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butterflydm · 2 years

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wot reread: lord of chaos (chap 47-end)

For the first time, this book isn’t better than the one before it imo. I would currently rank them (strongest to weakest): The Fires of Heaven; Lord of Chaos; The Shadow Rising; The Dragon Reborn; The Great Hunt; Eye of the World. I’m not sure if any of the remaining books will be able to top TFoH for me tbh. We will find out!

spoilers for lord of chaos

1. Elayne tries to demand (in an icily royal way) that Mat lend her his ter’angreal against channeling each night so that she may study it. Mat pretends to be ignorant of anything she’s talking about to the point of driving her to complete frustration. Annoyed at him, and potentially trying to teach him ‘manners’ like she bragged to Egwene that she would, she inspects his men’s horses and gives him her opinions on how well he’s done, as if he were one of her men.

2. Important future note about Ebou Dar culture: “a woman killing a man was considered justified unless it was proven differently”. It’s also a culture that’s very big on dueling.

3. Anyway, for all that Mat has a lot of random gender essentialist thoughts (like pretty much everyone else, though his tend to come with more insults and colorful language) he doesn’t see any reason why Birgitte can’t be a Warder, which puts him one up on pretty much every Aes Sedai who meets her.

4. The Aes Sedai also start channeling at him (presumably trying to study the effects of the medallion since he won’t let them borrow it). On the fourth day, they figure out that they can use the Power to make other things hit him. Super classy, guys. After that happens, Mat goes and drinks until he can’t stand up (because the thing that he was using for protection has a loophole that makes it less effective). This is honestly such a shitty thing for them to be doing to him. (we find out in the next chapter that Adelas and Vandene were the ones doing all the channeling and, wow, it would have done wonders for Elayne and Nynaeve’s relationship with Mat if they had... you know, told him that, but I guess Aes Sedai secrecy/solidarity is why they did not)

5. I admit that Ebou Dar does sound like a beautiful city. Not wanting to stay in the palace (good instincts!) Mat picks an inn at random -- the Wandering Woman, run by a woman named Setalle Anan. And the dice in his head stop. I really wish he would pay more attention to this sort of thing, tbh, the dice and his luck. He always ends up regretting it later that he didn’t (or, rather, he always ends up going through regrettable things because he didn’t). I’m actually going to mark this as another potential place for an AU and see how well it maps out if Mat had listened to his magical intuition here.

6. Nynaeve and Elayne are frustrated because, despite Egwene raising them to full sisters, Vandene, Adelas, and the Aes Sedai here in Ebou Dar are all still treating them like Accepted. Ah, now that Elayne is officially Aes Sedai, she’s introducing Birgitte as her Warder to everyone. And we learn that the reason that Adelas and Vandene came to Ebou Dar was to look for “runaways” though Elayne and Nynaeve do not know more than that. Aviendha was amused by Mat before but has now decided that he’s ‘irritating’; that would be Nynaeve and Elayne’s influence, I assume. Ah, and we learn that Egwene had a ‘discussion’ with Birgitte and learned the truth about her.

7. Elayne and Nynaeve go off to meet Queen Tylin, while Birgitte and Aviendha start their search of the city. Also, as of this point in the books, Nynaeve is twenty-six and Elayne is eighteen. We learn that Elaida has sent an ‘embassy’ to Ebou Dar as well, with two Sisters -- Teslyn and Joline. And the Whitecloaks also have an embassy here, led by Carridin, who Nynaeve and Elayne remember from Tanchico.

8. After Tylin tells them two of them how perilous things are for her here, Elayne tells Tylin all about their search for a ter’angreal to fix the weather. Tylin gets more instant trust than almost any other character in the series! Nynaeve is as startled as I am, at least. Elayne did it out of queenly solidarity, it seems. “I know how my mother felt about Aes Sedai traveling about Andor, never letting her know what they were doing.” Elayne also bets Nynaeve that she can have Mat “knuckling his forehead” for her within ten days, and Nynaeve takes the bet. There’s nothing riding on the bet tho.

