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butterflydm · 10 months

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wot reread: a memory of light (chapters 32-36)

spoilers for a memory of light, the final book.

Ah. It's a Mat PoV. I never really know what to expect out of Mat PoV these days, I have to admit. Early-to-middle Mat is always an enjoyable read, but I learned to despise reading Mat PoV during CoT & KoD, the two books that made me dislike Mat. The Sanderson Mat PoV chapters have varied wildly between "ugh I hate this"; "huh, that's intriguing"; and "Mat! <3". So, yeah, never know what I'm about to get when I start a Mat PoV these days.

2. Mat considers going out onto the battlefield again but changes his mind when Tuon glares at him from her ten-foot tall throne (...someone is overcompensating; that thing is twice as tall as she is). We get another of those bizarre thoughts from Mat where he praises Tuon for things that he dislikes from anyone else (Min did the same thing in her recent PoV too -- she's all "I don't respect any titles... except yours, Empress! I'll kiss the ground you walk on, Empress! I'll tell you anything you want, Empress!" ...I am mildly paraphrasing). I mentioned this earlier, how Mat starts having super-weird "I was born a native Seanchan" thoughts at a certain point, and this really feels like one of them.

In this instance, he claims that Tuon's ~way of giving orders~ "gives him a thrill", which... I'm torn between two things:

A. it just sends me right back to slave-conditioning (go back to Bethamin's Rules of Slave-Breaking back in Winter's Heart! It is downright eerie how much Tuon followed the rules there in how she interacted with Mat in CoT & KoD; it reminds me of how the most heartbreaking damane moments are when the channelers stop fighting and start desperately wanting to please their mistresses).

but

B. his actions don't really seem to back up that he enjoys getting ordered around by Tuon? Or enjoys watching her order other people around? It might be a thing, I guess, where his body has been conditioned into getting a thrill out of her being a slave-owner but emotionally and intellectually he's turned off by it?

3. Hmm, so Tuon gets incredibly jealous about Mat being in the same room as other women (who aren't slaves), but she doesn't want him looking at her with lust either. Interesting data point.

This is also a place where we really dive into the toxic ways that Mat is using the phrase 'Aes Sedai', where it basically is twisted to mean 'woman with power that I'm scared of' -- Tuon is an Aes Sedai in Mat's thoughts here, despite never actually channeling or having gone through the training to become an Aes Sedai. She's 'one of them' because she is a woman who is capable of having a power that Mat doesn't understand. If Mat had gone to Merrilor and learned what damage his fear and mistrust of Aes Sedai had caused in Caemlyn, he might have learned a healthier way to think about Aes Sedai.

4. Ah, @markantonys, here's that line: "You're doing a fine job of persuading Tuon not to use damane" (Mat sarcastically thinks to himself).

?????

It really is a fascinating/horrifying/mind-boggling contrast between what Mat's intentions apparently are and what he's actually done when he interacts with Tuon. Now, this is not the first allusion to the idea that Mat wants Tuon to stop using damane -- he told Min a few chapters back that "Rand" would want her to selectively use her viewings to try to encourage Tuon to think more favorably about Aes Sedai (Min proceeded to completely ignore him and just spilled literally everything to Tuon that she wanted to know) -- but it's the first time that Mat has actively tried to claim that he has been attempting to persuade Tuon on the matter of the damane.

So, in theory, Mat wants to persuade Tuon to stop using damane.

But in practice, Mat has always been silent and complicit when it comes to Tuon's use and abuse of damane, just as he is in this scene here. It kinda seems like the only way Mat is willing to risk himself for the damane around Tuon is by trying to place other people in her path who will argue on their behalf.

Mat is "unnerved" by how quickly the new Sharan damane has taken to her captivity. I mean, I could say the same of you, Mat.

5. Hmm, Mat is charming Galgan now. Maybe I spoke too soon on thinking that Galgan would no longer try to murder Tuon now that Mat is next in line for the throne, displacing Galgan's claim. If he ends up liking Mat more than he likes Tuon, then Mat might 'accidentally' become the (first?) Emperor of the Seanchan.

Ugh, now Mat is using "marath'damane" instead of "channelers". ...and, by contrast, Galgan is using "Aes Sedai" on Mat's orders. Hmm.

