A Memory of Light - Chapter 37 - Part 4

In this section, Lan fights the Last Battle.

Leane is about to order the retreat of the remaining Aes Sedai, until Egwene shows up, devastating the enemy with her sa’angreal. Even at this late stage of the story, two new Aes Sedai is named. As Keeper of the Chronicles for ten of the last twelve years, Leane has better reason than anyone to know every Aes Sedai’s name and face. Had she not named these two, it would have been out of place, and it would be equally out of place if readers only saw Aes Sedai they had already met.

Talmanes is leading the repair of the dragons. The return of the dragons offers some hope so it is well juxtaposed with Egwene’s return to the field of battle.

Faile chases Aravine and the Horn, riding barebacked on Bela, the mare who has carried many of the heroes throughout their adventures. Stalwart Bela has always been dependable, like her owner Tam. Bela represents the way Rand was raised, his foundation and moral compass that will always carry him through and help him bear his burdens, which is why she has never faltered. Faile appeals to Bela to give her all in the chase: Faile scrambled to Bela’s side, cutting free the saddle – and all of its burdens – with a few swipes of the knife. And then, “Run, Bela,” Faile said. “If you’ve kept any strength back, now is the time to use it. Please. Run, girl. Run.” Bela’s imminent death signals the end of the last vestiges of Rand’s childhood.  

Faile learns that Vanin and Harnan had just been hoping to steal back some tabac, not the Horn. They clear her a path, and she kills Aravine with a dagger in the back. Realizing there is no way she can escape her pursuers, she gives the Horn to Olver while she leads them away. She is certain they will kill her. The feeling of desperation is heavy, with Faile’s imminent death and this essential task passed into the hands of the meekest of heroes.  “I’m sorry to place this upon you, little one. There is no one else. You did well earlier; you can do this. Take the Horn to Mat or all is lost.”

Logain keeps the Seals and goes hunting for Demandred, his sa’angreal, and something to fill the void within him. Logain is one of the only remaining characters who has not yet completely joined one side or the other. While he opposes the Shadow, he feels no affinity for the Light.

Egwene leads her assault and encounters Mazrim Taim, the M’Hael.

Raen and Ila triage the dead and wounded. Raen wonders what alternative there is to fighting the Shadow, since Trollocs would never stop chasing them no matter where they ran. He decides he will not think quite so poorly of those who follow a different path. Though he did not ask anyone to sacrifice their life for his, he recognizes that they have made the sacrifice nonetheless.  Ila considers Raen’s words. When she sees but fails to recognize the Darkfriends who have infiltrated the civilians helping with the wounded, she begins to see the world in greys, not the stark black and white she has seen all these past years. Her strict adherence to a viewpoint which had only two polar opposites drove her grandson away. This rejection of strict moral boundaries is very similar to what Rand will soon come to understand.

Olver has been abandoned. He is chased into a crevice. Simple use of verbs and adjectives strongly convey how hopeless his situation is while retaining his childlike view of the world.

Alone. He’d been left alone again.

Olver whimpered.

No safety.

There were hundreds of them back there, chasing him.

The tantalizing hope of escape ends as Bela is shot dead by arrows. In a little cleft, Olver hides, with Trolloc claws tearing at his clothing. Take the Horn to Mat or all is lost. Can the reader have any doubt that the Horn will never reach Mat, and that all is indeed lost?

Logain attacks Demandred, but is quickly overpowered. He relies on his training to escape, and not only the power. He wonders how they will ever beat Demandred. He is the third to face the Forsaken, and third to fail. Perhaps they will lose unless Rand comes to their aid. The only thing which cuts through Logain’s frustration is the realization that his Aes Sedai Gabrelle actually was concerned for him.

Egwene overpowers Taim, but he escapes using the True Power. She ponders the nature of balefire. This is a second attempt to prepare the reader for Egwene’s surprise weave.

Hurin’s nose describes more violence than has ever been wrought. He manages to keep fighting, but the worst is yet to come. His own faith in Rand is the only certainty any of the characters feel.

Berelain has had to order that only those who can be saved may be tended, rationing the care of the wounded. She further must cajole the gai’shain into helping collect and tend the wounded. Berelain discovers Annoura has burned herself out as a sacrifice of atonement to bring Galad back to Mayene. This final kindness to restore a friendship before the end was one that brought tears to my eyes. For other readers it may have been this scene, or another, since they all build on waves of hopelessness, courage and redemption. Where they finally break through depends on the characters you identify with. The author makes excellent use of the most minor characters such as Ila, Annoura, Hurin, and others to prime the readers for what may be in store for their favourites.

Galad passes out before he can tell Berelain about the medallion.

