Welcome back my friends, it is time once again for Reading The Wheel of Time. This week we’re covering Chapter 6 of Lord of Chaos, in which Sammael gets manipulated (but not in the way he thinks) and Sylas gets Semirhage and Graendal mixed up. We also get a lot of fun new world building, and answer last week’s question about whether or not a Gateway could actually cut someone in half.
Which, gross, it can. Does Rand know that’s a thing he could accidentally do?
Chapter 6 opens with Sammael stepping through a gateway and into Graendal’s palace in Arad Doman. He keeps his hold on saidin, distrustful of meeting on anyone else’s terrain. He observes some of Graendal’s “pets,” beautiful men and women performing acrobatics, playing music, or dancing in little or no clothing. She greets him, and Sammael considers how many layers of obfuscation surround the woman, who was a dedicated ascetic who treated disturbed minds before she joined the Shadow.
On the surface her total fixation was her own pleasure, nearly obscuring a desire to pull down everyone who had a particle of power. And that in turn almost hid her own thirst for power, very seldom exercised openly. Graendal had always been very good at hiding things in plain sight. He thought he knew her better than any of the other Chosen did—she had accompanied him to Shayol Ghul to make his obeisance—but even he did not know all the layers of her.
Graendal shows off some of the Domani king’s relatives, and then a couple from the lands beyond the Aiel Waste. The woman is a ruler who would only have the throne for seven years before dying and passing it on to her husband, who would rule for seven years himself before dying and passing the throne on to his second wife, continuing a long running tradition that they claim is the will of the Pattern. Sammael is bored and suggests that at some point some visitor to the palace is going to recognize a lost loved one, but Graendal laughs that off.
Graendal has been passing information from her meetings with Demandred, Semirhage, and Mesaana. She needles Sammael about Rand, who Sammael insists is nothing like Lews Therin and hardly a threat, despite his lucky successes. Graendal believes that Rand killed Asmodean, Lanfear, and possibly Moghedien as well. Sammael asks if it will violate any of the Great Lord’s commands if, when Rand finally attacks him, Sammael destroys him, and Graendal answers that she has passed on everything Demandred told her. They argue about the danger Rand poses, and Graendal insists that the Chosen need to stand together.
“We behave as if this is the world we knew, when nothing is what we knew. We die one by one, and al’Thor grows stronger. Lands and people gather behind him. And we die. Immortality is mine. I do not want to die.”
“If he frightens you, then kill him.” Before the words were well out of his mouth he would have swallowed them if he could.
Graendal replies smartly that she serves and obeys the Great Lord; Sammael insists that he does as well. Still, she seems to show concern, even fear about Rand. Sammael remembers what Ishamael used to believe.
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Ishamael had died mad, true, but even when he was still sane, back when it seemed they surely would drive Lews Therin Telamon to defeat, he claimed this struggle had gone on since the Creation, an endless war between the Great Lord and the Creator using human surrogates. More, he avowed that the Great Lord would almost as soon have turned Lews Therin to the Shadow as have broken free.
There were efforts to turn Lews Therin, and Ishamael had claimed that in past ages, the Light’s Champion had been turned, and become the Shadow’s champion instead. He doesn’t much like to consider that the Great Lord might want to make Rand Nae’blis. Sammael gives Graendal a message for Demandred which basically amounts to “back off my turf” and then Graendal starts talking about the people from Shara again, and how they handle their channelers. Sammael wonders why she wants him to think she has an interest in those lands.
Sammael leaves, and is irritated when Graendal warns him again to be careful, even going so far as to suggest he abandon Illian and start over. He asks yet again if Graendal has told him all of the Great Lord’s command, then decides that she’s probably telling the truth, since “a lie touching the Great Lord could rebound with deadly force.” He leaves her with a suggestion that she find out more about “how Demandred and the others mean to carry out the Great Lord’s instructions.”
The gateway he opens cuts a serving man in half. Graendal looks vexed about it until Sammael is gone, then has the mess cleaned up as she muses about the amount of work put into obtaining the couple from Shara and how transparent Sammael is to her.
She sipped her wine, and her forehead furrowed slightly. Possibly she had already achieved her end with him, though she had expected it to take four or five visits. She would have to find reason to call on him in Illian; it was best to observe the patient even after it appeared the desired path had been taken.