I guess we're supposed to be wondering who will 'win' in the corruption game between Mat and Tuon -- does Tuon manage to break him into being a proper husband-slave or does Mat manage to reach whatever tiny shreds of empathy might still lurk inside Tuon's heart?

6. idk why Mat keeps thinking that Tuon's behavior is mysterious and a puzzle to figure out. It's the omens. She's told you this. He wants to think that she's deeper than she really is, I guess. I suppose if I were trapped in a similar situation, I'd be doing my best to make the best of it too (but that runs into my other big problem of: Jordan's fatalism infecting all the characters even when it's contrary to their past behavior).

7. Tuon is currently interrogating Min on all the omens that she sees for every member of the Blood that's around. And Min just, you know, obeys. For whatever reason.

"He had an inkling of what Tuon might be capable of, if she grew displeased with Min."

Hmm.

"He loved her-- Light, he was pretty sure that he did. But he also let himself be a little afraid of her. He'd have to keep watch so that Tuon didn't decide to 'educate' Min."

Hmm.

Much like Mat himself, Min is in an 'honored' position... but Mat is very aware that this will not actually protect her from getting 'educated' if she displeases his wife-owner. And, once again, Mat gives us nothing he loves about her. Yet when it comes to why he's "a little afraid" of her, Mat does have reasons -- what he's alluding to here is that he's worried that she might hurt his friend's girlfriend (because he's seen Tuon hurt other innocent people in the past).

And we know the kinds of lessons that sul'dam teach. To quote from The Great Hunt again:

Renna took the chair, frowning at Egwene. "I must punish you severely for this. We will both be called to the Court of the nine Moons -- you for what you can do; I as your sul'dam and trainer -- and I will not allow you to disgrace me in the eyes of the Empress. I will stop when you tell me how much you love being damane and how obedient you will be after this. And, Tuli. Make me believe every word."

8. As a result of Min's reading of the 'omens' around one of the Blood, Tuon (through Selucia) announces that the woman will be executed, making both Mat and Min startle severely. Wow, maybe it's a bad idea to hand that kind of surveillance 'technology' over to an unhinged dictator, Min? Who could have guessed?

Anyway, Min is completely shocked by this (completely predictable) reaction from Tuon at an 'omen' that hints at potential betrayal.

Mat's thoughts about Tuon, the woman that he "loves":

Mat shivered. He didn't like it when Tuon got like this. That stare of hers... it seemed like the stare of another person. A person without compassion. A statue had more life to it.

That's literally just Tuon being Tuon, bro. Not sure what to tell you. This is the way she behaves the majority of the time. If you dislike this about her, then you're going to be unhappy for most of your marriage.

9. Min 'wins' this round pretty much the same way that Mat 'won' Tuon telling him that he was more than a toy to her -- she says that she won't tell any more omens to Tuon if Tuon continues to behave this way. If Tuon executes people based solely on Min's 'omens', then Min will stop giving her any omens.

I will say... this has been pretty consistent in the narrative so far -- Tuon only really responds to the threat of her toys being taken away from her. Anything less that that and she will continue to push the boundaries of making someone uncomfortable. Only the threat of losing her toys entirely really makes it through to her brain.

Mat worries here that Min's "lack of respect" towards Tuon is going to get her executed, but for the moment, Tuon agrees that she will not kill anyone based on what Min says they 'might' do.

...given how 'well' Tuon has kept her word so far, I'm pretty sure that she'll have trumped up an excuse to kill this member of the Blood in the next couple of days. But she'll be able to convincingly lie to Min that it wasn't because of her viewing.

I do think it's weird/fascinating how Min seems to view her 'job' with Fortuona as an all-or-nothing affair -- Mat suggested that she pick and choose what she tells Fortuona in an attempt to influence her, but Min seems to feel like she can either tell Fortuona everything or nothing at all. But we don't get any reason why that's the case. Especially since Tuon is a lot more interested in hearing Min's viewings about other people than the ones about herself, which was something that Min claimed she did for Rand as a ~special exception~ to her normal policy of respecting people's privacy. Again, why is Min going out of her way for the Seanchan? Tuon wouldn't actually know if Min lied to her about this.

