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: Answering the Summons
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Rand al’Thor
Rand and the Asha’man from the Black Tower begin scouting out Seanchan positions even though the weather has turned to strong storms. Rand assembles several groups of armsmen, each with forces from multiple countries to help assure their loyalty. Rand channels a gateway, but lately he gets dizzy and sees double when he seizes the source. He moves his forces to Illian near the city as a staging point. Narishma finally arrives though later than Rand had expected. He brought a long thin package saying the traps on it were more than what Rand described. From the city one thousand of the Legion of the Dragon with crossbows arrives. He moves closer to Ebou Dar while waiting for the Asha’man to bring the others, mostly those lords and ladies he trusts least, but also Davram Bashere.
REACTION:
Jordan is hiding something important in the details of Rand’s musing over his own madness. He and Lews Therin are now both being startled by Rand seeing another man’s face (not the one Rand associates with Lews Therin) as his own in his dreams.
This seems to be related to Rand feeling dizzy, lately, when he channels. This is worth keeping an eye on the clues and foreshadowing. I don’t think it’s as simple as “the madness / taint sickness is getting worse.”
Rand starts an effort in this chapter to push the Seanchan back and out of Illian, using Asha’man and his own military. Narishma brings him Callandor. Everything is pointing toward a big military showdown for the rest of this book. That should be fun. Jordan was a vet and writing battles was a major strength of his. I enjoyed the Lord of Chaos ending, which is one of the few other book endings that wasn’t primarily a one-on-one fight.
I think the real trick here, for the plot, is going to be demonstrating that the Seanchan are if not an equal force, at least very close. They’ve been giving such a big build-up that it can’t be too easy. We also need to see Bashere given an opportunity to shine as a general. He’s been built up as a brilliant tactician, and since he didn’t get to show us on the page that this was true, against Sammael, demonstrating against the Seanchan will be a pretty good fallback opportunity.
Rand is annoyed by Taim giving the Asha’man additional titles, but it makes sense. He’s not just training them to use the One Power, but he’s also training them to use it militarily. Who taught Taim, though? Rand should question that more. Someone clearly did, and the only candidates are the Forsaken or a voice in his head. Both of those are a legitimate problem. (Taim has not ever acted, on the page at least, like someone suffering form madness.)
Weiramon is presented as a Tairen fool… allegedly.
“Too stupid to leave behind, too powerful to shove aside, so he rode with Rand…”
I think Weiramon is probably just a Darkfriend playing the fool. The tell tale sign to me is that Rand goes on internally, too much, about how much of a “bullgoose fool” the man is. My instincts too me that Rand is being set up to be proven wrong. It seems like a weakness of both Perrin and Rand to assume that nobles are rich and foolish, rather than that they are educated and conniving. For guys who grew up in a backwater village, they both act like they know more than they really do. It’s a little more forgivable with Rand, at least, since he’s in touch with himself from his past life and that means he hears from the guy who used to more or less rule the world.
Rand is also increasingly presented as a good military strategist (if also smart enough to know he has nothing on Mat, Bashere, etc.) I don’t think this makes much sense, except that he’s now been around military people for a few months and he’s got a guy who led the world in a war, living inside his head. But maybe that’s enough.
One specific thing, from Rand’s thoughts that jumped out at me, is that he seems to have a plan to cleanse the Taint from saidin. It involves Nynaeve and he worries it might destroy the world. That’s all we get on that subject but it makes sense that we’d have this happen at some point before we get to the Last Battle.
All in all… not a lot actually happens in this chapter, but we get some excellent info dump and world-building to see up what’s coming soon for Rand.
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