9. Min “brought up” her viewing about Perrin needing to stay next to Rand to save him twice in front of Perrin and Rand wishes that she hadn’t; he really wants Perrin to go to Tear to be the visible face of Rand’s distraction army but now that Perrin knows about Min’s viewing, he won’t agree to do it. But Perrin didn’t want to go to Tear even before he heard about Min’s viewing, so *shrug*. Perrin says “what I want hasn’t seemed to count much since the first time we saw Moiraine” like he didn’t just go on an entire side quest of his own even while his ta’veren sense was saying that he should stay with Rand.

10. Loial is back and he and Rand catch up a little. Rand lets him know that his mother, Elder Haman, and Erith are now in the Two Rivers, where Rand thought Loial was. Loial is in a panic over it, since he’s not ready to get married and settle down in a Stedding. When Rand suggest that maybe Loial can talk to the Elders of the various Steddings so that he can put guards on all the Waygates, Perrin blows up on Rand, telling him that he’ll use anyone. Rand agrees but points out that he’s willing to use himself up as well.

11. Min arrives, frantic, to tell him that seven Aes Sedai are coming from the embassy (Rand has forbidden more than three at a time to enter the Inner City). She also punches him in this scene hard enough that she “made him grunt”. She’s spending way too much time with Faile. Can we just have ONE relationship without casual violence being a part of it? But because of Min’s warning, he is able to meet the Aes Sedai somewhat prepared (though very on edge due to Min’s viewing about Aes Sedai hurting him at some point in the future).

12. Demira speaks for the group and tells Rand that they have decided his restrictions for them are null and void; they will no longer follow them. Lews Therin is panicking in his head and argues that the situation is too dangerous and they need to strike first.

13. When Min gets back to the inn, she sees that two more Aes Sedai have arrived - Bera and Kiruna, the two that had been sent to the Aiel Waste to try to chase Rand so long enough. Which means there are now thirteen Sisters in Caemlyn, which is the number that Rand/LTT says means anyone, no matter how strong in the Power, would be helpless in front of. Panicked again, Min immediately leaves the inn to inform Rand. Bera and Kiruna both talk about how Rand must be “leashed” and “brought to heel”. And Min says that she’s sure these thirteen will hurt him; she’s talking out of her panic but Rand assumes it’s one of her ‘senses of absolute knowing’ that she gets about her viewings sometimes. And his flight here pretty much directly leads to him ending up in The Box (though I don’t think he ever thinks that through and asks Min to stop giving him vague ominous warnings about the future; but this does seem like a clear example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, where Min telling Rand about the viewing helped make it happen). Even without Min’s warning, he still might have panicked and fled, but it’s clear that his fear is considerably amped up by her viewing.

14. Rand tells Min that she will come with him for now but he will send her out of danger if it comes down to facing the Aes Sedai. She brandishes her daggers and refuses the idea. Brave but foolish, considering she has zero defenses against Aes Sedai (or Warders tbh; she’s spent a couple of months practicing daggers with Thom and that’s it; she would be dead in two seconds). He also collects Perrin and Faile to warn them. re: Perrin “he could not leave Perrin behind, and not because of any viewing; when Merana found Rand gone, one of them might well bond Perrin the way Alanna had him”.

15. So Rand is leaving for Cairhien with Min, Perrin, Faile, Loial, Gaul, Chiad, Bain, and Nandera with five hundred Maidens. I wonder if Chiad, Bain, and Gaul all feel like they don’t really fit in anymore due to having missed all the changes in Aiel society while they were in the Two Rivers. Sulin declares that she is coming as well. Everyone writes letters to leave to people, and the plot relevant ones are that Perrin tells the Two Rivers men to follow them to Cairhien, and Rand writes a warning to Taim about thirteen Aes Sedai and then a very harsh warning letter to Merana that he is going to Cairhien and she is allowed to follow with herself and no more than five other sisters, so that their embassy matches Elaida’s there. And Bera and Kiruna take firm control of the embassy.

