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neuxue · 5 years

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Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 36

It’s all in the nuances

Chapter 36: The Death of Tuon

Somehow I don’t think that title means what it looks like it means.

We’re back with Mat, but Verin is here so hopefully that should make things interesting.

“My goal was to make my way to Tar Valon.” “Then how did you end up here?” Mat asked

That’s an entirely fair question, but the first thing my mind went to, when Verin said that, was that you know who else’s goal was initially to make their way to Tar Valon?

Rand.

And so far, he has yet to even set foot in the city. I just find that kind of fun to think about, because I hadn’t really given it much thought before. But that was his entire goal pretty much all through EotW.

In comparison to that, Verin getting sidetracked for half a book somewhere in the middle of…is Mat in Murandy still?...is small potatoes.

Bloody [bench] must have been designed by insane, cross-eyed Trollocs and built from the bones of the damned. That was the only reasonable explanation.

Somewhat cringing at this because it is so very not Mat, and feels like it’s trying too hard. Meh. Anyway.

“You can Travel. So if you intended to go to the White Tower, then why not just bloody Travel there and be done with it?”

“Good questions,” Verin said. “Indeed. Might I have some tea?”

What, you thought you were going to get answers?

Good luck. I’ve been trying for ten books now and still all I have are suspicions. And one of those suspicions is that Verin is just a massive troll and enjoys fucking with people.

Because of the holes in his memory, Mat’s first meeting with Verin was fuzzy to him. In fact, his memory of her at all was fuzzy.

I’m not actually sure having your memories intact would help much with that, honestly.

Studying her, her mannerisms seemed too exaggerated to him. As if she were leaning on the preconceptions about Browns, using them. Fooling people, like a street performer taking in country boys with a clever game of three-card shuffle.

She eyed him. That smile on the corner of her lips? That was the smile of a jackleg who didn’t care that you were on to her con. Now that you understood, you could both enjoy the game, and perhaps together you could dupe someone else.

One trickster to another.

I like little moments of recognition like this between characters. Neither says anything, but they both know, and each one knows that the other knows, and so the rest of the scene can proceed with this undercurrent of understanding.

Two characters who recognise something similar in each other – or who recognise each other’s talents, at any rate – and who just look at each other across the board and say ‘shall we play a game?’

And as the reader you’re invited in as well, because it’s not so much adversarial as almost-but-not-quite-competitive, a test of skill almost, a game in many ways. So it’s an open invitation to play, because as the reader you also have that little extra bit of insight…but not enough to know everything that’s going on. So, like Mat, we get to try to spot the aforementioned con.

Also, I just love that Verin and Mat are set side by side here because at first glance they’re total opposites, but by positioning them this way we see Verin as being…perhaps not quite trickster but certainly trickster-adjacent, herself. She’s not the roguish yet honourable young man with a jaunty hat and a cool spear; she’s a plump middle-aged woman with probably an inkstain or two on her clothes and an almost grandmotherly manner. And yet here she is.

I mean, not that we didn’t already kind of know that. But I love these moments where Verin is revealed again to be not entirely what she seems, yet in a way that suits her. It’s some good character development for Mat, as well. Everyone wins here, really.

Good luck getting Mat to admit outright to being ta’veren, Verin.

(Good luck getting Verin to say anything at all outright, Mat).

“But you can’t hide your light in [Rand’s] shadow, Matrim Cauthon.”

That sounds like what Melindhra used to say to him.

Also, I don’t know; Tuon described Rand as having a shadow like a mountain last chapter, and it’s all rather dark there these days, so if you’re going to try, now’s the time.

Casual mention of Verin having just been with Rand, which I think is anything but casual.

“How…did he seem?” Mat said. “Is he…you know…”

“Mad?” Verin asked.

Mat nodded.

“I’m afraid so,” Verin said, lips downturning slightly. “I think he’s still in control of himself, however.”

