An Ending

Book; 10: Crossroads of Twilight

Chapter; 29: Something Flickers

Character Groups;

Somewhere in Tear: Rand, Min, Nynaeve, Lan, Cadsuane, Verin, Alvia, Logain.

Somewhere in Altara: Mat, Thom, Julin, Thera, Noal, Olver, Tuon, Selucia, Egeanin, Setaille, Aludra, 3 Aes Sedai, 3 sul'dam.

So Habor: Perrin, Elyas, Berelain, 'The Prophet', Two Rivers Army.

Malden: Faile, Alliandre, Morgase, Shaido Aiel.

Caemlyn: Elayne, Birgitte, Aviendha.

 

Outside Tar Valon: Egwene, Siuan, Leane, Rebel Aes Sedai, Rebel Aes Sedai Army. 

 

So that’s it folks, it’s March 2012 and as you can see, I am not finished. It turns out that I have gone and got myself a life somewhere in the last four years and six months is no longer long enough.

But fear not! This little skirmish may have been lost but the Last Battle is still to be fought, literally.

You see, when I started this here thingumy back in September, the publication date for book 14, A Memory of Light, which will finally see Rand face off against the Dark One, was March 2012. Around the end of October it was moved to sometime in November, which I might have neglected to mention.

So HA! Instead of being nearly two months behind schedule, I am in fact seven months ahead! However, as much as I love the Wheel of Time I do not plan to spend more than a year on the re-read especially as, with both Christmas and my birthday passing in quick succession, I have a pile of unread books awaiting me.

So here is my plan. I will finish books 10, 11 and 12 ASAP. I will then switch to other literary delights until the weeks before I know I can get a copy of Memory of Light at which point I will read book 13, Towers of Midnight so that I will be well up on current events and not have to rely too much on wikis. Maybe I’ll even keep spouting my ill-formed opinions on non-WoT literature.

Until then.     

The Storm IS Coming. But First...

Book; 7: A Crown of Swords

Chapter; 41: A Crown of Swords

Character Groups;

Ebou Dar        Cairhien       Somewhere in Andor     Somewhere in Altara  

Mat                  Rand            Perrin                             Egwene

Nynaeve          Min              Faile                               Rebel Aes Sedai

Elayne             Cadsuane     Berelain                         Rebel Aes Sedai's Army

Aviendha                              Two Rivers army          The Band of the Red Hand

Birgitte                                           

Thom 

Julin

Olver            

Ok... Ok... So it has been a month since my last update, but with Christmas and family and food and food and birthdays and food, I have fallen a bit behind, all right?

All right.

Not that I've had much of interest to say really. I am, of course, not trying to sync blog and plot line here but I do sort of rely on what I am reading to spark off some musings. As may have come across in my last, short but horribly bitter post, the current story arcs could not be described as action-packed, hence a dry spell. 

But as my handsome boyfriend pointed out, that in itself might be worth talking about.

Let one thing be clear. I love the Wheel of Time. If I didn't, I wouldn't have kept reading all those years ago when I first got to books 6 and 7 and found myself faced with quite startling monotony. At least now I have the benefit of knowing that it gets better. 

I have pondered, at length, on what exactly is wrong with these books. Here are my conclusions, feel free to disagree.

As I mentioned before, the first three books of the series had a clear, well executed if predictable arc. In book 4 the arc gets mussed up a bit and longer games come into focus. Book 5 follows up on this with a big flash-bang finale that removes several key pieces from the board and sends others off on seemingly random trajectories. Thus, book 6 and 7 are concerned with the aftermath of book 5. The world is slowly cooking in its own juices and no-one can pull themselves together long enough to do anything about it. In book 6 especially, I feel that even the editor (who I believe was Jordan's wife) was having trouble getting through it. On this read-through I noticed so many silly grammatical errors and things like people channelling the wrong half of the power (women channel saidar, men saidin. This was made worse by the sudden appearance of a character that actually does channel the wrong half of the power.) that it was almost painful to read.