16. Because it’s narratively convenient for Min’s presence never to be questioned by anyone from this point forward, the Wise Ones easily accept her as one of their own. Once I started noticing How Easy the narrative makes things for Min in her pursuit of Rand, it’s hard for me to stop noticing it lol. The Maidens let her walk in on Rand in his bath and wherever else she wants; the Wise Ones accept her as one of their own much more easily that we’ve seen them do with anyone else; no one expects her to become Aviendha’s first-sister and go through all the required trials before being romantic with Rand. She doesn’t need to try to adapt to Aiel culture in the slightest (as Elayne does), as all the Aiel are willing to bend over backwards for her instead, which is just... completely counter to how they behave in pretty much every other situation. All the obstacles that Elayne and Aviendha face in trying to be with Rand are completely non-existent for Rand and Min. But a big thing that draws me to pairings is their ability to OVERCOME those obstacles, so that’s probably a large part of why Rand x Min didn’t ever appeal to me as much as Rand x Elayne (dealing with conflicting duties) or Rand x Aviendha (dealing with differing cultural expectations). I have a hard time getting attached to pairings where the way for them is smoothed by the narrative, lol. I guess the ‘conflict’ in Rand x Min is supposed to be over which one of them cracks first and admits out loud that all the snuggling and kissing and teasing is a romantic relationship?

17. Oh. I almost forgot -- in addition to the paranoia and recklessness, Rand is also becoming more susceptible to flattery, because we learn that he does now believe Alviarin’s letter from the end of TFoH - he talks earlier about there being a faction of Aes Sedai ready to bend knee to him. So that’s three dangerous influences on his mental state. Plus he doesn’t eat or sleep enough and has Vaguely Ominous Warnings to deal with.

18. Rand is trying to figure out how to have Min around without revealing that she matters to him to the people around him who might take advantage of it. Rand notes that he’s more ill-tempered when she’s not around but that even she can’t pull him out of his depressions. The temper thing is ‘told’ here in the internal narration about Min, but we’ve actually seen it in action before with Elayne -- when Egwene accidentally riled up his temper at the start of TSR, Elayne talking to him cooled him down. Just her presence was soothing, iirc. So I assume that a similar thing is happening here.

19. Rand is still very attracted to Berelain (everyone is more horny in these later books) but is now blaming that all on LTT. So that’s getting worse, too, because earlier in the book, he was able to admit that he was the one who found Berelain attractive but now it’s Lews Therin who finds her attractive. And Min joins the group we like to call ‘All Wetlander Women Hate Berelain’. *annoyed sigh*

20. Even though Rand and Perrin have now both been in Cairhien together for ten days, that catch-up session that happened that first day with them hasn’t repeated and they have not been spending much time together, with Perrin blaming it on Rand being busy. This friendship is so casual and low-key compared to the intense... thing that Rand and Mat have going on, and it makes me sad all over again that Mat has left.

21. The Berelain-Faile nonsense has started and I am not going to waste my time talking about it. I will say this and only this, because it’s both the first and last thing that matters in this pointless storyline: “Berelain knew he was married, knew he loved his wife, and that should have been that” (especially since we already know from an earlier Min viewing that Berelain is going to fall in love with someone else later, so Berelain desperately chasing after a married man is EVEN MORE ridiculous than it might otherwise be). Wait. I will also point out that Berelain laughing and ignoring Perrin’s wishes that she stop being overly flirty with him is exactly what Min is doing in her “wear Rand down into admitting he wants to sleep with me” campaign. Now I’m done with the subject. Oh, wait, also go to AO3 and check out @lesbiancytherea‘s Berelain/Faile fic: The woman I have always desired to be mine.