There’s very little…softening of the truth with Verin, either to herself or to others. Obfuscating of it to serve her purposes, sure. But denial or wishful thinking or gentle presentation of facts? Not so much. She deals with the world as she finds it, because wishing it otherwise won’t make it so (unless, perhaps, you’re the Dragon Reborn and a Fisher King analogue, in which case all bets are off). So she’s not going to soft-pedal her perceptions of Rand, even for a friend of his. Whether or not she’s completely correct is another question, but she’s not going to waste time trying to ignore what she sees.

I like Mat’s hesitant concern for Rand, here. He tried to break off their friendship as far back as TGH, but it never quite snapped completely. And I think he cares more about Rand than he might admit.

“I’m not convinced young al’Thor’s problems are completely due to the Power, Matrim. Many would like to blame his temperament on saidin, but to do that is to ignore the incredible stresses that we’ve settled on that poor boy’s shoulders.

There’s something about the way she says this, so matter-of-fact but at the same time so clearly aware and even sympathetic of something that very few characters even begin to acknowledge, much less understand, that lends a great deal of poignancy to this statement.

I think it’s maybe because it’s so matter-of-fact. It’s not sentimental, and Verin knew Rand earlier on but doesn’t have any particular attachment to him the way, say, Min or Nynaeve or even Egwene or Mat do. She’s not saying this out of sympathy or sorrow. And yet that gives it more weight, in a way; it’s a way of showing how clear that is to her, that she sees it as just a statement of fact. His humanity and youth, so easily forgotten by most, are just simple fact to her.

And that means so much, when so few in the world see the Dragon Reborn anymore as anything but a force, a power, a monster, a legend. Rand is a man who can channel. Men who can channel are driven mad by the taint on saidin. Therefore Rand must be mad. Therefore the things Rand does must be madness. The root of this must be the taint. And thus they can ignore everything else involved that might be harder to accept, everything that might cause an uncomfortable conflict of conscience.

Easier to see the Dragon Reborn as a necessary monster on the verge of madness, perhaps, than to see a tortured young man carrying far too heavy a task for a world that fears and even reviles him. Because the first option doesn’t ask you to do anything. It’s terrifying, certainly, but in a distant ‘nothing I can do’ kind of way. Or, for those who want to manipulate him, it gives them a very reasonable basis for doing so.

But Verin…Verin just looks at the situation and sees truth, apparently unclouded by sentiment or self-interest or fear or denial. And thus, perhaps ironically, ends up with a view of Rand that is far more sympathetic than almost any other character aside from those very closest to him.

He is only human. He is young. He is tired and desperate and in pain. And Verin sees that, and understands its effects. Even as she is ostensibly working to keep him alive until it is ‘time for him to die’. She does not allow herself to soften that necessity, to take the easy way out by blaming saidin or by looking at him as anything other than what he is.

Oh and by the way saidin is clean now.

Once again, Verin has this way of getting straight to the heart of things, and making these sorts of statements that are almost uncomfortable in their truth or insightfulness or just in what they force people to think about. But she does it with this mask of being just a typical Brown, lost in her own thoughts, unaware of the full effect of what she’s saying, drifting off on a tangent that just so happens to make everyone else uncomfortable. et there’s nothing vague or accidental or even truly tactless about it. She knows that this is the best way to get her thoughts heard, but in such a way as to not bring any sort of…suspicion? scrutiny? unwanted attention? upon herself.

And also in a way that doesn’t leave people a lot of room to evade the truth, even if just for a few seconds. It’s why her words often result in brief uncomfortable silences. Because she doesn’t leave an easy way out…until she decides herself to provide one, to bring things back to comfortable topics.

“I would argue that the cleansing itself is more like a pebble thrown into a pond. The ripples will take some time to reach the shore.”

“A pebble?” Mat asked. “A pebble?”

“Well, perhaps more of a boulder.”

“A bloody mountain if you ask me”

Again with the mountains. Yes, Mat, a mountain. An almost literally bloody mountain, you could say.

Flaming Aes Sedai. Did they have to be like that? It was probably another oath they took and told nobody about, something to do with acting mysterious.

Hey, that sounded almost like Mat! The ‘it was probably another oath’ part, I mean.