Graendal doesn’t know if Rand is lucky, or actually talented, or has help from Lanfear or somewhere else, but she has decided that he is too dangerous to be allowed to continue. She can’t violate the Dark One’s commandments, however, so she is aiming Sammael at al’Thor instead, so that he will be the one blamed. And punished.
A servant informs her that a Lord Ituralde has arrived to see her, and she changes her appearance to that of a sickly Domani woman, Lady Basene. As she goes out, she considers that no one else knows that she has made her own journey to Shayol Ghul, and that the Great Lord has all but promised that she will be Nae’blis.
Semirhage goes into a room where she has an Aes Sedai suspended spreadeagled in the air. She proceeds to use saidar to stimulate the pain receptors in the woman’s brain, torturing her until she screams, while musing angrily over how much she hates the children who call themselves Aes Sedai.
She had been one herself, a true Aes Sedai, not an ignorant fool like the simpleton hanging before her. She had been known, famed, whisked to every corner of the world for her ability to mend any injury, to bring people back from the brink when everyone else said there was nothing more to be done.
But when it was discovered that Semirhage was also torturing the people she saved, as well as others who she felt deserved it, she was offered a choice between being bound “never to know her pleasures again” or being severed, she chose the third option, and fled to Shayol Ghul. She feels that the Aes Sedai were jealous of her talents and tried to pull her down out of spite. Later, during the War of Power, she used those talents against some of those Aes Sedai, breaking them so completely they swore themselves to the Lord of the Dark.
Eventually, Semirhage eases up on the pain, and asks the woman her name. She learns that it’s Cabriana Mecandes, and she gives the woman a little hit of pleasure and wipes her brow, pointing out how much better it will be if Cabriana doesn’t make things difficult for herself. Cabriana flings insults at her, so Semirhage starts the pain again, tying off the weave and leaving the Aes Sedai alone in the dark.
Despite herself Semirhage made a vexed sound. There was no finesse in this. She did not like having to hurry. And to be called away from her charge; the girl was willful and obdurate, the circumstances difficult.
Outside, she reports the name to Shaidar Haran, who instructs her to drain every bit of information from the woman as quickly as possible. Semirhage insists that she told the Great Lord she would do just that, and finds a cold knot of fear in her stomach as the Myrddraal departs. She resolves to analyze that feeling later, reminding herself that Shaidar Haran is still just a Myrddraal, even if he is different from every other Myrddraal.
Going into the next room she regards Cabriana’s Warder. He’s not important, but he’d been captured with his Aes Sedai and Semirhage has not yet had a chance to break a Warder.
He never flinched. He said nothing. His defiance was different from the woman’s. Hers was bold, flung in your face, his a quiet refusal to bend. He might be harder to crack than his mistress. Normally he would have been much the more interesting.
She notes a tightness around the Warder’s eyes, and realizes that he is fighting pain. None of the Chosen understand the Warder bond, but Semirhage can see that this shared feeling might be a side effect.
Instead of pain, she gives the Warder pleasure. He seems to realize that it’s something she is doing to him and tries to fight it. She muses that he might think pleasure would be easier to fight than pain, and is excited to break him using only this. Thinking about the difference between the use of pain and pleasure sparks her to think about the difference in Shaidar Haran, which gets her thinking about how everything seems to be going so well, except for the strange arrival of a new kind of Myrddraal who has been set above even the Chosen. She’s also troubled that Lanfear, Moghedien, and Asmodean seem to have vanished; Demandred believes that they’re dead but Semirhage isn’t so sure.
The Chosen were no more than pieces on the board; they might be Counselors and Spires, but they were still pieces. If the Great Lord moved her here secretly, might he not be moving Moghedien or Lanfear, or even Asmodean? Might Shaidar Haran not be sent to deliver covert commands to Graendal or Sammael?
For that matter, even her allies Demandred and Mesaana might be receiving secret orders or making their own plans against her. Semirhage is prepared to kneel before al’Thor if the Great Lord names him Nae’blis, at least until time delivers him into her hands. As far as she is concerned, there will be plenty of patients to divert her and eternity to wait for her chance. But Shaidar Haran makes her anxious.
Suddenly she realizes that the Warder has died—she let her attention wander too much and overdid it. She wonders if the Aes Sedai could feel what the Warder was going through, and goes to check on Cabriana. She finds the Aes Sedai screaming and begging, and thinks perhaps there is a little fun in this assignment after all.