22. Ah, yeah, and the whole reason that Rand is bothering to meet with Elaida’s delegation at all (when he gets taken) is because he’s trying to ‘even out’ the audiences that he had with the Salidar delegation. This is still all based on his panicked flight out of Caemlyn. And LTT keeps talking about needing to take care of Sammael but Demandred first. He sees the Aes Sedai alone because he’s been taking more and more risks even as he’s been getting more and more paranoid (it’s been stressing me out all book), and they’ve snuck their secret Aes Sedai sisters (too young to get the distinctive look) into the room, to shield him and take him. Galina takes over the embassy and the Red Ajah is in charge. Captive in that noble’s house, Rand has started to sink into a gray depression. But, yeah, remember way back when Aviendha made the Maidens promise to tell her all of Rand’s comings and goings and I said that just sounded like it would make Rand start to sneak off without his guards? Nandera tells us that he’s been doing just that. So that’s why the Maidens aren’t on instant high alert.

23 Wait... I’m kinda curious now what bizarre nonsensical way that Min is going to end up with Rand here, since she wasn’t with him when he was taken. For some reason, I’ve remembered (incorrectly) all this time that she was with him and that’s why she was taken along as well. lol, she “vanished” between the tents and the palace, we are told by Sorilea. Okay, my guess before I get to the chapter with the real reason: one of the Tower Aes Sedai randomly saw her in the streets and recognized her as fortune-telling Min and so she has conveniently been kidnapped along with Rand?

24. Mat has grown used to being called “Lord Cauthon”. It makes things easier in Ebou Dar, he thinks. Fewer challenges to duels. Ah, they are having Olver ‘pick up’ shameless flirting from Mat in this book, but it’s confined to “beautiful eyes” here. And even that much, Mat disapproves of him doing. And it’s fine for there to be ‘grown-up things’ that kids aren’t allowed to do? Mat isn’t evil for flirting with women while being In The Presence Of A Child.

25. As they search the endless streets and buildings, Elayne and Birgitte see a ‘Domani wilder’ healing someone. A Clue but they’re focused on their search, so they let it pass them by. And Elayne and Birgitte also spot Mat and Nalesean, who have been drawn to the correct spot at a useful time by Mat’s luck, but Elayne and Birgitte are trying to avoid them, so they hurry along. Because in their PoV, Mat is only here to get him out of Egwene’s way, not to actually be useful. Maybe this would be a better jumping off point for an AU than the earlier one I was thinking of. Marking it for later. (if anyone could literally walk into the correct building by accident...)

26. We do get the interesting mirroring here of the Salidar Aes Sedai keeping Logain under a shield even as the Tower’s Aes Sedai are keeping Rand under one. And this all reminds me of the excellent Logain scenes that we got in S1 of the show. Looking forward to more Logain, definitely. Egwene is trying to get Logain’s thoughts on Rand, the amnesty, and the madness. Egwene is startled when Logain angrily bursts out that of course he wishes “I were with [Rand] now!”

27. Egwene meets up with Elayne and Nynaeve in TAR. We learn here that Egwene HAS talked with the Aiel dreamwalkers (well, Bair and Melaine) and they told her that you can only use need to find a specific thing once (’like trying to eat the same apple twice’). Egwene notes (internally) that the dreamwalkers might be happy to teach her but they are telling her nothing about Rand anymore and have gotten very sour on the topic of Aes Sedai in general. For the first time in ages, Nynaeve stays alone in TAR to talk to Egwene, so that she can ask if there’s any news about Lan (there is not).

28. Because she’s realized that the Hall is going to vote to gentle Logain, Egwene’s arranged to secretly have him freed.

29. Elsewhere in the camp, Lan arrives and Myrelle is waiting to meet him. We’re told that this (like Alanna’s forced bonding of Rand) is also considered awful and out-of-bounds, passing a Warder’s bond along to another Aes Sedai without his permission. Ugh, the way she thinks about him here: “a wolfhound mourning his dead mistress did not come to a new mistress willingly”. So she compels him to obey (which is what Alanna has tried and failed to do with Rand).