10. Awww, Egwene is speaking in code to Mat about his medallion so as not to give his secret away to the enemy Seanchan. It's too late, Egwene. Setalle Anan betrayed Mat's secrets long ago, but it's very sweet of you to care.

Okay, so Elayne joins the, uh, conference call at this point ("thick with child". Um, exactly how far along do you think she is, Sanderson?) and so I am going to try to figure out what, if anything, she knows about the Mat situation. Thom told her a heroic story about Mat freeing slaves. Perrin told her Mat was doing "something" with the Seanchan. She's been pretty busy since then, so I wonder if Egwene has had time to update her on anything.

Mat wants to merge all the forces together. Mat's thoughts on Elayne: "She maintained the posture of a queen, but her disheveled hair and clothing burned in several places indicated what she'd been through." Meanwhile, ~Fortuona~ sits in pristine silks and lets Mat do her talking for her. I suppose she views him as acting as her Voice-husband-slave right now.

11. Elayne and Mat are the two people talking over the tactics at this meeting, btw (so consider that another spit in the eye to Perrin for trying to diss Elayne's tactical knowledge). Mat laying out the plan and Elayne questioning the details and reasoning.

Elayne doesn't acknowledge Tuon's existence at all during this entire section. She is absolutely and 100% only talking to Mat, and there's never even a mention of her looking over and noticing Tuon. She also doesn't seem to be treating Mat any differently than she had before.

I am so curious about Elayne's thoughts on this situation! Did Thom tell her about Mat's marriage being an accident when he came to Merrilor? Does she even know that Mat is married to the Seanchan Empress? She knows he's married to someone, because of his letter, but does she know who?

...also, she doesn't mention the Horn of Valere and Mat needing to blow it. That's maybe the one thing here that does indicate that she is aware of Tuon & the Seanchan even if she doesn't acknowledge them, not wanting to give away the Horn's believed ties to Mat. Which implies that she's ignoring ~Fortuona~ as a deliberate snub (good for her).

If the "Two Rivers coat" that Mat has been wearing was sourced by the person that Elayne found for Mat (by his request), then he is also wearing clothes that were supplied by Elayne during this entire meeting. Seanchan breeches and an Andoran coat.

Also, Elayne telling Mat, "I hope you know what you're doing," triggers the dice in his head. Is that... is that about more than the battle, Elayne? Are you speaking in code, Elayne? Are you talking about Tuon, Elayne?

Side note: Elayne doesn't get the whole "ugh no, she's a Dreaded Aes Sedai" treatment from Mat here even though she literally is one and Tuon is, in fact, not. I'm guessing because Mat isn't scared of Elayne?

12. Elayne then "passionately" explains and defends Mat's plan to Tam and, idk, some other leaders in the armies on her side.

lol so much at Galad's thoughts about how Perrin is so ~reasonable~ compared to other leaders like Elayne and how maybe the Whitecloaks should settle in the Two Rivers after the Last Battle. Perrin doesn't. He doesn't actually like you, Galad.

It is interesting that Galad is thinking of them as "Whitecloaks" though. When did that start?

Haha, just I was noting that, Galad also notices that he just did that and is puzzled at himself for it.

Elayne does not mention the Seanchan at all here, only "Mat" this and "Mat" that. Nothing about the Seanchan.

13. When Perrin asks Slayer if he thinks he'll be rewarded by the Dark One, Slayer tells Perrin "The Dark One does not discard useful tools" (citing the Forsaken as evidence) and I'm reminded of the many many commonalities that the Seanchan and the Shadow share all over again, because that is just about as true about TDO as it is about the Seanchan -- which is to say, sure, as long as you're still useful, you won't be discarded.

The Seanchan Empire is going to be the Great Evil of the Fourth Age, one way or another. I don't think there's any way for anyone to stop that. The poison is too baked into their culture as it currently stands, and the poison drips through to the people ("the poison drips through" is apparently a quote from Succession, which I've never seen, but that's a fantastic line).