This isn’t really relevant to this week’s analysis, but I feel compelled to tell you all the very funny story of how I somehow completely missed that the POV in Chapter 6 switches from Graendal to Semirhage. I was already getting them confused from the little we’ve learned about the two before now, and I probably took a break in between sections or something, but it’s still a pretty big mix up! I was halfway through writing a paragraph dissecting the differences between the three very different sides of Graendal when I finally caught that we’d transitioned over to Semirhage for the torture bits.
It appears that Graendal was a sort of psychologist in the Age of Legends. Specifically it says that she treated “those with disturbed minds Healing could not touch.” I’m curious if this means using the Power in some other way besides what is classified Healing, or if it’s closer to the sort of treatment that we the readers picture when we think of therapy. It’s interesting to consider the idea of the Age of Legends not being able to solve all their problems with the One Power, even though they seem to have conquered scarcity and basically eliminated violence and crime prior to the drilling of the Bore. Did Graendal use talk therapy, CBT, ACT, exposure therapy and such? Did she prescribe psychiatric medication? Are prescription drugs something they needed, even though they could do things with the One Power that make them see the modern Aes Sedai as no more than primitive children? It’s a fascinating question.
And you know, if they did, it sure puts the modern Aes Sedai’s dismissive attitude towards Nynaeve’s herbs in a slightly different light.
Semirhage, on the other hand, was a Healer, and apparently the best of them. Still, there is something decidedly psychological in the torture she uses here. She’s not interested in how the bodies of her victims respond, but in fundamentally altering their minds through the application of pleasure and pain. She finds the results more satisfying and reliable than Compulsion, which is a weave placed on a mind, rather than a physical altering of that mind, and therefore can be unraveled and undone. But she also comes off less… rational than Graendal somehow. I think it’s the way she considers that she deserves the right to inflict pain on other people, and the fact that it seems impossible that her fellow Aes Sedai would have had a moral problem with that.
She had deserved the right to do as she did; she had earned the right. She had been more valuable to the world than all those together who entertained her with their screams. And in jealousy and spite the Hall had tried to pull her down!
To be fair, all of the Forsaken kind of have the same basic flaws and blindspots, with their greed and ambition and their intense feelings that they are better than everyone else. But there’s a certain kind of self-delusion, or covert narcissism maybe, in this that’s different than, say, Lanfear’s self importance, which just stops at “I’m more powerful than anyone and this is what I want.” Semirhage is almost playing the victim, in a way that reminds me more of the way half of the male Forsaken are basically just evil because they were famous channelers or famous generals but Lews Therin was more famous and that’s not fair!
As a result, I find Graendal and Moghedien much more interesting than the other Forsaken. They feel, comparatively at least, more clear-eyed about their goals, and who they are as people. I’ll get into this a little more with Moghedien when we get to Chapter 8, but as far as Graendal goes I did not expect to like her as much as I did in this chapter. Obviously her morality, and her treatment of other people, is as odious as any of the Forsaken, but her motivations and approach to things are more interesting than I expected them to be. I’m especially intrigued by the fact that she used to be a dedicated ascetic, and the fact that even Sammael seems aware that her apparent fixation on her own pleasure and indulgence is at least somewhat a screen, meant to distract from her “desire to pull down everyone who had a particle of power.”
Graendal also seems to believe that people’s position in life should be “chosen for them according to their talents and the needs of society,” a thought reminiscent of the Roman philosophy concept of the philosopher king, which sounds great on its face and really just becomes fascism and a denial of free will. One wonders if she always held this belief, even before she turned to the Shadow. Perhaps the desire for this kind of order was one of the things that drove her to ally herself to the Dark Lord, and which goads her hunger for power now. Perhaps that’s why she wants so badly to be Nae’blis, so that she can order the world as she sees fit. True, her desire for pleasure seems to be genuine, but I think her desire for this philosophized order is stronger.
Still, she does have many of the same blindspots as the rest of the Forsaken. I think her bead on Sammael is mostly accurate; he’s clearly very attached to his control over Illian, and I think his hatred of Lews Therin would drive him to kill Rand no matter what the Dark Lord had dictated, if he was given the opportunity and was sufficiently caught up in the heat of the moment. He has clearly bought most of her subterfuge, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s read him exactly right, either. She’s terribly sure of herself, which tends to be the downfall of all of the Forsaken. Even Moghedien, so cautious as to be deemed a coward by her fellows, got caught that way.