30. Back in Perrin’s PoV, Rand has been missing six days. Min is also missing. “he could feel Rand’s need like an itch everywhere under his skin”. Yeah, much less evocative and coded romantic than how Mat described it, lol. We also learn here that the Aes Sedai left three days ago, so Rand is three days out from Cairhien and heading towards the White Tower. They find out that Rand is truly missing from two people: Lord Dobraine has come to warn them about two Lords being murdered and Lady Colavaere doing some suspiciously political dinners; and Belelain has found Rand’s sword and Dragon belt buckle, left behind. Sulin INSTANTLY realizes upon seeing Aviendha’s two gifts to Rand that this means he has been stolen away and has not left of his own accord and she calls him her “first-brother”. The privacy thing I will always have issues with, but they really do love him so much. She is DONE with being a servant, she must SAVE HER BROTHER. Also, we can count Dobraine as very firmly Rand’s man.

31. lol “Perrin liked to think things through; when you were hasty, you could hurt people without meaning to”. Perrin really is just as self-deceiving as Mat or Nynaeve, I swear. He manages to think this literally moments after he has flown off the handle to scream at Berelain for simply entering the room. I actually have some thoughts maybe about how all three of the guys’ plotlines are representing PTSD, but I feel like that meta has probably been written years ago lol.

32. Yes, Min has been captured by Galina. We aren’t told who/how they took her, but apparently her knife skills weren’t as up to the task as she thought they would be when she was showing off to Rand earlier in the book; the fact that Jordan doesn’t even bother to tell us how she was captured does kinda make me laugh. And it is because Galina apparently recognized her from when she was hanging out with Nynaeve and Egwene, and knows they’re connected to Rand, of course, and now she’s hanging out in the same city as Rand so, you know, clear connection there. When Rand saw that Min was there in the camp, he went so wild with rage that he killed one Warder directly and another one died from the shock of being Healed. There are 39 total Aes Sedai in the group that is holding Rand captive. Rand’s treatment at the hands of the Tower Aes Sedai in this section really is truly horrific. Each blow that they hit against him firms his resolve to never trust another Aes Sedai. It is in Rand’s PoV that we learn that Sevanna and the Shaido Wise Ones are hanging out with this group (though we saw the bargain being made earlier in the book).

33. But, yeah, Min being here really does make me very ??? at why she’s exempt from being protected from Rand’s danger-aura in the future by being send away from him. Being close to him literally got her kidnapped; she was targeted exactly the way he was afraid that Elayne or Aviendha or the Two Rivers would be if he let people see that he cared about them.

34. Rand has another two-way conversation with Lews Therin, and he asks if they can work together. After a moment, LTT agrees. Rand tries to plan out a way to pretend to be broken so that they will stop holding him so hard, so that they will tie off the weave that’s shielding him instead of maintaining it. Galina’s goal for Rand: “when she brought him to the White Tower, he would kiss Elaida’s ring, speak when spoken to and kneel in the corner when he was not wanted”. She wants him to be damane, essentially.

35. ALL of the Maidens wanted to come, but got restricted to a thousand, as every Maiden leaving the city would make it very very obvious to the Aiel that Rand was in grave danger. There are also five-thousand other Aiel, ninety-four Wise Ones (”the strongest in the One Power near the city”; and ALL of the Wise Ones wanted to come as well, but they only let the strongest come. And Sorilea), five hundred of Lord Dobraine’s men, and two hundred of Berelain’s.

36. And when they rest for the night, Perrin calls out for the wolves to come and help them rescue Rand. Just as Mat reached a peak of a kind in this book (he’s very firmly Rand’s general, and loyal to him); so does Perrin, in being able to take command here to lead the rescue to save Rand without second-guessing himself or his willingness to lead. Which uh, makes it unfortunate that there are so many books remaining, because there’s only one direction for them to go.