And now back to alien body-snatcher Mat. Ah well.

That’s okay, because it’s storytime with Verin! Who seems to have experienced the fantasy, ta’veren-induced equivalent of the classic and truly infurating ‘this flight has been delayed for approximately thirty minutes’ announcement happening every hour on the hour for eight hours while you remain stuck in the airport waiting area, unable to actually go anywhere, even though you really could have, because every time you consider going a bit further away the announcement promises that you’ll be boarding soon. (It lies).

No I’m not speaking from personal experience what are you talking about.

Except in Verin’s case it involves a truly absurd number of coincidences such as leaks and inn fires to prevent her from ever learning a place well enough to Travel from it.

“So? Mat said. “Still sounds like a coincidence.”

You’d think Matrim ‘I’m leaving now, Rand, for real this ti—oh look a battle!’ Cauthon would have a little more sympathy.

“I soon started to feel a tugging on me. Something pulling me, yanking at me. As if…”

Mat shifted again. “As if somebody’s got a bloody fishhook inside of you?”

As if the Pattern is exasperatedly trying to fix a chessboard that was set up by six-year-olds? “No, that piece goes here…oh just let me do it.”

“I was quite fatigued from my days staying up all hours because of fires, crying babies, and constant moves from one inn room to another.”

Oh the joys of business travel.

“It was then that I kenw for certain that I was being directed. Most wouldn’t have noticed it, I suspect, but I have made a study of the nature of ta’veren.”

Is there anything you haven’tmade a study of, Verin?

“I spoke with Tomas, and we determined to avoid gong where we were being pulled. […] I opened a gateway, but when we reached the end of our journey, we stepped not into Tar Valon, but a small village in northern Murandy!”

I’m laughing at how hard the Pattern has to work to get anyone to go to Murandy, I guess. Maybe it’s not actually ta’veren; it’s just a lot of money spent on a tourism campaign. Part of Roedran’s plans for economic development, no doubt.

“One thing bothers me, however,” Verin said. “Was there no other person who could have happened into your path?”

You’re just that special, Verin.

Now the question is why?

“First, we should negotiate my price for taking you to Andor.”

Okay no, apparently the question now, as far as Verin is concerned, is just the classic ‘how much?’

I can respect that.

Ah, so she wasn’t the one distributing the drawings of him, she just found one.

I’m pretty sure saidarisn’t a verb, but then, Mat used ‘Aes Sedai’ as a verb when he was still being written by Robert Jordan, so…whatever. It’s probably the least out-of-character part of the sentence, which might be saying something.

“I received this paper, Matrim, from a Darkfriend,” she said, “who told me – thinking me a servant of the Shadow – that one of the Forsaken had commanded that the men in these pictures be killed.”

Oh, so it was about that after all.

More importantly though…*squints at Verin* any particular reason he thought you were a servant of the Shadow? That’s some extremely Aes Sedai phrasing right there…

She thinks Mat should go into hiding? That’s…extreme. Though it’s kind of what he’s been doing for the last several books, in a way, if not necessarily always by design.

“I’m always careful,” Mat said.

Presented without further comment.

She slipped a small folded piece of paper out from under the picture. It was sealed with a drop of blood-red wax.

Mat took it hesitantly. “It is?”

“Instructions,” Verin said. “Which you will follow on the tenth day after I leave you in Caemlyn.”

He scratched his neck, fronwing, then moved to break the seal.

“You aren’t to open them until that day,” Verin said.

NOW WHAT DOES THIS REMIND YOU OF?

Mysterious envelopes from an Aes Sedai, that must not be opened just yet, not while she’s here watching…

This has always boded well before. As Mat has every reason to know, having read another of them and seen a third handed over.

Mat wants no part of this agreement, though. Really? You’d rather walk twenty days to Caemlyn than wait ten days there?

Then again, promising to follow mysterious instructions given to you by an Aes Sedai you recognise as being not entirely what she seems, is…well, I suppose I can’t completely fault him for being wary. So here we are, at a question of whether or not to trust an Aes Sedai.