And I must say, the more everyone in this book becomes certain that Sammael is trapped, the less I trust that belief. And he does say that he has lines of retreat prepared, just in case. Narratively, he almost seems like a red herring at this point, and I have to wonder if he’s either going to turn out to be much cleverer and more formidable than anyone has given him credit for, or he isn’t the main big bad in Lord of Chaos at all, and the person Rand is going to end up having to worry about and deal with is actually Demandred. Which would be a bit funny, really, since Rand has already been deflected from going after Sammael once before, when he heard that Rahvin had Morgase. How ironic would it be if Sammael kept hanging on for another couple of books because things just kept coming up for Rand.
Why do I feel like the fact that all the other Forsaken men getting more attention from the Dragon Reborn than he is might really make Sammael mad? After all, Rand’s obsessed with him!1
Speaking of the Forsaken’s blindspots, nothing makes me feel more smug than the dramatic irony of watching the Dark One heavily imply to each of them in turn that they are going to be Nae’blis, which is so obviously a way to manipulate all of them. All these people think they are so smart, so important, so much better than ordinary people, the Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends, and Lews Therin Telamon. Not one of them has ever considered that they might be pawns in the Dark One’s plans, that such a being might discard them as easily as they discard those Darkfriends who serve beneath them. That he might lie about Nae’blis, about immortality, about all of it.
After all, the Dark One intends to remake Creation in his own image. Why should he want to keep things like human rulers at all?
I find Ishamael’s suggestion that the Dark One wanted to turn Lews Therin to the Shadow very interesting. When he was being Ba’alzamon, we saw him try to turn Rand to his side, probably intending Rand to be his right hand as Ishamael was right hand to the Dark One in turn, or possibly to turn him over and hope that his success in corrupting the Dragon Reborn would earn him Nae’blis status. I believe there’s also been mention somewhere in one of the novels that the Dragon has gone over to the Dark One before, although that may have been something Ishamael told Rand, in which case it very well might be a lie he made up to convince Rand to stop fighting.
I don’t really believe the Dark One intends to keep any humans around if he manages to break free of his cage, but if he was going to have a Nae’blis, it makes sense that he would want it to be the Dragon/Dragon Reborn. Why wouldn’t he want the most powerful channeler to be his number one? But more to the point, of course he would want the Dragon turned to the Shadow! Lews Therin/Rand is the greatest threat to the Dark One remaining imprisoned, and if he is killed he can be reborn. Once he swears to the Dark One, he can be kept alive and controlled.
Oh. But that raises an interesting question. I just said two paragraphs up that it’s possible that the Dragon has gone over to the Shadow before. But if the Dragon did, then wouldn’t the Dark One have power over his soul forever? We know that souls of Darkfriends belong to the Dark One in death—Rand had to free Kari al’Thor from Ba’alzamon’s control, and the Dark One is able to resurrect those souls that belong to him, even though he apparently can’t create the bodies to put those souls into. Since Rand was born, and is not sworn or attached to the Shadow either way, there is either a time limit on how long the Dark One can hold onto a soul… or the Dragon has never, not once in all the Ages that have existed, sworn allegiance to the Dark One.
The thing I love about this chapter is how much world building we get, both on a macro and a micro level. We learn more about who Semirhage and Graendal were in the Age of Legends, which means a lot of tantalizing details about that time. (I’m still so curious about drugs and prescription medication in Lews Therin’s time.) But there are also new details about Rand’s time, such as the information Graendal tells Sammael about Shara. The way they handle their channelers is fascinating, if depressing, and shows that they are perhaps also aware of the bloodline issue when it comes to channelers; where the Aes Sedai fear they are culling the ability to channel out of the populace, the people of Shara have an established tradition of forcing channelers to maintain certain bloodlines. It’s upsetting for a lot of reasons, especially given that Graendal says that women who can channel can only marry the sons of women who can channel, but we also know those men are killed when they turn 21 and are completely isolated and uneducated their entire lives. That’s highly disturbing. And there is clearly a lot of fear surrounding the Ayyad, just as there is around Aes Sedai—but where the Aes Sedai have the oath rod, the Sharans have the Sh’botay and Sh’boan as rulers who dictate when and if channeling occurs, and who aren’t allowed to stay in power long enough to gain too much advantage from channeling.