But it wasn't just an editing issue. Sad as it makes me to say it, Lord of Chaos and A Crown of Swords were simply not as well constructed as those that came before. In both books there is a climactic battle with swords and spears and things exploding and burning all over the shop. Should be grrrrrreat, but each battle is crammed into the last chapters with hardly any build up and not even the previously used device of seeing the same thing from a number of different points of view to help you get the full picture. They feel rushed. They feel small. They do not feel like characters should still be speaking of them with a sense of horror and awe six books later. To be honest, when I first read the series and people talked about "the battle of Dumai's Wells", I had to google it and then re-read the chapter. And bare in mind that there were only nine books in the series at that point! 

Anyway, The difficult second album is nearly behind us (ok, so sixth, seventh and eighth album. You know what I mean) and thankfully, at a mere 641 pages, book 8; The Path of Daggers is practically a short story. 

The storm IS coming. Promise.

Still Bore-ing

Book; 6: Lord of Chaos

Chapter; 30: To Heal Again

Character Groups;

Salidar        Camelyn       Cairhien     Somewhere in Tear  

Nynaeve     Rand            Egwene      Mat             

Elayne        Aviendha      The Aiel     Olver

Birgitte                                            The Band of the Red Hand

Thom 

Julin            

Siuan                   

Leane          

    

For Light's sake! Somebody DO something! Half a book of you all just sitting around! 

Oh, Thank-you Nynaeve, Well done.                     

 

The Bore

Book; 5: The Fires of Heaven 

Chapter; THE END 

Character Groups;

Caemlyn            Salidar           

Rand                  Nynaeve

Mat                    Elayne

Egwene             Thom

Moiraine            Julin

Lan                    Siuan

Aviendha           Leane

                          Birgitte   

Well, after two weeks of furious reading, I am now only 6 days behind schedule instead of a fortnight. Yay me!

The Fires of Heaven heralds a change of style for the WOT books. The first four have all run thus; Dark One tries to affect the world, Scooby gang sets forth to thwart the forces of evil (albeit by many different routes), Rand meets and defeats one or two of the Forsaken (the Dark One's ancient and powerful generals of which there are thirteen), there is much rejoicing. However, this formula got a little squiffy at the end of book 4 when instead of defeating the Forsaken-du-jour, Asmodean, Rand, along with another Forsaken, Lanfear, bound him into service. As such, Asmo has been hanging around all book, teaching Rand how to use the Power before his ignorance kills him. 

Also, in Fires of Heaven, events speed up dramatically. Books 1 through 4 have taken roughly a year and a half of the ill-defined Randland calendar (seriously, not even the characters know what the exact date is) but if my Foretelling serves me well, Books 5 through 9 take up only a few months. And just as well, because it's going to be a sweltering few months.

A quick review. Our story started on Winternight, a spring festival supposedly held after the snows have melted and the first green shoots are in the fields. Except that winter won't leave and the ground is still frozen. Cue heroic journey to the north, two Forsaken dead and spring returns. Through an accident with a magic pillar, the main core of the gang actually skipped over the following autumn and after taking out Forsaken number three they hid in the mountains for the winter. End of Year one, end of book 2. They spend the following spring chasing Rand across the continent and the summer in the southern coastal city of Tear, complaining about the heat. Then they go to the Aiel Waste and complain about the heat there too. Obviously the Dark One was listening because now they are back in Randland, it should be autumn, but summer has decided that winter owes it some time in lieu.

And here, at last, I come to my point. While the change of pace is very welcome, and even I wouldn't want to read a series of fourteen brick-shaped books that amounted to little more than a series of mini-boss fights, the middle volumes lack the focus and direction of the others. Basically, the Big Bad for the next three books is global warming and it's just not very exciting.

Anyway, I made my bed and I shall sleep in it, safe in the knowledge that at least book 6 has Perrin in it, who has been sadly lacking for the last 890 pages and hope that Mat finally gets a little less whiny and actually does something.  

Twisted Tounges

Book; 4: The Shadow Rising

Chapter; 39: A Cup of Wine

Character Groups;

Aiel Waste      Tanchico       Two Rivers          

Rand               Nynaeve        Perrin

Mat                 Elayne           Faile

Egwene           Thom            Loial

Moiraine          Julin             Verin

Lan                                      Alanna

Aviendha                             divers Warders, 

                                            whitecloaks, trollocs and alarums.