14. Faile is hanging out with the Redarms, who are worrying about "Lord Mat" and wishing that they could be with him to protect him from the Seanchan. So that's now two sets of groups that care deeply about Mat and want to save him from the Seanchan that he's gotten himself tangled up with: Egwene & the Band of the Red Hand's Redarms. So it is 'known' among the general army that Mat is hanging out with the Seanchan (though not that he's married to ~the Empress~), so Elayne definitely knew last chapter when she was completely ignoring Tuon and only talking to Mat. And Faile is here to deliver the Horn to Mat (presumably without tipping it off to the Seanchan with him what they're doing?). To everyone except Faile herself, though, the delivery is "tabac from the Two Rivers" for Mat to enjoy during the battle, as a treat from The Amrylin.

Setalle Anan is also part of this group, it seems, and so is Olver, who is not dead (no thanks to Mat).

A bubble of evil sets their planned Gateway awry and they end up in the Blight instead of Merrilor.

15. ...Melaine is apparently "near to term" and just about ready to give birth. Which would mean that it's been less than nine months since Min first arrived in Caemlyn back in Lord of Chaos (and yet six of those months have apparently happened after Winter's Heart?).

It has been "many days" since Rand went up into the mountain of Shayol Ghul.

Aviendha catches Graendal in the act of attempting to influence the new commander who was put in place after Ituralde was taken out of command, and has an encounter with the red-veiled Aiel, realizing that they are the men who were sent into the Blight to die with honor upon realizing they could channel and that they have been Turned by TDO's channelers.

side note: this does remind me that one group that ends up not having a single Darkfriend in it are the Aiel Wise Ones. Not all of them are great people -- some of them are pretty awful -- but even the worst of the Shaido Wise Ones are not Darkfriends, I'm pretty sure? And no Aiel clan chiefs are Darkfriends either. No one who has been to Rhuidean and lived, essentially. Were the glass columns filtering out Darkfriends in addition to filtering out people who couldn't handle the truth about the Aiel's past?

16. Ah, I think this is our first real introduction to The Dark One as Entropy & the End of All Things. TDO 'wants' (or is driven by its nature) to consume the Pattern and leave nothing behind. I think, out of all the Darkfriends in the book series, that only Ishamael/Moridin actually understands TDO's goal. All the others are scrambling for temporal power and think they're actually going to rule the world after TDO 'wins' but there isn't going to be a world to rule. Only Ishamael/Moridin understands that the endgame is the ending of existence itself.

In the show, they've already tied us into this concept -- Dana, who gets dreams (presumably from Ishamael), talked to Rand about how TDO wants to end 'suffering' by 'breaking the Wheel'. So the show already set us up for the endgame battle which is great because it means (as long as Rafe & co know in advance that they're writing the final season), the show can always pivot to our endgame because they've already planted the seeds.

I'm curious about how much they'll tie Dana's argument into the Seanchan invasion. Because TDO is an existential calamity for everyone, but the Seanchan are an existential calamity for channelers in particular (though we do also have da'covale and I definitely hope that the show doesn't forget about them the way that it kinda feels like the books forgot about them). Once the Seanchan are on the scene, the question of "is it better to suffer in agony and humiliation for hundreds of years with no hope of escape or it is better to just end that suffering?" becomes an active question for the majority of the main cast (Moiraine, Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, and Rand too when/if the male a'dam comes into play -- and especially Egwene, who goes through that suffering personally).

17. Poor Faile actually has to worry about travel logistics -- they're stuck in the Blight and it would take 'months' to walk to Merrilor. Shame she doesn't have Mat's magical non-channeling teleportation skills.

However, they do see that they're not too far off from the peak of Shayol Ghul itself and decide to head in that direction, since some of Rand's troops should be there. But Faile worries that there's a Darkfriend in their caravan and worries even more that someone on the side of the Shadow knows that she has the Horn of Valere.

Somewhat nearby, as she is also in the Blasted Lands, after a lengthy battle with the red-veiled Aiel, Aviendha's group gets battered by Graendal, with one of the Aes Sedai getting compelled and two others getting killed.