Rand watches as friends and allies die. His ability to see the battle unfold in detail even while in an otherworldly dimension is an efficient way to compress many emotional moments into a small amount of text. Minor characters are dying, quickly. Now that they are out of the way, the author can move on to the main characters. The Dark One weaves…

Taim receives a loan of the sa’angreal Sarkanen. Egwene is commanded to be destroyed by balefire. Taim forces himself to think of himself as M’Hael. When Fortuona renamed Mat as Knotai, he made no similar effort despite acknowledging Karede’s insistence he go by that new name; he still thinks of himself as Mat. M’Hael’s forced effort to adopt the identity thrust upon him by another is contrary to how each of the Heroes has resisted changing their identity when it was dictated by others.

Elayne is attacked by mercenaries. Mellar’s control of her is displayed as Elayne is even denied the chance to spit in his face properly. He then kills Birgitte in a bloody and awful manner. The suddenness of her death is jarring, lacking any heroism, and emphasizes Elayne’s lack of options. Mellar even gets to brag about how good it felt. A substitute blonde corpse convinces her army that she is dead, so none know she is missing. Her children will be cut out of her and delivered to Shayol Ghul. This looks bad.

Rand receives the Dark One’s final offer to annihilate the world, eliminating pain suffering and existence itself. He can stop Elayne’s forced caesarean, end the violent deaths, and end the betrayals and the burdens. The Dark One offers suicide. Rand rejects the offer. He does not seek an end, he seeks a solution.

Min unmasks Moghedien using her ability to see Viewings. It is one of the only times when a character’s abilities trump their personality in overcoming an obstacle. In past examples, there has almost always been an overt decision or affirmation made by the character before the abilities or happenstance come into play. Nonetheless, it is rewarding to have a non-channeler such as Min best one of the Forsaken. The Seanchan will soon join the fray.

Egwene delivers destruction unto her enemies. Despite bonding Leilwin, she is distraught, and fueled by rage. In most circumstances this ends badly for an Aes Sedai, and her suicidal frontal assault would normally end poorly, if not for the entirety of the White Tower’s channelers providing defense while she recklessly advances.

The use of balefire in large quantities is shown to have the expected effects, but in such a chaotic battle, there is no use in dissecting the chain of events that has been rewritten. This provides some cover to the author, who is free to dictate what has happened and what hasn’t, with no further explanation. Egwene discovers a new weave, as she has done in the past, yet the explanation feels contrived and I wonder if less explanation may have been more convincing than this blaze of illogic: Two sides to every coin. Two halves to the Power. Hot and cold, light and dark, woman and man. If a weave exists, so must its opposite.

The counter-weave to balefire and Egwene’s death have deeper meaning. M’Hael sought to undo Egwene, erasing her from existence. Egwene represents Rand’s childhood. She needed to die so that he could truly pass from childhood to adulthood. The manner of her death by balefire would represent that Rand had forever lost his childhood ideals and the love of the community that raised him. With Egwene’s final assertion, embodied in the new weave, she instead protects that childhood, stopping its erasure, preserving it for Rand to draw upon in times of need.  

Rand gets very angry at Egwene’s death. THE DEAD ARE MINE. I WILL KILL THEM ALL, ADVERSARY. Rand feels her loss like part of him has been cut away. He remembers all his failures.

Leane discovers Egwene is gone, and a crystal column stands in her place, that will likely stand forever. The balefire damage has been repaired. Word of the Amyrlin’s demise begins to travel.

Berelain hears a whisper from her beloved Galad “…Hope…”, and she rushes out to return Mat’s medallion. Once again, I am impressed how even the least powerful characters have essential roles to play, and could easily have carried a story on their own.

Mat learns Egwene has eliminated almost all the enemy channelers, leaving a battle between armies. And Demandred.  He has no brilliant strategy to give Lan, asking him to check on reserves from Mayene. He calls on his luck, and receives word Elayne is dead, which is fitting as she represents both the present and the gleaming promise of civilization itself. Andor and the Queen have always been foremost among humanity’s champions. Mat delivers orders to Tuon and Talmanes, his last reserves. Mat can’t win, but he fights on anyway, “Because I’ll be a Darkfriend before I’ll let this battle go without trying everything, 

Arganda.” As Mat makes his final preparations, Lan has gone on to fight Demandred alone.

Trollocs tear at Olver. He stands in for all humanity, enemies mercilessly clawing, the ground caving in on him, trapped with no hope of escape.

Loial must witness the fall of the last King of the Malkieri. Predicting his death with a reliable character works convincingly. All other opponents before have lost, why should Lan fare any better? Loial is trustworthy, which means Lan will die.

Tam sees Lan, a dim spark of Light in the Shadow: Tam almost lost Lan’s figure atop the midnight stallion, despite the bonfires burning on the Heights. Their light seemed feeble. He paves the way for Lan with a hail of fiery arrows. Lan’s spark alone can’t do it, but with a second to join with Lan’s? Rand’s father figures unite for a last desperate strike.