A blip in the schedule could make it appear, to the untrained eye that I was a bit behind in my WoT marathon. It may seem that I should, at this point, be well into book 5 when I am in fact still in the depths of book 4. Do not be alarmed! The twin demons of redecoration and a fortnights holiday have been vanquished and normal service can now be resumed. 

To that end, I would like to discuss language. The good, bad and ancient. In a slight departure from my normal worship of all things WoT, I'm going to do some complaining.

As I have previously stated, in Randland there are as many dialects and accents as there are countries, probably more since people are sometimes described as using 'street' or 'noble' speech. However, there is only one actual language and everyone can understand everyone else. 

Now this might be fine if it was just the main continent. After all, we are lead to believe that all human beings currently alive are descended from the (relatively) small number of survivors of the cataclysm that ended the previous Age. However, the horizons of the world have expanded in the last few books. The Seanchan have appeared from beyond the ocean with their strange creatures and stranger ways but although a lot of their speech is in italics, they are understandable. It has since been revealed that they are the descendants of an invading army sent across the Aryth Ocean a thousand years ago and assumed lost. All right, so they started off speaking the same language but it has barely changed? In a millennium? I couldn't understand William the Conqueror. Mostly because he'd be speaking french, but still.

Now we have the Aiel. The Aiel are a warrior people that live in a vast desert. They are descended from a sort of honoured servant class from the Age of Legends, although very few of them know that. In the past 3000 years, they have had very little contact with the outside world and most of what they have had has been stabby-stabby in nature. And yet, AND YET, they are easier to understand than the Seanchan.


Here is the crux of my argument. Through a series of fascinating events, Mat can now fluently speak the Old Tongue. This was the language spoken in the Age of Legends (therefore, what the Aiel should have spoken) and seems to have been in use for about a thousand years afterwards. In present day, it is only known by scholars and certain nobles, to everyone else it is so much gobbledigook, like Latin. So where did the 'new tongue' come from and how did it develop simultaneously in separate cultures? 

English, as it is spoken today, would be unrecognisable to, say, a 1000 year-old Anglo-saxon, because of the influence of other languages, cultures and their swords. If everyone in the world spoke the same language, how would new languages form?

Yes, I know this is nit-picking as an extreme sport and yes, I know it is only a book but when the rest of this fantasy world is so carefully constructed, it strikes me as odd that something so central to the plot could be overlooked.


I'm not going to stop reading though!

Propher-see Propher-2

Book; 3: The Dragon Reborn

Chapter; 55: What is written in Prophecy

Character Groups;

Tear
Everyone, everyone currently important anyway.

Hallo world. Technical difficulties have forced to remain in analogue mode for the past week. Still, never mind eh? Where were we? 

Right, these Prophecies then.


First, there is the Karaethon cycle, more commonly known as the Prophecies of the Dragon. These are the prophecies of Randland, told by precogniescent Aes Sedai in the years after the Breaking of the World (as the madness of the male channelers became known). These are the ones best known to our heroes and the ones that Rand is actively trying to fulfil. They include a cheery little rhyme about herons and dragons, lots of talk about blood and rocks and of course, the sword in the stone bit that I discussed last time.  


The Seanchan have their own version of the Karaethon Cycle with a number of omissions and additions that just makes it all the more annoying that they really don't get on with the locals. If everyone just sat down around a table and talked it over, everyone would have a much clearer idea of what was going on.


Next there are the Shadow Prophecies. The only part of these that we have heard seemed to refer to the events on Toman Head at the end of book 2 and have apparently been completed. Presumably, there are more to these prophecies but whether we will ever see any more of them, who can say? (I'm not being coy, I genuinely can't remember. They probably aren't very good then.)


One that we have only heard tiny snippets of so far is the Rhuidean Prophecy. Technically, we do not even know its name yet but I'm going to use it anyway, so sue me (please don't). Rhuidean is the only 'city' in the Aiel waste (another thing we don't technically know yet) and the Aiel have crossed the mountain range known as the Spine of the World for the first time in 20 years in search of their prophecied one, He Who Comes With The Dawn. "One born of the Blood but not raised but the Blood. Raised by an ancient Blood not ours". That's Rand by the way, He of the Many Capital Letters.