Is this her game, here? Which choice does she actually want him to make? Could it be that she knows he distrusts Aes Sedai and the One Power and also hates being told what to do, and so is presenting this to him in such a way that she knows he won’t open it? Though in that case, why? It reminds me a little, perhaps, of her giving Egwene the dream ter’angreal but not Corianin’s notes. Yet it also seems a little too convoluted; there would have to be some reason why she had no choice but to give him whatever instructions are in that envelope, and yet also not want him to follow them. Occam’s Razor would certainly suggest the simpler answer: she does want him to read them. But…I just don’t know.

“I might not need you to go through with the contents. I hope to be able to return to you and relieve you of the letter and send you on your way. But if I cannot…”

So there is a scenario in which she doesn’t want the instructions followed. Which means it’s possible she doesn’t want them followed at all, but has to give them to him for some reason…and nothing she’s said has narrowed it down even if we trust that she is bound by the first Oath. Which at this point I wouldn’t put any money on. On either side of that bet.

What instructions could she have for him, that are so conditional? And on what? WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING, VERIN?

What might you not be able to return from?

Who are you?

“The compromise, then?” Mat said.

“You may choose not to open the letter,” Verin said. “Burn it. But if you do so, you wait fifty days in Caemlyn”

A choice between knowledge but being bound, and ignorance but freedom. How…perfect a dilemma, really, for one who so embodies Odin and the trickster archetype.

But what does Verin know? What is going to happen in Caemlyn between ten and fifty days after she leaves? She has to know something; otherwise the waiting seems too arbitrary.

“Twenty days,” he said.

“Thirty days,” she said, rising, then raised a finger to cut off his objection.

She had to have known he would try to bargain with her. So, between ten and thirty days after she leaves him…what? What instructions would be relevant after ten days, but irrelevant before ten and after thirty? What is going to happen? All I can think of is something to do with Elayne being crowned as Queen, maybe, because just about everything else from that storyline was more or less wrapped up when we left Caemlyn at the end of the last book. Or something to do with the Borderlanders?

I can’t figure it out, and I also can’t work out what angle Verin is playing here, what she even wants Mat to do, which side of the compromise she wants him to take. So I can’t figure out which one he should take.

Verin’s pretty damn good at this.

Verin eyed him, a hint of worry on her face. He couldn’t let her know how pleased he was.

But we also know, from their brief moment of mutual recognition at the start of this scene, that she might know anyway. Or that she might be letting worry show deliberately. Or…

She folded up the picture of him, then took a small leather-bound satchel from her pocket. She opened it, sliding the picture inside, and as she did, he noticed that she had a small stack of folded, sealed pieces of paper inside just like the one he was holding.

What are you up to, Verin Sedai? Because this feels very like what Moiraine did when she knew she was about to…go away.

A stack full of mysterious letters? Instructions not to open them until after she leaves? A very vaguely worded statement about hoping she’ll be able to return to collect them?

She hasn’t told him ‘you will do well’, but other than that, this sure looks like a…not a farewell so much as a final play of some kind.

Also she can’t have let him see those letters by accident. So does she want him to wonder? Why?

Why was Verin being so cryptic?

GOOD. FUCKING. QUESTION.

Though it’s hardly a remarkable occurrence; she’s been cryptic for ten damn books already.

Tuon was dead. Gone, cast aside, forgotten.

That’s a fun way to start a POV. A statement not of identity, but of nonexistence. Of the relinquishing of an identity, the death of one.

Fortuona was empress.

MY FUCKING GOD

FORTUONA.

Fortune rides like the sun on high, with the fox that makes the ravens fly…

Fortune. Fortuona. She’s Lady Luck.

I can’t decide if that’s brilliant or over the top. Maybe a little bit of both. It does give a rather excellent double meaning to that line of the Prophecies.

Either way, she’s standing in front of the forces she has assembled for, presumably, an attack on Tar Valon. So…we’re doing this.

Fifty sul’dam and damane pairs, including Dali and her sul’dam Malahavana, whom Fortuona had given to the cause. She had felt the need to sacrifice something personal to this most important of missions.

