#i think about mat thinking about elayne's dimple almost as much as mat thinks about elayne's dimple | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

butterflydm · 1 year

Text

‘Matrim’ Cauthon: what’s in a name, etc.

I'm putting this in my reread because it's relevant, but it does have spoilers through A Memory of Light, please be warned! (also much thanks to sunrise-and-death for giving me the info on the first five books, several months ago)

So, I have not yet started the Sanderson books in my reread but I did some research on something that I remember bugging me about the last three books, after a couple of people who were doing their first reads kinda confirmed it was definitely A Thing in the Sanderson books (tigraine-mantear noticed for sure). Anyway, I wanted to share my results.

SPOILERS below.

While I agree with markantonys that Sanderson's most out of character choice for Mat is his failure to have Mat think about Elayne's dimple even once, for me, the second biggest Sanderson-specific narration/PoV misstep is definitely, definitely the overuse of 'Matrim’ Cauthon.

Let me illustrate (using a random website that I found, also, while this is something that does annoy me, it is not that serious, lol. It mostly Just Bugs Me. But making the graphs was surprisingly fun so... there’s several of them).

In the Jordan books: 59 times over the course of eleven books.

In the Sanderson books: 125 times over the course of THREE books!

And Mat himself goes from almost never using/thinking of the name (3 times over the course of Jordan’s 11 books) to being one of the primary people who uses it (30 times over the course of Sanderson’s 3 books).

Per book chart average. The teal is Jordan and the yellow bar is Sanderson. The only case where the teal bar is larger is Nynaeve. She’s the only person who used ‘Matrim’ more often in the Jordan books than in the Sanderson ones (averaged per book). Unless you count Tam, but I’m not sure if Tam mentions Mat at all in the last three books? I'll try to remember to check during my reread.

Special notes: Tam was only averaged for 8 books in the Jordan books, mostly a guess as to when he appears in Perrin’s storyline; Moiraine was averaged for the first five for the Jordan books, since she went into the doorway at that point; Elayne was averaged for 9, since she wasn’t really aware of Mat’s existence in the first two books. Tuon was averaged for three because she was introduced in Winter’s Heart.

“Matrim” is used EXTREMELY sparingly in the Jordan books. I’m guessing that Jordan wanted to Make A Point by having Tuon use it, which does kinda hilariously get watered down by so many other people using it in Sanderson’s books, to the extent that she has to give him a whole new Special Asshole Name because Matrim isn’t cutting it anymore. I feel like the point Jordan was trying to make (Romance Lady Gets To Use Special Name) was not the point that I took from it (Tuon Is An Asshole Who Doesn’t Respect Preferred Names), but mine has more textual backup (see: Leilwin née Egeanin).

For interest’s sake, since our other mains also have ‘formal’ titles that get used in place of their names, I made a few more graphs, just for fun:

We can see here what Mat and Perrin usually just go by their names, and Elayne rarely uses “Daughter-Heir” as well, while Nynaeve has a solid stripe of green from the early books and then it cuts off, while Egwene is the reverse, getting a strong amount of having a title near the second half of the series.

Cutting “Rand” out to see everything else better.

Here I just left in the titles plus Mat’s “formal” names. You can see how thin that stripe of green is for “Matrim” and how it’s mostly the deeper purples of the last books.

Cutting out “Dragon” so that we can zoom in even more on everyone else’s titles. You know, seeing Mother, Wisdom, and Daughter-Heir like this is giving me real Maiden/Mother/Crone vibes. Like, I know that the comparison that is used a lot is Aviendha (former Maiden), Elayne (Mother that literally gets pregnant in the series, and Min (crone... because she’s older than Rand? I guess, lol), but honestly Elayne as Maiden, Egwene as Mother, Nynaeve as Crone is giving me vibes.

Finally, taking out “Mother” and “Lews Therin” really lets us see what’s happening with everyone else’s titles. Here you can really see how massive the three Sanderson books are in comparison to the Jordan ones when it comes to “Matrim”.

And for the raw Matrim data, here is our total Matrim count across the entire series, broken down by who says it:

Eye of the World: 8 times

Tam x3

Nynaeve x2 (annoyed with him)

Egwene x2 (annoyed with him)

Mat x1 (introducing himself to Moiraine & trying to impress her)

The Great Hunt: 2 times

Moiraine x2

The Dragon Reborn: 10 times

Padan Fain: x1

Moiraine x1

‘Selene’ aka Lanfear x1

Random Tar Valon Guard x1

Nynaeve x3 (annoyed with him)

Egwene x2 (annoyed with him)

That Herbalist Lady in Cairhien x1 (how did she learn it?)