The mysterious Sea-folk have the Jendai Prophecy. All we know of them so far is that they are traders and prodigious sailors. Lately they have been ditching trade however, and searching for someone called the Coramoor. Guess who that might be.


Then there are the new prophecies. Veritable Cassandras are popping up left right and centre. Min, of course, sees all kinds of cryptic things around anyone around her, the latest being a hawk and a falcon sitting on Perrin's shoulders, the hawk holding a leash. Perrin himself, in gaining more control over his wolfbrother powers is having intense dreams that eerily mirror events in the waking world. Egwene has now been revealed as a Dreamer we can expect plenty from her. Dreaming (with a capital D, obviously) seems to be second only to Foretelling in the prophecy manufacturing business and of course dreams are satisfyingly vague and keep the theory mills running. 


So there we go, the future 101. It isn't called the Age of Prophecy for nothing you know!

Prophe-see, Propher-do

Book; 3: The Dragon Reborn

Chapter; 39: Threads in the Pattern

Character Groups;

Murandy    R. Manetherendrelle   R. Erinin    R. Erinin too  

Rand          Perrin                          Egwene      Mat  

                   Loial                           Elayne        Thom

                   Moiraine                     Nynaeve  

                   Lan

                   Faile

So, last time I made mention of the complexities of Seanchan society (pronounced SHAWN-chan, frustratingly) but I‘m not going to elaborate on that one until they rear their shaved heads again in a few book’s time.

Today, I want to talk about prophecy. And first I think I need to bend my first rule and fill in a little background.

Three and a half thousand years ago, the world was a peaceful and prosperous place. Channelers used their power (men using saidin and women using saidar) to perform great works and create an incredible quality of life for every level of society. Technologies were cheap and non-polluting, medicines were quick and effective and life expectancy, particularly for the channelers, was measured in centuries. Then, a researcher thought she had found the impossible, a brand new source of power, seemingly from outside the universe, which could be used by men and women equally without the divide between saidin and saidar. Of course it went horribly wrong and the Dark One was let loose on the world causing the collapse of society.

In the ensuing world war, one man rose to lead the forces of Light against the twisted mutant constructs of the Shadow. This man was Lews Therin Telamon, AKA the Dragon. The war culminated in the Dragon leading 100 of his most loyal men, all channelers, to seal the Dark One back outside the universe and save the world. They succeeded, sort of. On the plus side, along with the Dark One, they also trapped thirteen of his strongest followers in the seal. On the negative side, all 100 of the Dragon’s men went completely and violently mad, soon followed by every man who could channel in the whole world. Since then, any man who can touch saidin eventually succumbs to insanity and will destroy anything and everyone around him before he dies. Understandably, such men are feared and hated and an entire branch of the Aes Sedai spends their time seeking them out and ‘gentling’ them before they can do too much harm.

 To rub salt in the wound, in the years after the madness it was prophesied that the Dragon would be born again to both save and destroy the world again. The Dragon Reborn is Rand al’Thor and he is not overjoyed at the prospect.

There are lots of Dragon prophecies, and he has different names in different lands so no one has the full set. One of the best known ones in Randland is that the Stone of Tear (a fortress widely believed to be impenetrable) will never fall until the sword, Callandor, is in the Dragon’s hand. Just to complicate things, Callandor is kept inside the stone. (Yes, yes, I know, the chosen one is revealed by pulling the sword from the stone, it’s even a magic sword.) Anyway, in order to prove to himself that he really is the Dragon, Rand has gone AWOL and is heading for Tear with Perrin, Loial, Lan and a fuming Moiraine hot on his heels.

Hmm... I think I will turn this into a twofer. More prophecies next time folks!

ID please...

Book: 2; The Great Hunt


Chapter: 50; After. THE END!


Character Groups:
Mountains of Mist            Almoth Plain
Rand                                 Mat
Perrin                                Egwene
Loial                                 Nynaeve
Moiraine                           Elayne
Lan                                   Verin
Min                                   Hurin


Well, Mr. Jordan certainly crammed a lot into the last third of that book, like, a whole four months. But, as I have to keep reminding myself, I am not trying to summarise the plot here. 