Um, Tuon? Those are people. So yes, you are sacrificing something personalin that you are sacrificing a person. Who herself has no choice in whether or not to be your own personal sacrifice so that you feel like you’re truly invested in this.

Though for some reason Rand’s thought a few chapters ago about Min, that if she died, he would add her name to the list and suffer for it comes to mind. These are people, and their lives have meaning beyond the pain their deaths would cause you.

But of course, to the Seanchan, Malahavana is simply property. So the greatest cost, if she dies, is not to her or her family, but to Tuon. Which is fucked up. Hot take: slavery is bad!

Fortuona looked down at the soldier before her, laying her fingers on his forehead, where she had kissed him. “May your death bring victory,” she said softly, speaking the ritual words. “May your knife draw blood. May your children sing your praises until the final dawn.”

That doesn’t sound like a blessing you give to someone who has any hope of returning. This soldier is one of five, so maybe it’s a special suicide mission? To do…what?

Their assault would begin in darkness

How…appropriate. It was made possible – or made certain – by the darkness surrounding Rand, and such an attack serves the Shadow far better than it serves the Light, by bringing even greater strife and division amongst those that should be united.

They really needed that treaty.

It speaks to why Rand suppressing his ability to feel, deciding there are no limits left to him, losing sight of what he’s fighting for, and pushing only for the Last Battle itself and nothing beyond that, is disastrous on more than just a metaphysical/teleological standpoint. It’s not just an issue because this is a fight between Good and Evil and so the champion of Good must embody that ideal. I do think there’s an element of that, of course – it’s where the Fisher King imagery comes in, and the notion of the land being one with the Dragon and vice versa – but there’s also the practical fact that if you’re terrifying and cold and surrounded by an aura of darkness, people aren’t going to want to make peace treaties with you. Or be motivated to fight for your cause. Or listen to you at all. Or have any hope themselves of what might come after, because the examples and expectations being set are so dark.

It all blurs together at some point, the practical and more philosophical reasons, but there’s definitely a practical aspect there. It’s hard to win a fight you no longer have any reason to want to win. And it’s hard to win a fight when you look more like the thing you’re fighting than the thing you’re fighting for, because other people will see that. People who should be on your side will see that. And they, like Tuon, will draw their own conclusions and act accordingly.

Oh hey one of these special five is a woman. At least one. I like that this is specifically shown, in addition to the more general statement that over half the Fists of Heaven here are women. General statements are a lot easier to make, and are sometimes used as a bit of an excuse, or a halfhearted ‘see, look, we gave you what you wanted’. Specifics help bolster that. Even if in this case the specific in question is a woman being sent on a suicide mission to fight for the enslavement of women who can wield Power. You can’t have everything.

(I should clarify I’m being facetious there; I don’t think the Seanchan staging an assault on the White Tower is specifically gender-coded in that way. And I do genuinely appreciate seeing women amongst the elite forces, because that’s cool, all other issues with the Seanchan aside).

Oh. Bloodknives. They’ve been mentioned before, but only in the most offhand of comments.

The pure black stone ring each one wore was a specialised ter’angrealthat would grant them strength and speed, and would shroud them in darkness

That sounds quite a lot like the benefits of the Warder bond.

The incredible abilities came at a cost, however, for the rings leeched life from their hosts, killing them in a matter of days.

That also sounds a little like the costs of the Warder bond. Of a bond that is broken, anyway.

The whole thing also smells of a secondary purpose, introduced like this so late in the game. Not sure how, precisely, but I’ll be keeping an eye on these ter’angrealthat have now been placed on the mantle.

These five would not return. They would stay behind, whatever the results of the raid, to kill as many marath’damane as they could

Oh.

Was this what Min foresaw, when she visited the Tower in TSR and saw death and blood on so many faces? And knew it would all happen within the same day? The fact that Elaida’s coup took place so soon after made it seem like that was what Min had seen, but what if it was actually a viewing of this attack? If so, that’s truly impressive use of foreshadowing and misdirection. Well played. *slow clap*

Fortuona kissed the last of the five Bloodknives, speaking the words condemning them to death, but also to heroism.