Lan intends to destroy Demandred, implausible as it seems. First he must get close, and even knowing the impossibility of it, he tries, and finds that Tam has come to his aid. Even as he nears his objective, he shows care for his horse by leaving its saddle, though it seems likely Mandarb would not stand idly by, and could end up just as dead. Lan offers no opening, shows no hesitation. There is no glory, no pride, no contest of equals. He is the man who will kill Demandred. Who then is Demandred? He is the man whose pride could not abide being less than first, who chose to gamble on being first for the Shadow’s cause, who traded ideals for a chance at prominence. Demandred is pride, and too much pride has been one of Rand’s weaknesses.

Min sees signs of the end, or so it seems. Once again she is a reliable character whose viewings are never wrong, and this confidence in her statements transfers easily to her opinions, which have also proven mostly correct. She represents the future, and she watches the lights flicker, the last embers of a fire that would soon be extinguished. She feels Rand tremble.

Rand thinks he has failed. In his pride he believes that all of these deaths were his fault, their lives were his responsibility. And then he remembers to let go. Rand has a role to play in people’s lives, but he does not bear final responsibility for everything that befalls them. He is there to give them a chance to choose who they will be, and how they will stand, or fall.

Lan calls himself just a man, which is why he succeeds when the prince of Andor, the Dragon’s Brother, and the leader of the Black Tower all failed. While the medallion and swordsmanship allow him to stand on almost equal terms with Demandred, it is his dedication to what he stands for and understanding of who he is and the battle that he fights that allows him to anticipate his enemy’s moves, whether with sword or the One Power. Mirroring what he taught Rand near the beginning of the series, Lan impales himself on Demandred’s sword, immobilizing it, then drives his own blade into Demandred’s throat. He never cared about winning as Demandred did, so full of pride. A tie is all he needed. He came to do what needed to be done, and he slays false pride. He quotes “Death is light as a feather”, sends his love to Nynaeve and dies.

The Last Battle is apparently over, and surprisingly, it was not Rand’s, but Lan’s.

Writing Lessons:

 The identity and reputation of the character delivering the message matter as much as the message itself.

The Fires of Heaven - Chaptes 33-37

In this section, Nynaeve’s mistakes add to her guilt.

Nynaeve is competent and powerful, so the way to bring her down is by hitting her pride. She always thinks she knows best, and is quite ready to tell every other character how they should act and behave. Steps have been taken to bring her down a notch with Egwene asserting herself against her and the Wise Ones telling her she acts like a child. There was the Forkroot incident in which her impulsive actions led to their near capture.

Now, she has recruited Birgitte into the hunt for Moghedien, and Moghedien has somehow pulled a sting on Birgitte, so that she can lead to Nynaeve. Nynaeve escapes, but Birgitte is ripped out of Tel’aran’rhiod. She nearly dies, and Nynaeve thinks it is all her fault.

Birgitte asserts that any danger she was in, she chose herself. Nynaeve’s attempt to take responsibility removes any attempt by Birgitte to take responsibility herself, and it demeans her. Nynaeve only goes along with that interpretation halfheartedly because she is so desperate to please Birgitte and will do anything to make up to her for what she has lost.

This theme of responsibility turns up often in the series. Each character does their best to be responsible for the people who follow them, or whom they perceive to be under their care. Sometimes they do well, other times not. The characters often feel saddled with duties they cannot ignore, yet continue to fulfill those duties freely.

Birgitte’s point is that people are faced with hard decisions, and they are free to choose as they see fit. There are some parallels with other situations, where some characters choose to serve the Dark One, or choose to break custom or law to accomplish some important goal, or simply in the advice given by the Wise Ones later on: Do what you must, then pay the price.

Nynaeve later berates the people of Samara for putting up with the Prophet’s mobs, all the while acknowledging that it is their own decisions that brought this fate on their heads, and they deserve it for choosing it. I think this philosophy will play a role in the Last Battle. The forces of humanity are being gathered for one stand of their collective will against the will of those who serve the Dark One. People choose a side, and gladly pay a price for that choice. Right now Nynaeve is being tested about the price she is willing to pay.

There are continual references to how men always behave, or how women never act a certain way. Often the supposed fact is untrue but reveals how someone of one sex views itself or the other. A deeper purpose behind this is to set up a later friction between male and female channelers. While there are plot reasons to have such a conflict, it will seem all the more natural by first building up walls between the sexes, regardless of channeling ability. The comparisons also have a more adult tone, with more frequent allusions to sexuality than at any time since Lanfear was around.

Men could not avoid gossiping; it was in them at birth and nothing women could do ever got it out of them.

She was going to kill Thom Merrilin and Valan Luca. And maybe any other man she could get her hands on, on sheer principle.