While the ever expanding ensemble cast are taking a well deserved winter break, I would like to take a moment to go off on a bit of a tangent. You see, The Great Hunt took the scooby gang out into the wider world and one of the themes of the book was the apparent decline of humanity. As can be seen on the map of Randland (as the main continent has become lovingly known) huge swathes of land are unclaimed by any nation and most of the action in book 2 takes place in the spaces once occupied by the extinct nations of Hardon and Almoth. 

I should point out that this map was coloured in by my own fair hand after the analogue fashion because I don't own any picture type programmes more complex (or indeed other than) MS Paint. Anyway, it was quite fun, I should to more colouring in.


Sorry, back to the point. 


What I was struck by is that while the people of this continent (and, it is revealed, others) share a common language and religion (in the loosest sense of the word) each country has its own distinct appearance, mode of dress and cultural norms. Here are some that we have come across.


Cairhien (KEYE-ree-EHN): The nation of Moiraine's birth. Technically she is a noblewoman from the former royal house of Damodred but prefers to be known just as an Aes Sedai (House Damodred lost the throne in embarrassing and bloody circumstances). Cairhienin are described as short, fair skinned and dark haired. their soldiers shave and powder the front halves of their heads and the nobles wear dark clothes with slashes of bright colours across the front of their dresses or coats. the women wear huge skirts and tall powdered wigs. they speak in clipped tones with an almost musical accent. So Cairhienin look Chinese, dress like pre-revolutionary French nobility and sound Welsh.

Andor: Most of the Hobbits, sorry, Emond's Fielders were born in Andor as were Min and Elayne. I have always thought of Andor as Elizabethan England, especially since Queen Morgase is described as a beautiful and fierce woman with a mass of curling red-gold hair and a habit of sending people who upset her to the headsman.

Shienar: Shienar is the newest of the Borderlands, the chain of northern countries sworn to protect the world from the Dark One's Blight encroaching from the north. They are a warrior people who favour fighting from horseback and topknots. Shienar has only been a true borderland for about 50 years, since the still more northern kingdom of Malkier (which Lan happens to be technically king of) was swallowed by the Blight. 

Aside from that, we know that Taraboner women wear their hair in hundreds of braids with beads on the ends that clack whenever they move their heads, Domani women wear scandalous dresses and Aiel are tall, red-haired and deadly.

Of course all of this pales in comparison with the complexity of the Seanchan... 

Moon River

Book; 2, The Great Hunt


Chapter; 30, Daes Dae'mar


Character Groups:
Cairhien                     Kinslayers Dagger     Tifan's Well       Tar Valon
Rand                           Mat                           Moiraine            Egwene
Loial                           Perrin                        Lan                   Nynaeve
Hurin                          Ingtar                                                  Min
Selene (sometimes)    Verin                                                   Elayne
                                  Various soilders


See what I mean about the characters? Bear in mind that I am only including characters in the list that are important to the overall plot arc, since chapter 16 that number has gone from 10 to 14, not counting the soldiers, and I have actually left out a few because they aren't that important just yet. I have decided to include locations for each group, just to stop me getting lost! To keep to rule 2, I will not be describing new characters any more unless I have something interesting to say about them.


For example, Verin. Verin (or Verin Sedai to give her her full title) is another channeler. She belongs to the ancient, female only, order of channelers called Aes Sedai, which I believe I have mentioned before but not explained. Aes Sedai are subject to three oaths. 1) To speak no word that is not true, 2) to make no weapon for one man to kill another and 3) not to use the One Power as a weapon except in last defence of you life, that of your Warder...yadda yadda, the list goes on. The point is that Aes Sedai are bound to these oaths in such a way that makes them as much a part of a woman as her own skin, once sworn they are unbreakable. 

Or are they? A few chapters ago, Verin uttered a harmless little sentence that, it seems, broke the first rule. This is one of the great mysteries in the series. 'Did Verin Lie?' has been discussed on forums and blogs as long as there have been forums and blogs and the answer was a long time coming. This is in fact the 'longest delay' between event and explanation that I mentioned in a previous post. When I finally read the resolution, I curled up in a ball and giggled manically, earning some very strange looks from my sister.