18. Olver still hates the Shaido (and all Aiel by extension) for killing his parents and yet had zero lasting negative reaction to the Seanchan invading a city where he was living, causing destruction and death all around him and deeply injuring someone he cared about a lot (the wall falling on Mat). The contrast between Olver's trauma from the Shaido invasion and his lack of trauma from the Seanchan invasion really does remain so baffling. The Seanchan invasion should have brought back so many horrible memories for him, but he was basically the same in WH as he was in ACoS -- all he cared about was snuggling into a grown woman's breasts.

So Olver knows that Noal is dead, "filtered through what the Lady Moiraine had shared about what had happened at the Tower of Ghenjei" (haha so she did get around to saying more than "the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills" eventually). He also knows that Mat has "run off to join the Seanchan" (parental figure abandonment -- and Mat has not even spared a single thought for Olver this entire time, btw. Olver is worrying that Mat might die and Mat hasn't even had a passing thought about Olver's wellbeing; though I focus on the loss of Mat & Rand's friendship because of how... shallow... their reunion was, Mat's relationship to Olver also got shredded by Mat's off-the-page choice to desert his people).

Anyway, poor kid. He actually feels like a kid here, too, instead of a walking advertisement letting us know that Mat Cauthon Leers At Women And Teaches Kids To Do It Too, which is basically all he was for most of ACoS-KoD. He worries that he's going to end up all alone (again) as his companions die or abandon him. He has signs of trauma from Mat abandoning him here, too -- he thinks if he's able to train up and prove to Mat that he's useful, maybe Mat won't abandon him (again).

19. It sounds like the 'essence' of the Dark One in Shayol Ghul is basically acting like a miniature black hole -- it's trying to suck them into it. It's already eaten Nynaeve's shawl.

For Nynaeve and Moiraine, about an hour has passed. Rand's foot touched the darkness when he went to meet Moridin sword-to-sword and now the two of them appear frozen in time & locked in place. The wind pulls and tears at Nynaeve and Moiraine's clothing but Rand and Moridin are untouched by it.

20. Carefully moving around the chamber, clinging from rock to rock to keep herself from being pulled into the black hole, Nynaeve finds Alanna behind one of the rocks in the chamber. She's chained to the wall and has a bleeding wound in her side (matching Rand's, perhaps?).

Nynaeve realizes that the reason that Alanna here is to die at some point during Moridin's encounter with Rand, hopefully leaving him vulnerable due to the broken bond and making him easier prey for Moridin (and/or TDO? Though Nynaeve thinks here in terms of making Rand more physically vulnerable, making him more emotionally susceptible to TDO's arguments also seems like a likely motive to me?).

She wonders why Rand didn't notice Alanna's presence -- is he just so used to reflexively ignoring her? Nynaeve is feeling frustrated that she is unable to heal Alanna with the Power, because all her Power is in the link with Rand.

...oh, hey! I bet that's what Rand was feeling earlier! He could feel that someone he was bonded to had gotten hurt but the feeling was weird and he couldn't trace it. I bet that was about Alanna getting stabbed and it was wonky because it happened in the Weird Time Dilation Room.

21. Hmm, Mat is having memory issues. He blames his dice here on when "Egwene gave him control of the armies" but it was Elayne's words to him that triggered this set of rolling dice. We know because we were in his PoV when it happened.

Mat sees an old Andoran man that almost triggers an old memory for him, one of the ones that the dagger stole (it would have been when Rand was taking care of him on the trip to Caemlyn -- another one of the shoes that never quite fell for Mat, characterization-wise, is him getting back his foggy memories. We've seen a time or two that they are still in there, not just in this moment, but also back in Ebou Dar, when he saw the Darkfriend who attacked him and Rand in the stables). Mat actually remembering that everything Rand did to help him during the time he was sick with the dagger seems like one of those things that will inevitably happen post-canon, because the memories are still there, just hiding.

22. When Mat sees "his" Deathwatch guard among the working people here, he compares them to "wolves among the sheep". Mat does see it as a bonus that he was able to pull the armies together and pick his own battlefield but he's still pretty worried about the battle ahead.

Tuon gave Mat a new eyepatch to wear -- bright red. To remind people of the wound underneath? We know that she likes the active reminder to everyone that Mat has been bloodied in battle. Or we do get a reminder that the Deathwatch guards (all slaves) also wear a distinctive shade of red, so it's probably also another badge of her ownership over Mat.

