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 26: The Extra Bit
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Seaine Herimon
Seaine Herimon continues investigating treachery in the White Tower on Elaida‘s orders. She leads Zerah Dacan down to the bowels of the Tower, below even the level where Accepted are tested. Pevara Tazanovni awaits them in a small room. Seaine and Pevara force Zerah to reswear to obey with an Oath Rod, which they have borrowed for the purpose. Although she is not Black Ajah, they discover she is a rebel spy from the Salidar Aes Sedai. She has now sworn an oath to obey Seaine and Pevara and reveals to them the names of the 9 other Salidar Aes Sedai spreading rumors in the Tower. Seaine feels disappointed that they haven’t found any Black Ajah yet.
After Zerah has left, Saerin, Yukiri, Doesine, and Talene surprise the two women. They wish to know why the two of them have been snooping about and Saerin grabs the Oath Rod. She suspects their purpose and makes everyone present retake the Oaths. But, Talene resists and reveals herself as Black Ajah.
Point of view: Toveine Gazal
Toveine leads the Tower Aes Sedai to the Black Tower on Elaida’s order. In a thicket she is stopped by several Asha’man who have her and her fellow Sisters shielded. Thinking there are just a few Asha’man at most, she orders her Guardsmen to attack and her fellow Aes Sedai to disperse. She is easily caught, and hears someone calling out that no Sisters are to be harmed, on order of the Dragon Reborn.
Toveine screams. Logain approaches, and kisses her. After inquiring, she learns that he has bonded her.
REACTION:
This is something that you might miss, if you aren’t paying attention, but it definitely seems that the same Siuan – who we all are supposed to love – lied about the Red Ajah setting up False Dragons. We are led to believe that if anyone would know that this is true it’s Pevara – and she believe that it’s a lie.
How exactly is Eggy supposed to eventually reunite the White Tower – Reds included – if her camp is spreading a ridiculous lie about the Red Ajah? Siuan might have given the Rebels a cause around which to unite, but she also gave the entire world a reason not to trust the White Tower and the Reds in particular a reason to fight to the bitter end while believing that they have been egregiously libeled. How different is this entire plot if we’re seeing it through the eyes of someone in the Red instead of consistently through the POV of the Blue Ajah?
Now that I think about it, I don’t know if Egwene, Nynaeve, etc., even knows that this is a lie. Logain definitely didn’t. I mean… just because she says “fish guts” doesn’t make her a good person.
Did Elaida banish the Blues before Siuan lied about the Reds? Yes. But did she do that after an open Rebellion led by the Blues and their Warders that caused the death of a bunch of people? Yes. Were Siuan’s actions as Amyrlin such that she believed, if she were found out, that she’d be deposed and stilled? Yes. Is that exactly what happened? Yes.
It might be worth considering that when the Aes Sedai in the White Tower complain about the Rebels… they do so on solid ground. Obviously Elaida has done enough since to be deposed herself, but maybe her actions would have been different had the Tower not been split. They almost certainly would have been. That doesn’t excuse kidnapping and beating Rand, at all, but I don’t put it past Siuan to have done the same thing in Elaida’s shoes. Neither of them are great people or great leaders.
The scene with the Sitters and Talene getting caught was fantastic. It was fun to watch the situation flip on Talene. She was almost certainly doing Black Ajah business to find out why Sitters were talking in private and it turned hard against her. As the Readers though, we know how much danger they all just put themselves in by catching her. We know – but they don’t – that one of the Forsaken is walking the halls of the Tower.
The scene with Toveine to end the chapter was really great, too. We get a quick update on how the Aes Sedai siege of the Black Tower is going, we find out Logain is in the Black Tower and has his own clique, and that somehow the Asha’man learned how to bond women. I want to be annoyed by the fact that they figured out how to do this. We are told that this knowledge didn’t even exist during the Age of Legends and now the guys figured it out in a few months. Men were channeling back then for eons. I guess we have to assume that the reason it was never figured out back then was that it never occurred to anyone to consider trying it.
All in all, these last two chapters feel like a big set-up for the plot in the books ahead. I don’t hate it though. All of this seems pretty interesting and there’s an excellent ominous tension inside the White Tower because of Mesaana and in the Black Tower because of Taim (who the plot to this point hints is either a Forsaken, too, or trained by one.) Both of these situations need to be resolved before we really get to the Last Battle, neither will be done easily, and it’s now finally starting to feel like we’re moving in the direction of the end of the series instead of expanding the plot complexities and world-building.
Speaking of nearing the end of things, we’re getting near the end of this book. I don’t really know where we’re headed for the Big Finish but I think we have several viable options. We’ll see when we get there!
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