In this section, the stakes for Rand are raised and Egwene
has a problem she turns into an opportunity
The weather tells us Rand’s mood is poor, especially in
light of what Cadsuane and Sorilea agreed moments earlier. Rand acts with all
the worst behaviours of the nobility he has displaced. The nobles may not trust
each other, but Rand trusts none of them. He starts off polite and firm, but
quickly degrades and contemptuously tells the dregs of Sammael’s army to
surrender or be killed. Furious at their continued opposition and doubt, he considers
a number of other obstacles he is facing, and latches onto the rumour of an Aes
Sedai amongst the Shaido as proof the White Tower would never give him peace.
His experiences with Galina’s Aes Sedai have left him deeply mistrustful and
paranoid about the Tower.
The introduction of several new nobles is pulled off
effectively by tagging each by their nationality, sex, and rank. Gregorin is
the head of the Council of Nine, Marcolin is captain of their armies. Weiramon
leads the cavalry for Tear, Tolmeran is his rival, Rosana is new. Three other
names are written off as soon to be dead, no need to distinguish between them.
Semaradrid is a soldier from Cairhien. For a large group of mostly new characters
thrown at the reader, it is remarkably easy to distinguish them.
The Asha’man were bit players in the last book, but we now
see a number of them interact, just as the nobles did a chapter earlier. Again,
each is given a tag of age or nationality or ability to distinguish them, which
works well. Each is also well associated with the task he was assigned. The Asha’man
have a discussion about numbers of male channelers, and the inevitable madness
that will consume them all. Rand accidentally reveals to them his desire to
cleanse saidin, and the Asha’man are
enthralled.
Our attention is once more drawn to Herid Fel’s message
about sealing the Dark One’s prison.
Lews Therin’s voice has been absent since before Rand took
Illian. Having spent some time over the last three books making Lew Therin’s
presence normal to the reader, its absence is disconcerting. He welcomes the
return of the voice which of course makes readers uncomfortable. Not only is
Rand in the wrong mood to achieve victory, he is plainly more likely to believe
the voice in his head than anyone trying to get through to him. The voice
returns because Rand has entrusted Narishma with a task that requires trust,
which brings forth his mad desire to kill the Asha’man who return to the Black
Tower. Rand has little choice but to stay away from the Black Tower, he can’t
trust himself not to get into a fight with Mazrim Taim, whose attitude is
belligerent, but he still appears to be doing what he is supposed to be doing.
Readers are well on their way to adopting Lews Therin’s ideas regarding Taim,
indicating that the author has very successfully made the mad voice seem
reasonable, which is just what our mad hero would think.
This book is oddly straightforward, and feels like there are
fewer layers of meaning in various passages. Is this related to the proposed
theme of Darkfriends lurking amongst allies? Jordan is portraying people and
events very directly to achieve a sensation of normalcy, that there is nothing
lurking just out of sight. Revealing known Darkfriends like Aran'gar after telling readers
about Moridin’s secret agents would be useful in getting the reader to drop
their guard for when the hidden Darkfriends make their move later on. He tells
the reader what to look for, and then shows the reader what they are looking
for so they don’t search any further. This technique works even better by
establishing a few cases in which the reader has been told what to look for,
and then found it, establishing trust in the author’s directions.
In earlier sections it was established that no Darkfriends
had infiltrated the Kin, or the Black Ajah would have known their secret.
Perrin has people with secrets in his camp, but there is a remarkable lack of
Darkfriends so far. In Rand’s section we suspect someone must be a Darkfriend.
With Egwene, the main skulker we know about is Aran’gar, disguised as Halima,
who has gotten close to both Egwene and Delana, a Sitter who is also Black Ajah.
Egwene learns of an army ahead of hers, so she arranges for
parley, and tries to keep it from the Hall of the Sitters for as long as
possible. This is the first step in her plan to assert her control. It’s a
subtle plan, which we are told nothing of yet, and she expected to have to
implement it once they reached Andor, but this is slightly ahead of her
schedule. We’ll talk plenty about Egwene in the next post.
Writing Lessons:
Use misdirection to set your reader’s expectations the way
you want them.
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