Now for Selene. When I first read tGH in...oh... 2001, I found Selene absolutely fascinating. she pops up seemingly out of nowhere spouting cryptic phrases and giving off an air of knowing so much more than everybody else. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and on this read through I just found her a bit annoying. This could be because now I know what she is up to, (much as I would like to, I can't erase my knowledge of the future books and start again) but I think it is just that in ten years my tastes have changed.


I was wracking my brain trying to find a succinct way of explaining this and it came to me quite suddenly. Selene is River Song (I'll assume that you have seen the most recent series of Doctor Who). She turns up out of the blue being all enigmatic and twirls out hero around her middle finger. She refuses to tell us anything while hinting at everything and when the big reveal comes, its a bit of a let down (if not a bit nonsensical). At least Selene vanishes as easily as she appears whereas River seems to have become a fixture.

Have YOU got the Horn?

Book: 2; The Great Hunt

Chapter: 16; In the Mirror of Darkness

Character Groups:

Rand           Perrin                   Egwene             Moiraine

Loial            Mat                      Nynaeve            Lan

Hurin           Ingtar

                   Various soilders

Here is a question. What do the "infinite improbability drive", "Narrative Causality" and the "Chevalier Effect" have in common? That's right children, they are all ironic plot devices that allow a story to take great leaps of logic or justify enormous coincidences without breaking the mechanics of the world in question. (For those who are interested, the guilty authors are Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Robert Rankin respectively. The late, great, Mr. Adams actually scores a twofer in my library with the "interconnectedness of all things" in the Dirk Gently novels.) There is probably a proper, literary name for this sort of thing and if anyone knows it, feel free to tell me, but I shall call it a McGuffin.

With that in mind, what are ta'veren? You do catch on quickly, they are the WoT McGuffin, although in this case there is rather less of the irony.

About half way throught tEotW, Loial revealed that Rand, Mat and Perrin are all ta'veren, people whose very presence bends chance, luck and fate around themselves, and now no-one seems to be able to shut up about it. To be fair, it is quite elegant. Ta'veren fit perfectly into the mythology and can be used to explain pretty much anything. How did Perrin meet the only man in the world who could teach him the talk to wolves? Ta'veren. How was Rand separated from anyone who would recognise the signs of his channeling just as those signs showed up? Ta'veren. Mat hasn't done anything too obvious yet but eventually he becomes the most blatent ta'veren of the three, although not the most powerful.

Now, in other news, you may have noticed the list of characters above is getting bigger and more complicated. From here on in, this becomes a major feature of the WoT books. Smaller characters appear and disappear, the major characters bounce about all over the world. The reason I put the current groups at the top of each entry is that I find it the easiest way to keep track of the story, certain plot threads are always attached to certain groups. Today's new additions are Hurin, Ingtar, and a group of Shienaran soilders. Ingtar and the Shienarans are not to interesting right now but I'd just like to say a few words about Hurin. 

Hurin is a Sniffer. He can smell violence and track murderers by scent. He joins the Great Hunt of the book's title to track the Darkfriends and Trollocs that have stolen the fabled Horn of Valere. Nothing wrong with that really, but Hurin has always seemed such a flimsy character. All there seems to be to him is his ability and his obssesion with fawning over "Lord Rand" (long story). He mentions that he has a wife but otherwise there seems to be very little to him. Now it could be that his only purpose in the story is to go missing with Rand and Loial so that Perrin can have a chance to shine as a fake "Sniffer" or that he is there to make Rand accept some responsibility for once but when every other character in the series, even the walk on parts, seem to be so fleshed out, Hurin grates.

An Ending

Book: 1; The Eye of the World

Chapter:  53; The Wheel Turns. THE END!

Character Groups:

Rand 
Mat 
Perrin
Moiraine
Lan
Egwene
Nynaeve
Loial

So that was the book that was. Having slapped the forces of evil around a bit, our heroes have returned spring to the land faster than Aslan himself could have managed.

Those of you who are paying attention may have noticed that a new name has appeared in the character list. Loial (a name I was saying wrong for years until a character said that he was “as loyal as his name” or some such) is the runaway Ogier that despite being ninety years old, is considered too young to be out in the world on his own. In order to continue avoiding the elders of his home stedding, legendary sanctuaries that the Ogier rarely leave, he has tagged along with Rand et al in the hopes of finding adventure. He is not disappointed. For some reason, whenever I read a description of Loial, 10 feet tall, wide mouth, long eyebrows and tufted ears, I can’t help but visualise the Luck Dragon from The Neverending Story.  