Burn him too, for a stubborn fool man.

Any man could build a bridge, and leave him to it was what she said.

It was interesting really, having his eyes on her when a woman as pretty as Elayne was there.

For a man like Valan Luca, that coy little flight of yours tonight was only asking him to keep pursuing you.

I know how to take a man out of his miseries. Give him a swift kick, or else get him drunk and find him a pr—

Nynaeve claimed you had to manage men for their own good.

If you are going to wear the dress, why cover up? You are a woman. Why not be proud of it?

Only men and dim-witted girls take blame where there is none, and you are neither.

The number of menageries and other traveling performers in Samara - fourteen! - seems odd given the lack of them seen in other books. In the modern world, there are a number of tours and exhibitions that travel from town to town, so the situation in Samara is plausible, but it stands out as one of the odder coincidences. Plot wise, it incites Luca to take on any advantage he can get by employing the Heroes.

Liandrin makes a choice to attack Moghedien in a moment of weakness, and finds herself shielded and cast away. Satisfying, it also suggests Moghedien will be without mercy when she finds Nynaeve, for Moghedien’s second lessons are exceedingly sharp.

Elayne had many interesting things to teach the reader about links and bonds. The perfect to display such knowledge about links is just before she has to bond Birgitte. That way, the context of bonds and control has been discussed and the reader has information to fall back on when Elayne starts talking about the bond.

Writing Lessons:

Avoid coincidences by giving them solid reasons to occur.

The Eye of the World - Chapters 29-32

Eye of the World 29-32

In this section, the Heroes evade capture or death by keeping a low profile.

The menace in these sections is quite a bit less supernatural, as the worst to contend with are ravens, soldiers and the local toughs. This is partly done to keep the opponents at a level the Heroes can defeat or escape on their own, now that they’re separated from their most powerful allies. In-story, the rationale is that Trollocs are better suited for wilderness missions than for searching the numerous villages. The river also provides a barrier preventing these powerful foes from continuing their pursuit. Those Trollocs must have been under tight control to just let various characters go when they were identified as not-the-boys instead of just killing them. A consequence of being linked to the Myrddraal? They become more versatile, but less capable of deviating from their instructions?

Killer flocks of ravens are nothing to treat lightly however. Elyas notes that something big is underway for this type of Dark activity so far south. Once the ravens fail to find anyone of interest wandering the hinterlands, Perrin and Egwene should be safe from further peril. Except for the Whitecloaks.

Perrin is the first of the boys to start thinking about taking responsibility for more than just his own fate, and considers his options if his worst fears come true. Bit by bit, we’ll see all the main characters thrown into this type of situation, where the lives of others are in their hands. The whole world will be directly in Rand’s hands eventually, and he’ll be wrestling with the same issues Perrin is facing in the race to the stedding.  Elyas’ statement about when to throw the axe away is about Perrin’s worthiness to make such decisions, and whether the people he makes decisions on behalf of would accept them.

We get some mild confirmation that Ba’alzamon wasn’t necessarily lying about his influence on Artur Hawkwing, as it relates to his aggressive stance against Aes Sedai, even on his death bed.

When your two characters face the same menace, they stand together, and the reader feels a bond between them. But offer each of them a different fate, like Egwene being able to repent her sins while Perrin has to face the hangman, can instill tension between the characters. Will Perrin tell her to take the escape offered? Would she do so? Would she find out it was all a ruse and she’s mounting a block right next to Perrin in Amador? A similar wedge is being driven between characters with Perrin’s secret Wolfbrother abilities conflicting with Egwene’s desire to become Aes Sedai. Rand’s abilities will drive the largest wedge of all between the characters. Menace from outside is exciting, but menace from within affects the characters more deeply.

With the advantage of having read the whole series and understanding Rand’s abilities, his lightning blast escape from the Dancing Cartman seems far less bizarre. I won’t talk about Rand much, because I need to finish a perplexing few more chapters before I talk about linearity of events and what happens when you deviate from it.

On a tangent related to writing, as a writer I want some protection for my creations, but my desire for reams and reams of information to inform my writing, to use as reference material, and for the pure joy of research far outweighs that. I strongly oppose the SOPA and PIPA law projects for the destruction they would wreak on valuable human cooperative endeavours such as Wikipedia or other creative commons projects. The ideas behind these laws are still dormant in myriad other initiatives sitting on bureaucrats’ desks, waiting to be spawned. Bureaucracy is a Goat With a Thousand Heads. It won’t budge, it keeps coming back, it craps all over the place. I will stand against these Shadow-spawned law projects, and oppose any similar proposals, and I hope you will too, wherever you live.  

Writing Lessons:

Look for natural wedges or conflicting desires that can be used to drive your characters in different directions. Fight the Goat.