Aes Sedai have always known about the Kin and now they are given the option to go back to the White Tower. Nynaeve sends the warders to round up the fleeing women. Adeleas and Vandene link and take Ispan to a small side building to begin questioning, which angers Elayne since they did not ask permission. Ispan is defiant, claiming to have orders from Elaida. Aviendha threatens her but Adeleas says shedding blood during questioning is forbidden. Elayne is willing to get answers however she must from Ispan, but Vandene takes her outside and convinces her that they know the best way to proceed.
Meanwhile the scattered Kin and residents on the farm are being gathered up and settled. Elayne and Aviendha resume searching the storeroom stash. Two more angreal are found, a gold bracelet and rings and a seated woman in age-darkened ivory. Nynaeve arrives and tells Elayne that it is time to use the Bowl of the Winds.
REACTION:
Do I think Careane didn’t pull her hood up all the way on purpose? Yes. Why? No idea. My guess is that she (or all of the *real* Aes Sedai via her) wanted proof that the Kin knew what an Aes Sedai looked like, on sight. Or maybe she just likes chaos.
Come to think of it, though, if Careane just wanted the chaos… did she want the Lord of Chaos to rule? (We should keep an eye on her.)
What do we think about Vandene and Adeleas taking Ispan without asking? The reasoning given for why they wanted to ask questions made sense, but neither explained why they did so without permission – and it was more than implied in the previous chapter that they needed permission from Elayne or Nynaeve. Elayne and Avi catch up with them, though.
Elayne initially plans to do the interrogation herself, along with Aviendha, but the two older Aes Sedai talk her into letting them do it alone. Trying to put myself in Ispan’s shoes, I think I’d rather have the younger women doing the torturing than the older women. Avi is the wildcard though. She might practiced in the past and might not be very squeamish about roughing someone up. Elayne (both of them really) are likely to have the flaw of getting carried away when angry or emotional. That would probably be the preferable outcome because it means the duration would be shorter.
Those two old women who wanted nothing more in life than to be left alone in retirement to read and write their book? That’s a cold anger. Cold anger is scarier than hot anger in a lot of respects. It doesn’t burn itself out, nor does it burn its object up.
They go through more angreal and ter’angreal from the Ebou Dari storeroom that will be useful later in the series. Jordan takes the time to describe Avi having a very weird reaction to one of the ter’angreal, in particular, so I suspect we’ll revisit that specific one again later. Moridin definitely made a mistake in believing it wasn’t a problem to let this stuff leave Ebou Dar.
The Bowl of the WInds is going to be used in the next chapter. We’ll find out whether Moridin (or someone/something else) shows up to stop them.
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