Something I have always loved about these books is that each time I read them, I spot something I missed before.  First time, of course, you miss things because they are deliberately ambiguous or their significance is not immediately apparent. Second time, you spot the events that happened before there was any exposition. This is something that happens a lot in WoT, the longest delay between event and explanation that I can think of off the top of my head is eleven books, about three years for the characters. But even now, on my umpteenth read through of a book I first read ten years ago, I read something that the significance of which had completely passed me by before.

In the space-warping climatic Battle of Tawin's Gap at the end of tEotW, where [!!SPOILER WARNING!!] Rand uses the One Power to destroy a Trolloc army in a wave of fire and brimstone, a voice rings out in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS (which makes it all the more embarrassing that I have missed it before) saying that “ I WILL TAKE NO PART. ONLY THE CHOSEN ONE CAN DO WHAT MUST BE DONE, IF HE WILL”. Whose is this voice? For the life of me I cannot remember any time where any of the characters have remarked on this moment, I don’t even think it has come up in Rand’s PoV chapters. The only other things the voice said are “IT IS NOT HERE” and “NOT HERE” so that is nice and coherent. It some times seems to be answering Rand but the responses do not seem to make much sense. Is it the Creator? The Power itself? I could theorise for ages but I will restrain myself.

Moments like this send happy chemicals straight to my nerd brain. Rest assured, I will be watching very carefully for anyone speaking with caps lock on.

Hungry like a Wolfbrother

Book: 1; The Eye of the World


Chapter: 30; Children of Shadow


Character groups:


Rand         Moiraine           Perrin
Mat           Lan                   Egwene
                 Nynaeve           Elyas


After a series of very unfortunate events involving Trollocs, Myddraal (the aforementioned Dark Riders) and heat-seeking death fog, the wonder team has become separated. Thus begins my favorite ten chapters of this particular book.


First though, a few words about that there death fog. Mashadar is, I feel, one of the best monsters in the world of the Wheel. As big as a city, mindless and hungry, it is not even a creature of the Dark One like all the other evil things we have seen so far. It was born of the hatred and jealousy that destroyed the city of Aridhol two thousand years previous and now hunts in the ruins. Appearing at sunset as a glowing mist that rolls in thick tendrils through the streets, if it touches you, you die, screaming. Even Trollocs and Myddraal are reluctant to enter Aridhol (now called Shadar Logoth or Shadow's Waiting). Just think, misshapen half -man-half-beast creatures and men who can instill paralysing fear with a look are mortally afraid of something created by human beings.
Also, in the otherwise terrible Wheel of Time computer game, Mashadar was absolutely terrifying.


Right, back to my ten favorite chapters. In this section of the book, we finally get to see inside the heads of someone other than Rand. We had a section from the PoV of Nynaeve which was all very... angry... but I'm mostly interested in Perrin. Now, this will be a good way to check if my lovely boyfriend actually reads this, but I used to have a bit of a crush on Perrin. He is tall and strong with a mass of unruly dark hair and a beard. Perrin looks roughly the same (see what I did there Jon, dear?).

Up until this point, Perrin has been a bit of a background character and you would be forgiven for wondering what he is doing here at all but it turns out there is a lot more going on under that mop of a hairdo than is immediately apparent. He is a thinker is Perrin, the quiet type, but he can still rise to the challenge when necessary. As he and Egwene make their way across the wilderness in the company of wild men, gypsies and wolves (yes, wolves) he begins to show his natural leadership and determination, as well as some more interesting abilities.

Thats right, its superpower time! We already know about Moiraine and Egwene being Channelers (read magic, the force, whatever makes you happy) and can now add Nynaeve to this group (although that just makes her angry) but so far, apart from the odd... er... odditiy, the three central chaps have only demonstrated a remarkable ability to nearly get killed at every turn.

Well now we know, Perrin is a Wolfbrother. Able to see, hear and smell with wolf-like sensitivity as well as communicate with the noble beasts themselves. In Elyas, he manages to find into the one person in the whole continent that can teach him how to use those abilities, what are the odds eh?