The Shadow Rising: 8 times

Elaida x1 (how did she learn it?)

Egwene x1

Moiraine x1

Melaine x2 (HOW did she learn it?)

‘Natael’ aka Asmodean x1

Liandrin x1

‘Keille’ aka Lanfear x1

Melaine calling Mat ‘Matrim’ is EXTRA weird because she doesn’t use his last name, so she’s both being shockingly formal by Westlands terms (by using ‘Matrim’) but shockingly informal and intimate by Aiel terms (no last name).

The weirdest thing about some of the ‘Matrim’s in the books is that they seem to completely come from the ether, as no one has introduced Mat to these people in this way and how do they even KNOW that Matrim is his formal name??? Naming conventions are so country-specific in this series and we never meet another person named ‘Matrim’, so how do all these random people know that Mat is short for ‘Matrim’? (Authorial fiat)

The Fires of Heaven: 7 times

Random Aiel x3

Melindhra x2

Somara x1

Random Cairhienin citizens x1

Lord of Chaos: 7 times

Mat x1 (first time he’s mentioned or thought of the name since book 1!)

Random Cairhienin citizens x5

Nynaeve x1

And Mat thinks of himself as ‘Matrim’ here but still introduces himself as Mat (”Just call me Mat”).

A Crown of Swords: 5 times

Nynaeve x3 (very annoyed with him)

Elayne x2 (formally)

The Path of Daggers: 2 times

Elayne x2 (formally to other people)

Winter’s Heart: 0 times

Crossroads of Twilight: 0 times

Knife of Dreams: 10 times

Thom x1

Tuon x8

Mat x1 (in the context of thinking about how no one calls him that, while he’s in the middle of asking Tuon to call him ‘Mat’)

I will note that Thom has NEVER used the word ‘Matrim’ before this very convenient moment of announcing it to Tuon so that she can keep not calling Mat by the name he prefers. And I’m not sure where THOMDRIL has any room to be using other people’s formal names in front of randoms. I will also note that though it is implied that Mat doesn't want to be called 'Matrim' (since he introduces himself as Mat always except once to Moiraine in EotW), from what I could see, Tuon is the only time Mat corrects someone calling him Matrim (but she's a jerk so she ignores him).

Notably, ‘Matrim’ is almost always used in the Jordan books when people being particularly formal (or, mostly in the case of Nynaeve, when she’s mad at him). Until Tuon. When Tuon decides that she respects him enough to no longer call him ‘Toy’ but not enough to respect his choice in names, she refers to him as Matrim multiple times in that one scene, just to really grind in that she refuses to use the name he prefers (she’s such a petty asshole so again I say ‘yikes’ for Randland that Jordan decided she didn’t need any character growth during her circus roadtrip), as he asks her SEVERAL times to call him “Mat” and she’s just all: *asshole stare* nope, I will never call you the name you prefer and you better get used to it! Truly a marriage dredged from the cold and miserable depths of hell.

Okay, now brace yourselves.

The Gathering Storm: 35 times

Graendal x1

Nynaeve x2

Tuon x12

Mat x3

Joline x2

Thom x1

Aludra x2

Verin x12

Tower of Midnight: 38 times

Mat x11

Teslyn x3

Joline x1

Elayne x5

Leilwin née Egeanin x1

Setalle Anan x4

Thom x1

Sumeko x1

Tuon x2

Perrin x2

Faile x1

Moiraine x5

Verin x1

A Memory of Light: 52 times!!!!

(Almost as much as Jordan used in the entirety of the first 11 books.)

Leilwin née Egeanin x1

Mat x16

Selucia x1

Tuon x17 (and once she continues her asshole trend and renames him, we get Knotai x33)

Moiraine x1

Egwene x5

Min x2

Faile x2

Urien x1

Elayne x5

Davram Bashere x1

Olver x1

Fain x1

Loial x2

Ironically, Mat uses the name 'Matrim' the most in his own thoughts in the very book where Tuon tries to take the name away from him (though he is luckily not brainwashed enough into the Seanchan culture to actually start thinking of himself as ‘Knotai’).

#seriously why was brandon sanderson so obsessed with calling mat 'matrim'?#i mean obviously he does still use Mat a lot more than he uses Matrim #but the Matrim percentage goes up CONSIDERABLY in the Sanderson books #i use matrim in my own fics on occasions #but the same way that jordan did (before the matrim explosion at end of kod)#sparingly and always with a reason #mat cauthon #wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #wot #amol spoilers #a memory of light spoilers #wot reread

105 notes · View notes