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apocalypticavolition · 4 months

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Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 22: Watchers

Spoiler alert: This post is not about the death metal band Draghkar or any other metal bands who are the kinds of nerds as to be fans of Wheel of Time, like Blind Guardian. It's about the books. Pretty sure that's all the spoiler alerts I need. Why would I even need to mention at this point that this post will have spoilers for the whole series?

This chapter has the dagger icon because Shadar Logoth is one of the subjects of Moiraine's research - and because it's the central revelation she has.

["]Nothing is happening as I expect,” Moiraine muttered, not expecting an answer from Lan.

Yep, delightful parallels between Rand and Moiraine.

No danger of pursuit here. No one would expect her to come here. Clear my head, and begin again, she thought. That is all there is to do.

And another parallel. Moiraine's just got twenty years of her epic quest to fuel her paranoia though, not all the craziness.

With the one equally aged Warder who remained to them, they lived quietly, still intending to write the history of the world since the Breaking, and as much as they could include of before. One day.

Yeah, the theme of this series means this particular mission is doomed to fail with another Age about to end. I wonder what all of the pre-Breaking history there is available to these ladies. Just the War of the Shadow, or anything more? Would any of it even be all that interesting, or just some random list of leaders pre-LTT, none of whom had anything to report in the glory days of the AoL?

This was a subject neither of them ever mentioned; nearly twenty years ago she had told him—with all the stiff pride of one still young enough to be called young, she recalled—that she would never speak of it again and expected the same silence of him.

So first of all, their first meeting is awesome and I can't wait to get back to New Spring to take a look at it...

But also, note another weakness of the Oath Rod. Moiraine really didn't intend to bring it up again at the time, so she could say that, but her mind has naturally changed since. She never lied, but what she said has turned out not to be true.

“I was young,” she repeated. “And does your bond chafe after all these years? You are not a man to wear a leash easily, even so light a one as mine.” It was a stinging comment; she meant it to be so.

I don't like this part. Moiraine's upbringing really made her casually cruel sometimes.

“Before we left Tar Valon I made arrangements, should anything happen to me, for your bond to pass to another.”

And I hate this detail too. People shouldn't have their relationships reassigned by someone else's whims. It's a good example of the casual sexism of Tar Valon and how things are forever changing but staying the same - plenty of real life women have been remarried without their consent on the loss of their first husband.

I will not allow you to die in a useless attempt to avenge me. And I will not allow you to return to your equally useless private war in the Blight. The war we fight is the same war, if you could only see it so, and I will see that you fight it to some purpose.

I get where she's coming from and why it must be done but also damn it's cruel to treat people like this.

“I had never thought,” he said slowly, “that I might not be the first of us to die. Somehow, even at the worst, it always seemed. . . .”

Sadly, bro is probably right, since both he and Moiraine survive to the end.

“What I do is for your own good, and perhaps it may be for another’s, as well. It may be that Myrelle will find a slip of a girl just raised to sisterhood—was that not what you said?—who needs a Warder hardened in battle and wise in the ways of the world, a slip of a girl who may need someone who will throw her into a pond. You have much to offer, Lan, and to see it wasted in an unmarked grave, or left to the ravens, when it could go to a woman who needs it would be worse than the sin of which the Whitecloaks prate. Yes, I think she will have need of you.”

Okay but Moiraine said all this happened before they last left Tar Valon and unless I'm crazy mistaken, they haven't been to TV since before book 1 started (if the timeline is right it's only 10 days since she left the party so it's not like she somehow outraced a boat and then got here), which was before Nynaeve was even in the picture. So at this point I have to wonder: did Moiraine's unseen encounters with Min inspire all of these decisions? She very specifically avoids answering Lan's question about foreseeing her death in a straightforward way.

“Why did you do as you did with Rand?” He blinked; it was obviously not what he expected. She knew what he had thought was coming, and she would not let up now that he was off balance.

It says a great deal about Moiraine's unhealthy Cairhienien worldviews that the real threat in her eyes is not Lan's affection for Nynaeve but for his helping the boy they've spent the last two decades trying to find and help. All because he's not helping according to the script. That's what makes all of this justified in her eyes.

“Ta’veren,” Moiraine sighed. “Perhaps it was that. Rather than guiding a chip floating down a stream, I am trying to guide a log through rapids. Every time I push at it, it pushes at me, and the log grows larger the farther we go. Yet I must see it through to the end.”

Honestly, I think it's a lot more about who Rand and Lan are as people than it is about a magic power manipulating Lan. A nudge from the Wheel, maybe, but... Not destiny outright cheating.