23. When Mat tries to avoid the Deathwatch guard that are coming to "collect" him to be brought to Tuon's tent (the narrative keeps bringing up things that are so reminiscent of Tylin's behavior towards Mat), he runs right into Egwene and a group of Aes Sedai. Also... it's interesting that he thinks of it as "Tuon's tent" and not a tent that they share together.

When he mentions that he's running away from the Deathwatch guard, Egwene tells him that she's glad he's defecting back to the Westlands but the middle of the Last Battle is maybe not the best time. He walks back with Egwene (& Gawyn and Leilwin née Egeanin) back over to the Aes Sedai area of the camp as they talk.

24. Mat says that the reason he's running from the guard is not because he's defecting back to the Westlands but because Tuon wants him to sit in judgement over potential criminals (...in the middle of the Last Battle?). "Anytime a soldier is seeking the Empress's mercy for a crime, I'm supposed to sit in judgement!"

Mat thinks here that he's not going to 'order men to be executed' and, yeah, I keep going back to what Renna said to Egwene, all those books ago. Perhaps you believe that because you are valuable now, you will be allowed license. Or I think back to Mat's worries that Min's "lack of respect" towards Tuon will get her killed.

Because it kinda sounds like it's been made clear to him that "sit in judgement" means "condemn people to death" and that Mat would risk personal punishment if he rules against what Tuon would want him to rule. Is Mat worrying about how hard he can push Tuon without it painfully snapping back on him?

25. He obliquely asks Egwene if they've found 'it' (the Horn of Valere) yet. Hey, Mat, if you were so worried about that, maybe you shouldn't have defected to the Seanchan at the beginning of this book? Just a thought.

Yeah, we get a reminder of how easily Mat rewrites his own memory here when he talks about how he did all the hard work of finding the Horn and the dagger was barely a consideration for him. So for anyone wondering why I keep poking at Mat's professed reasons for doing things and doubting the surface level of what he says -- page 611 of the hardback copy of AMoL:

"It seems nobody can remember straight but me. I hunted down that bloody Horn like a madman. And, I'll mention, it was me blowing the thing that let you all escape Falme*."

"Is that how you remember it?" Egwene asked.

"Sure," Mat said. "I mean, I have some holes in there, but I've pieced it mostly together."

"And the dagger?"

"That trinket? Hardly worth anyone's time." He caught himself reaching to his side, to where he had once carried it.

(* side note: yeah, his mention of this here makes me feel even more sure that he deliberately didn't tell Tuon about Egwene being captured in Falme because he didn't think it was her business. He tells Tuon things on a need-to-know basis only, from what I can see, which feels like it's reflected in the advice that he gave to Min)

26. Egwene Travels them to the top of another location (to further move away from the Deathwatch guard) and Mat takes a moment to notice the grove of trees that Rand grew on the Fields of Merrilor.

[Mat] could feel something pulling on him, tugging him northward. Rand would need him soon.

27. Mat tells Egwene that this will have to be their last stand -- they don't have the supplies for a protracted battle. She says that they just need to hold out long enough for Rand to beat TDO.

But Mat points out that if they are unable to break the Shadow's advance, then they do still lose in some pretty important ways, because the Shadowspawn will flood the lands and kill all the non-combatants. "We can't just survive... we have to win."

We get another moment of Rand tugging on Mat from Shayol Ghul while the dice tumble in his head.

Mat turned northward again. A cool, somehow familiar wind blew across him, rippling his long coat, brushing at his hat. He narrowed his eye. Rand was tugging on him.

Ugh, I feel so cheated by this. Why set this up only to give us such a disappointing conclusion to this thread, Sanderson?

Anyway, the battle starts anew. And Mat successfully avoided being dragged back to Tuon's tent, so congrats to him on that.

Okay, the next chapter is the monster (nearly 200 pages all on its own), so that will be a separate post.

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #wot amol spoilers #wot a memory of light spoilers #mat cauthon #elayne trakand #seanchan content warning #faile bashere #olver (wheel of time)#next chapter of Voice is postponed until next week #due to covid making it difficult to do the polishing on the chapter that I wanted #but my reread vibe was still strong so there will be two reread posts this week #and we are almost done!

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