37. I love the evocative descriptions of the wolves’ names. Gorgeous imagery. “Two Moons was really a night-shrouded pool, smooth as ice in the instant before the breeze stirred, with a tang of autumn in the air, and one moon hanging full in the sky and another reflected so perfectly in the water that it was difficult to tell which was real”. We also learn here that wolves can sense channelers. And the wolves are PISSED when they learn that Rand (”Shadowkiller”) has been caged and the word is passed around from pack to pack and “several hundred” are coming to help.

38. So, with the siswai’aman, we learn from Perrin’s smell-o-vision that they are jealous of the Maidens, while the Maidens are possessive of what they have -- obviously, this is about their connection to Rand, though Perrin doesn’t realize that. They are all devoted enough to Rand to be willing to fight Aes Sedai in order to try to save him, which most of the Aiel are not willing to do.

39. Seven days into chasing after Rand (so Rand has been captive 13 days total), Perrin learns (via the wolves) that they’re running into the Two Rivers’ men. Honestly, it actually kinda annoys me that Perrin did not bring Tam or even tell him Rand needed him (because he knew from the start that Rand was ‘tugging’ him away into his duties)? That’s his son. He doesn’t even know that Rand is the Dragon Reborn! Anyway, Verin and Alanna are here, as well as seven others, so three more than the six that Rand said were allowed to follow him to Cairhien.

40. So now three hundred Two Rivers archers, nine Aes Sedai, and sixteen Warders have been added to the army. So, if I were writing this in a way to make it so that more characters could rescue Rand... Perrin would be coming with the archers, and you would have Mat with this main army here (and the Band), marching from Cairhien. Can’t think of any easy way for Egwene, Nynaeve, or Elayne/Aviendha to be there though. It would need to be BEFORE Mat was sent to try to get Elayne to go to Caemlyn. But, of course, any changes here would depend on earlier changes as well, which I can’t predict. If Elayne and Nynaeve aren’t at Salidar at this point, then they could potentially end up in Cairhien or Caemlyn and thus go along. Though it probably wouldn’t make narrative sense for Egwene to be present, since she and Rand are supposed to be pulling apart at this point. Again, depending on how the storyline is going.

41. lol, yep, Gawyn will Technically Keep His Word to Egwene by not physically raising a hand against Rand personally, but not keep the spirit of his word, since he is helping to enable great harm to happen to Rand and is very aware Egwene would not be thrilled. Once again, Gawyn straddles that fence between two sides and tries to help both and neither at the same time.

42. Rand has been memorizing each woman that has taken her turn at beating him. Galina, Erian, and Katerine are the three that have done so more than once. He’s still desperately feeling along the shield and hoping that they will tie it off instead of holding it.

43. Pretty much all of Perrin’s allies all hate each other -- but they are all determined to save Rand, even if they die in the effort. Why doesn’t Perrin understand why the Aes Sedai have to go into the battle in order to fight? He was with Alanna and Verin and I’m sure they told him that they actually need to be threatened in order to help? Didn’t they? Maybe they didn’t, since they were fighting Shadowspawn. Hmm. The battle itself is pretty good -- it doesn’t go into too much gory detail but we get enough of what is happening to understand the story of the battle.

44. Taim and the Asha’man arrive via Gateways and level the playing field against the Tower Aes Sedai and the Shaido. That is... convenient timing. But we’ll see if Taim says how he knew to come.