Much more likely Rand's ta'veren keeps Moiraine from ever realizing she can't play him until it's too late to matter.

“All men dream. But I know dreams for dreams. This”—he touched his sword hilt—“is reality.”

I wonder what the Aiel would say if they knew their much-respected Lan was saying something like this. Was Jordan setting up the Aiel worldview already with this contrast, or is it just a funny coincidence?

“So many subjects. The Trolloc Wars. The Watchers Over the Waves. The legend of the Return. Two treatises on the Horn of Valere. Three on dark prophecy, and—Light, here’s Santhra’s book on the Forsaken. Nasty, that. As nasty as this on Shadar Logoth. And the Prophecies of the Dragon, in three translations and the original. Moiraine, whatever are you after? The Prophecies, I can understand—we hear some news here, remote as we are. We hear some of what’s happening in Illian. There’s even a rumor in the village that someone has already found the Horn.”

Moiraine is not at all subtle; she clearly was counting on the privacy she requested. Vandene has probably put together a good deal more than she's admitting. Also note that the books on the Forsaken and Shadar Logoth are EQUALLY nasty, more foreshadowing for that.

“No. Except for the fact that the Horn must be found before Tarmon Gai’don and that the Dragon Reborn is supposed to fight the Last Battle, there is no link between them at all.”

And indeed, once this book is over Rand will have nothing to do with the Horn again.

But I believe it means the Dragon Reborn will appear somewhere above Toman Head, in Arad Doman, or Saldaea.

Vandene is of course confusing "above" with "north", which apparently means that 3A maps - and possibly AoL maps as well - have oriented north consistently for some time. Here in the first age, maps used to have "east" atop them (hence "the Orient" describing the east), so it's not a given as Jordan and Vandene assume.

In full, you will have to stay here a month and listen to Adeleas lecture—she has the true knowledge of it—but even I can tell you there’s nothing of the Dragon in it.

I think the reason that Shadar Logoth didn't show up in the prophecies is that revealing its true purpose to the Shadow would ensure Ish destroyed it prematurely somehow, if by no other mechanism than throwing massive armies of Trollocs in until the two evils canceled out.

“If I did,” Moiraine replied levelly, “would I be here, instead of in the White Tower? The Amyrlin knows as much as I, that I swear. Have you received a summons from her?”

Here Moiraine doesn't rely entirely on evasion because Vandene could see right through that, but she does mislead with her leading questions well enough.

“If I thought it would do any good, I’d pull Adeleas’s nose out of her book and set off for the White Tower. But I find I am glad to be here where I am instead. Perhaps we will have time to finish our history.”

It's always so sad knowing what's going to happen to these people.

An answer, or a hint to an answer, for a question she had not asked—but she could not bring the question to mind, either.

Presumably that Mordeth is looking for a soul to steal in Shadar Logoth - or rather, that he already has stolen a soul. Otherwise why would this chapter have the dagger icon specifically?

A shadow loomed dimly only a few paces from her, a shadow that appeared to be a too-tall man wrapped in his cloak. But the face caught the moon, gaunt-cheeked, pale, with black eyes too big above a puckered, red-lipped mouth. The cloak opened, unfolding into great wings like a bat’s.

Really I'm surprised that Moiraine let her guard down, even for a moment. I guess she was counting on being able to sense it and it not being warded, but again: she's actually properly paranoid.

But even as she began, Lan cried out, “Embrace death!” Jaem echoed him firmly. “Embrace death!” And the two men stepped within reach of the Draghkar’s touch, drove home their blades to the hilt.

It's so sad that Moiraine thinks she needs to test Lan at all when he's still got this going. Dude knows his job and he really is just as married to it as she.

It's also sad that this is what Lan's got at the moment.

Moiraine said the words none of them wanted to hear. “The Black Ajah.”

It's practically uncharacteristic of Moiraine to be so open. She must assume Jaem's good behavior proves their innocence even though proper paranoia would suggest that the most likely Black Ajah candidates are right in front of her. They're not of course, but still.

Adeleas turned to study the Draghkar as if it were a puzzling passage in one of her books. “Whether Aes Sedai are involved or not, whatever could have brought it here?” Vandene regarded Moiraine silently.

If you can't say anything but uncomfortable and revealing truths, don't speak at all I guess.

That's it for this chapter! Next time: A trip to off-brand McDonald's!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #moiraine damodred #lan mandragoran #vandene namelle #jaem #adeleas namelle

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