I’m so curious as to why she wanted to tell Sammael about them. Narratively, it might have just been an excuse for Jordan to have fun with some worldbuilding, but then again it might be important in some way. Sammael thinks Graendal wants him to believe she has an interest in Shara, and therefore dismisses it. But Graendal’s misdirects have several layers, so it’s possible that she either wanted him to dismiss it, or that she wants to direct his attention there for some other reason. I mean, why did Graendal go through so much trouble just for a few minutes of deception? She must have had a compelling reason to want to draw Sammael’s attention to Shara in particular—if she just wanted a general distraction I imagine she could have come up with something a little bit less difficult to execute.
And I have to wonder how much the disappearance of its ruler is going to disrupt Shara, given that this same system of government has apparently gone on for almost three thousand years without a break? That sounds like a recipe for civil unrest at least, if not outright war and rebellion. Sammael and Graendal may think that Shara has no real role in the coming storm, but it sounds like the chaos is landing there anyway.
Which might have been Graendal’s purpose all along, though the section from her POV seems to suggest otherwise.
I also have confirmation this week that my suspicions about the Oath Rod were heading in the right direction—apparently the Oath Rod was used to bind criminals in the Age of Legends. Semirhage’s section also tells us that the Oath Rod shortens someone’s life: “to be bound never to know her pleasures again, and with that binding be able to see the end of life approach”
I’m willing to bet that the ageless blurring that the Aes Sedai experience comes from the use of the Oath Rod, and that the youthful look we see on Leane and Siuan is the result of their aging being naturally slowed by their connection to, or perhaps specifically by their use of, the One Power. Now that they are severed they would age normally, but what we are seeing now is what they would have looked like without the Oath Rod’s effects. It’s kind of horrifying to realize that the Aes Sedai are doing such a thing to themselves, using a device meant for criminals, shortening their lifespans in ways they can’t even imagine.
And speaking of imagination… are we sure Shaidar Haran is a Myrddraal? The Forsaken keep telling themselves that even though he’s different, he’s still a Myrddraal, but I’m not so sure. The Forsaken aren’t supposed to feel any of the hypnotic fear that the Myrddraal use so effectively on other people, but they all have a strong reaction to this one, something outside of ordinary fear. Something supernatural.
The Forsaken don’t know everything, by any stretch. Graendal’s argument to Sammael, that they should stand together like never before, is actually maybe the smartest thing any of the Forsaken have said so far. She doesn’t actually intend to do that, of course, but she’s speaking that truth because it carries a lot of weight. None of the Forsaken believed that Rand and the modern Aes Sedai could be any threat to them at all, yet Rand has done remarkable things, including killing several of them, and even the “primitive children” have tricks up their sleeves that none of the Age of Legends Aes Sedai knew.
I’m fascinated to know that the Warder/Aes Sedai Bond didn’t exist in the Age of Legends. But it makes sense, in a way. We’ve been repeatedly told that men and women working together with the One Power can accomplish so much more than channelers of one gender can alone, or even in groups. Only wielders of saidar have the ability to create links, but when the Breaking was over and only women could safely channel, the modern Aes Sedai had no male Aes Sedai to connect to. Perhaps they were desperate to find some way of filling that void, and developed the Bond as a replacement for the connection they once could have had with male channelers. After all, while Warders can’t bring saidin into the mix, they do provide a balance to the Aes Sedai. Aes Sedai are limited in how they can use the One Power as a weapon, so they have a Warder to do some of that work for them. The Warders in turn are granted some of the hardiness that the One Power seems to give to channelers, including a longer lifespan and the ability to sense Shadowspawn. As a unit, they are both able to do things they could not do on their own.
Next week we will cover chapters 7 and 8, in which Elayne and the Aes Sedai get into some trouble in the World of Dreams, and Nynaeve, well… she Nynaeves all over the place. Until then I hope you are all hanging in there and taking care of yourselves during this interminable January.
Sylas K Barret just can’t stop thinking about the new WoT insult he learned today. “I spit in your mother’s milk” is just… really evocative. Blech.
[1]Favorite Quote of this chapter goes to Sammael: “I have done everything short of surrendering to convince al’Thor I am no threat to him, but the man seems obsessed with me.”
Not sure how much of this I should put in white text since it seems like most commenters have read the full series, but I’ll put most of it in white text.