45. As the battle rages, four of the Aes Sedai holding him have to tie off their part of the shield to join the battle, leaving only two actively holding on. He unravels three of the knots -- another Sister starts actively holding again, but he is able to burst through the shield of the three Sisters holding him before they can bring someone else into the shield to hold him. Min is magically unharmed by the chest exploding to free him because of course she is. Rand stilled all three of the Sisters who were still holding onto the shield when Rand blew it apart. Anyway, Rand promises to protect Min and she’s officially his Damsel Figure now, I guess, and the Damsel-fication of Min that has been slowly occurring over the course of the last couple of books is feels like it’s starting to reach Peak Damsel. Will this be her exemption clause out of his general “must keep everyone I care about far away from me if possible” attitude, because helpless damsels can’t be allowed to wander around on their own lest they tragically die as they are wont to do? I guess I will find out.

46. Rand starts picking out the Tower Aes Sedai and shielding them. When “Lews Therin” thinks that he wanted Erian, Katerine, and Galina ‘especially’, Rand denies that the thought could have come from him, despite the fact that it obviously did. He takes down Sister after Sister, but doesn’t see Galina (though he did get Erian and Katerine).

47. Rand and Gawyn are briefly confronted with each other; Gawyn asks Min to come with him to safety, she refuses and tells him that Elayne loves Rand. Gawyn leaves, swearing that one day he will see Rand die.

48. Ah, Taim says they were able to show up because he had “reason to be in Cairhien”. That is... very thin, but Rand isn’t really in a state of mind to challenge it. Taim offers to heal him and Rand refuses, thinking that if Taim touches him with the Power, however innocently, Rand won’t be able to stop himself from killing him.

49. When Rand sees Perrin arrive, he has to stop himself from looking around to see if Mat is there too. Oh, buddy, I wish he were.

50. When the Salidar Aes Sedai come to Rand, to try to tell him about rescuing him, he orders them to join the Tower Aes Sedai. They also disobeyed his commands -- they brought nine Sisters when he said to bring six -- and he has absolutely zero trust left for any Aes Sedai at the moment in time. So he orders them to kneel, and Taim enforces it. It’s a big contrast to the triumphant (with warning tones) ending of TFoH -- this is somber and ominous. Technically, Rand has won... after being caged and beaten nearly two weeks, after watching a horrific slaughter (which feels probably like an illusion to the invention of modern guns being able to cause carnage on the battlefield?). The Aes Sedai kneel and swear to Rand (I will note that Rand’s aversion IS limited to Aes Sedai and not female channelers in general; this event doesn’t make him start mistrusting the Wise Ones, for example).

51. In the epilogue, Rand’s philosopher friend is killed, conveniently creating a ‘job opening’ for the next book for Rand to get a ‘new’ philosopher ‘friend’. I actually did like Herid, though I disliked him being yet another Old Dude who is super into Girls Young Enough To Be His Granddaughter, like Thom was in TDR/TSR (though luckily Thom... grew out of it? before Elayne’s inexplicable crush on him).

52. Aran’gar frees Moghedien and Egwene wonders if Logain did it. Anyway, Moghedien has been summoned to Shayol Ghul. Right now in SG, the Great Lord is praising Demandred for “doing well” at “letting the lord of chaos rule”, which sadly is a tiny scene that makes no sense after the upcoming change to Demandred’s plot/location lol. Oh well. And the book ends on the Dark One laughing.

So, LoC is a pretty good book but I would not say it’s as good at TFoH. Better than TSR though (Perrin and Faile keep TSR from being better than LoC, I would say). In TFoH, any issues I had were super-minor and one of the main things that bugged me throughout the book -- everyone and their sister bullying Nynaeve -- ends with Nynaeve getting to triumph over Moghedien in the end. LoC, though, has some sections where it just felt like nothing much was happening, plus I learned that I... actually dislike Rand/Min? Before this reread, it was my least favorite of the Rand pairings but I DID like it okay. But this time, really digging into it, there’s just a lot of ‘yikes’ there for how much Min was willing to warp her personality, behavior, and looks in order to try to appeal to Rand and win him. Ironically, I’m actually super into Powered/Unpowered pairings, where one person is ‘mundane’/’normal’ and the other is magical in some way, all the way back to my love for Clark Kent & Lois Lane. But Min is... Min is no Lois Lane. I’ll leave it at that, lol.