I love this sentence, because the structure of it implies that heroism is also a condemnation. They’re presented as illusory opposites, but the same verb applies to each. Condemned to heroism. It’s a concept and a way of looking at things that I love, and actually it’s not at all out of place in this series. Just look at Rand.

That whole sentence reminds me of Rand, really. Condemned to death and heroism. Destruction and salvation. Condemned to be the saviour of the world, and reaching a point where it’s hard to tell, between death and heroism, which is the cost and which is the reward.

And the soldiers are off. No turning back now. I hope you’re ready, Egwene. It might be your last and best chance to pull the Tower together. A common enemy…

As the final light of the sunset died, they struck northward.

There’s something very appropriate about that. The final death of the light, the vanishing of that last chance for reconciliation as Rand walked away; it felt like a victory for the Shadow, a fracturing of the Light.

Also, even striking northward has something of a double meaning. The Blight lies north, but still they fight each other. They should be heading there, as the Shadow stretches across the land and the last battle comes. As the sunset dies they should look north. But not like this.

It could be the beginning of a bold new tactic. Or it could lead to a disaster.

Travelling, gunpowder, aerial assaults. They’ve changed war, and that isn’t something that they can just…step back from, once the Last Battle has been fought.

“We have changed everything,” Fortuona said softly. “General Galgan is wrong; this will not give the Dragon Reborn a worse bargaining position. It will turn him against us.”

She sees. She understands what that negotiation was, and what its failure has cost them. She does not see any other decision she can make – and given what she saw of Rand, it’s hard to see how she could think otherwise, and hard even to disagree with the underlying thought there, that he is dangerous and cannot be allowed to claim more power, as he is – but Tuon is very good at what she does. She understands nuances of politics and power and strategy, and she knows what this will do. But she also does not see an alternative.

Or should I be calling her Fortuona, now? It’s hard when fictional characters change names mid-story; I like it, as a storytelling device, because it’s such a good way to convey a sense or change of identity, but I never then know how to refer to the character, especially in something like this liveblog. And I’m not at all consistent – I call Moridin by his new name but I’m still referring to Tuon as Tuon rather than Fortuona, and I’m not even sure what I do with Egeanin/Leilwin.

“And was he not against us before?” Selucia asked.

“No,” Fortuona said. “We were against him.”

This is excellent. The subtle but at the same time vast difference between those two. The fact that Tuon can so clearly understand this, and what it means. They were his enemy. Now, because of what they do today, they will make him theirs.

Tuon isn’t always the most sympathetic character, largely because she came to the story late, is from a completely foreign culture to the rest of the narrative, and holds some views that are…difficult to reconcile, for a modern reader. But it’s moments like these that make her work, I think. This ability to see beyond what most do – not to change her mind, necessarily, but to be so perceptive and to understand the way people think and work. To be able to look at and judge her own actions and decisions, and to understand the implications.

She’s not going to war against the Tower – and making an enemy of the Dragon Reborn – just for shits and giggles, or even because of a clash of ideologies. That plays into it, because she believes her view to be the right one, but it goes deeper than that. And she understands consequences and tradeoffs and costs. She can recognise that yes, they were against him. And that this will not fix that, but will instead likely exacerbate it. And also that she has no other choice.

But we can sympathise with her more, because we believe that thought process, even if ours might be different. She doesn’t simply press blindly ahead with a single agenda; she looks at the whole situation and understands what her options are and what the results will likely be of each. And because she’s so perceptive, and so strategically capable, we can then trust her more, in a sense, when she does make a decision that sets her against most of the other sympathetic characters. So instead of being a villain by default, she gains much more depth and a certain level of sympathy.

Anyway, this is of course going to end well. To make an enemy of Rand, as he is now?

Though perhaps the more interesting question is, what will Egwene do in the face of her dream coming true? It seems like she could use this to unite the Tower around her. But I also wonder if maybe, just maybe, she could do here what Rand could not. There would be a certain poetry in that, for her own arc.

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