After AMoL came out, on re-read of this chapter, and I almost tossed the book in shock realizing that RJ goes into talking about Shara in great detail then has Graendal and Sammael talking about Demandred (specifically Sammael wanting to send a message to Demandred to back off his territory) then Graendal talking about Shara again. Why is Graendal talking about Shara so much? Because Demandred is over there! Get out of your box and take a look over there! I feel like this is the set-up for Demandred’s arc, and the Taimandred stuff was just a smokescreen. Future Sammael POVs mention Demandred’s proxies all over the south, so between this chapter and those future POV thoughts, it’s clear that Demandred was up to something in Shara as early as this book, otherwise why would RJ mention Shara so heavily during a chapter in which characters were talking about the schemes of another character?
@1 And it’s the exact same trick RJ pulled when Taim shows up. Talk about Taim, talk about the Forsaken, back to Taim and then back to the Forsaken.
Just noticed this as well, @Acclimation and @noblehunter.
This is Jordan trolling, of course!
Well, it might have been Jordan wisely leaving his options open. There is a strong fan community opinion that Taim was meant to be Demandred and that the readers cottoned on too quickly, so RJ changed tack and went another direction. Unclear how much of River of Souls was written by RJ, but certainly we see almost nothing after this mention of where Demandred is, which makes me think that it’s just a piece of worldbuilding that was conveniently retconned into being a hint of where Demandred is.
The other issue with it is that Shara is uniquely a place where a male channeller would have a hard time hiding. In Seanchan male channellers are killed, and in Randland gentled, so there is no way of spotting a male channeller trying to be discreet. By contrast, there are a number of male channellers in Shara who have some status and position, and who could more easily spot a Forsaken trying to suborn an entire culture.
There were efforts to turn Lews Therin, and Ishamael had claimed that in past ages, the Light’s Champion had been turned, and become the Shadow’s champion instead.
My head-canon for years has been that Ishamael was this past champion that was turned, many turnings of the wheel ago. It’s the only reason I can think that Ishamael so emphatically wants Rand to believe it, is so offended when Rand says he’ll never turn, and he also wants the Dark One to ‘win’ and put an end to the struggle. Ishamael is clearly weary of the whole struggle. Which makes sense if Ishamael is aware he personally has been through many cycles of it and knows it won’t end until the Dark One wins.
This is a highly informative chapter when read in the context of how things turn out in AMOL. Graendel seems to be pulling a double move – trying to get Sammael suspicious of Shara so that Sammael will assume that such information about a far off country is intended to throw him off the track and away from Demandred/Graendel’s real plans. Fascinating.
@4 “By contrast, there are a number of male channellers in Shara who have some status and position, and who could more easily spot a Forsaken trying to suborn an entire culture.” And does that change if D was using the True Power, rather than the One Power? The WOT Companion says only the Dark One can detect when the True Power is being used, so I think that is the way D disguised himself in Shara
@5. My view has always ben that very simply, Ishamael lied. Constantly. Recall Rand’s words as they battled over Falme, after he had used a Portal Stone: “I will never serve you, Father of Lies. In a thousand lifetimes, I never have. I know that now. Come. It’s time to die…”
I am unsure why Sylas so emphatically believes Ishamael’s lie about Kari al’Thor from the 1st Book. This is at least the 2nd time Sylas has referenced it and I don’t know that we have any proof at all that “Kari” was really anything but an illusion.
I totally think that Taim is Be’lal. I know all the arguments. In the series it is neither proven or disproven. Before going further, I point to the Osan’gar pov, where his name Aginor no longer existed, nor obviously Aran’gar’s Balthamel.
It makes sense that stealing a strong male channeller, the Dark One would rather implant Be’lal’s soul into his body, someone he knows, rather than have Taim flounder his way– was he even a Darkfriend? I address yes, Be’lal the envious, the lawier was killed almost as soon as we heard of him, by balefire, but I can’s believe it’s an on-off switch, Rahvin was killed with a very wide balefire, as strong as Rand could do in desperation using an angreal, while Moiraine’s balefire was described as a “thin bar”, I guess not stretching very far into the past. And the Dark One must have been looking at the scene considering the Ishamael thing just after.
Later in the book there comes things from Taim that stretch credubility of Taim knowing even if he had read a supposed Demandred journal or diary (really, so-called Aiel), but just his opening scene: Bashere had obviously not met Taim, but doubted it was him. Well of course, aside from the shaving, this Taim is a particularly suave person. The manner is totally off. It helps (to my conclusions) that Taim obviously knows Travelling by his lack of surprise, but wonders how Rand doesn’t know how to test for men’s ability to channel. How on Earth would Taim know that last?