Again, I DO think the show has lots of opportunity to improve the Rand x Min pairing to make it feel less ‘yikes’. If we can avoid the ringlets and the simpering on Rand’s lap to try to get him to admit he wants to bang her, I would be thrilled lol. And making it so that all the relationships get more equal ‘face time’ would also be an improvement.

Since (imo) we have entered the beginnings of The Slog, I am going to keep track of Sloggy Things. Two main things.

The first being -- how long does it take plotlines to resolve?

In the previous books, all main plotlines were resolved by the ending of the book -- they get to the Eye of the World in EotW, everyone goes to Falme and the Horn is used in TGH and the dagger has been retrieved, everyone makes it to Tear in TDR and Rand is officially proclaimed as the Dragon Reborn. It gets a little more complicated in TSR, because there are more storylines at play, but Perrin defends the Two Rivers, Rand becomes the Car’a’carn, and Elayne and Nynaeve get (and dispose of) the Sad bracelets. In TFoH, Couladin gets taken care of (which is both Mat and Rand’s plotline) and Rand takes control of Cairhien, and Elayne and Nynaeve get to Salidar. Egwene doesn’t really have a ‘plotline’ of her own in the first five books, though she tags along on other people’s -- but she’s getting a lot of training instead and also has some Traumatic Events happen to her that shape her perspective of the world.

Now we get to LoC. The goals of the characters:

Rand & Mat - take care of Sammael in Illian. NOT completed by the end of the book and entirely canceled for Mat. First time Rand has not completed the proposed plot of his book.

Perrin - do a ta’veren thing for Rand. COMPLETED! (but also much shorter PoV-wise than Rand’s incompleted arc)

Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne are all mostly chilling and waiting for a plotline to start for them in this book but we do open up the new plot threads for A Crown of Swords near the end of the book. Min’s only goal is to get Rand to have sex with her, but that is also uncompleted in this book I guess, lol. And Mat gets a new task assigned to him by Rand. I guess... technically, Elayne and Nynaeve’s ‘purpose’ this book was to get the Salidar Aes Sedai to side with Rand, so that is definitely NOT completed. But this goal also seems to get canceled when Egwene takes over, and the new goal is to march on Tar Valon and confront Elaida.

So, these are the tasks that are being set up to be completed in ACoS:

Rand - take care of Sammael in Illian (2/?)

Mat - escort Elayne to Caemlyn and watch her become queen (1/?)

Perrin - ???? Rand wants him to help with Sammael but who knows? (I mean, it’s a reread, so I actually do know, but it’s not said in this book lol)

Egwene - get to the White Tower and challenge Elaida (1/?)

Nynaeve & Elayne - get the Bowl of Winds and fix the weather (1/?); they also believe this will... somehow???... help the Salidar Aes Sedai to side with Rand.

And the second thing being -- how many times do we get unnecessary scenes/plotlines?

Which I will define either as scenes that are pointless (like the Berelain-Faile jealousy stuff which has already been shown pointless because of Min’s viewing that Berelain is going to fall in love with someone else entirely, so why are we wasting time on her trying to chase Perrin) or repetitive scenes that give us no new information.

Many of the earlier Salidar PoVs in LoC feel this way to me, like they could have been condensed into fewer sections, like Perrin’s were, and I believe this is definitely something that will get worse in future books (pretty sure the vast majority of one of the future books is like this lol). Jordan needed a stronger hand on the editor’s pen, someone willing to ask him “do we really need this scene or are you just trying to show off your worldbuilding?”

I’ll try to keep track of this one as I go, and then tote it up at the end of each book.

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #lord of chaos #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #cannot figure out these keep disappearing from the tags #if anyone knows about why tumblr does these things #i would love some insight lol

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