Maybe it’s just me, but I find Semirhage’s POV section here pretty hilarious – it’s just such a caricature of an evil, sadistic villain I can’t take it seriously at all. Definitely seemed like Jordan had put all his characterisation effort into other Forsaken and she got the rough outline.
The sword argument, following my last, is Taim appears contemptuos of swords. Can’t it just as well be an egotistic swordmaster’s contemptuousness about their abilities, or their so-called trainers’.
I had another thing to add, perhaps not vital since I forget. Ah, Taim’s relations with Rand later woild accline with what drew the Envous to the Shadow in the first place. Oh that grinding of teeth. Lews Therin obviously also recognised it.
@1,5 – This is roughly the point at which Jordan made the change from Taimandred to Bao the Wyld. And it isn’t opinion or speculation, Terez went through Jordan’s archived notes and found a direct statement that “Demandred will show up claiming to be Mazrim Taim.” The same notes also directly state that Taimandred killed Asmodean. If you google “Terez Taimandred” you’ll find the comment thread.
@13 Of course Sammael could misread Demandred being behind the Profet. And still he could have been, someone appeared in Masema’s vision of light later, probably before, he did give off the air of being complelled.
Anyway, there’s still difference between notes and thoughts. Like obviously Graendal killed Asmodean, but perhaps a few books before he would have meant Demandred to have killed him. Taking over Shara is worthy of Demandred, but of course he could have manipulated Masema.
@@.-@ – River of Souls was a pure Brandon creation. RJ didn’t leave that much written material (mostly Egwene’s stuff, Mat’s rescue of Moiraine, Fields of Merrilor, and the epilogue. Shockingly, he wrote nothing for Perrin and only left a single sentence of notes on him). It’s a known fact by now, via RJ’s own notes, that Taim was supposed to be Demandred. This bit about Shara is just a retcon but makes him look like a foreshadowing genius lol.
Sad thing is that these Forsaken chapters are really mostly a waste of time. The Forsaken are some of the weakest villains I’ve ever read.
Austin – that’s fascinating. I knew Jordan wrote the epilogue, but didn’t know what else he’d written (or left extensive notes on).
I laugh a bit at the Perrin comment – really just points to the fact that Perrin’s arc was already complete pre-TGS.
@1, 13
I totally agree about Taimandred always being a smokescreen, although the narrative structure @Aclimation points out was a late addition to my argument since we didn’t know where Demandred was for the whole series. I know the fandom is largely convinced that Jordan intended for Taimandred to be true, and changed his mind sometime after LoC, especially because of the notes @olethros6 references. But I don’t think there’s anything in those notes to suggest he actually finished LoC with the intent of Taim being Demandred in disguise. The idea that Jordan was annoyed that people figured it out and thus changed it after the fact is bonkers to me, I can’t square that with the sheer number of “clues” (red herrings) that Taim=Demandred, it was way too obvious. I think Jordan came up with the idea, then decided it would be way more fun to mess with everyone.
@@@@@ 7 – All of the Forsaken save Ishamael/Moridin are super leery of using the True Power because of it’s addictive quality. We hear mention of this on a couple occasions, which also makes sense as to why the Forsaken aren’t using it all the time in our part of the world, which by the time of these books is becoming increasingly filled with men who can channel.
@@@@@ 15 – I don’t think the Forsaken are weak villains at all. In fact, these chapters highlight why these folks aren’t weak. They’re figures of myth and legend, of unimaginable power and knowledge, but for all that, there are only a handful of them and they’re fish out of water in this new world. Yes, you could drop 13 engineers and physicists and whatever into ancient Egypt, but what are they gonna do? Build a tank? Even if you drop a modern armored regiment into the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, what is their long term impact when they run out of fuel? Yes, the Forsaken are powerful, but raw strength isn’t a win button. They come damn close to dooming the world anyway, and that’s while fighting each other half the time – if they worked together (a constant theme of the series), they’d have Rand & Co on the run in a heartbeat. They don’t know how things work anymore, they won’t cooperate, and their arrogance in the face of that exacerbates what a handicap is. Jordan is trying to show that these people are people, and particularly shitty people at that, and all the things that worked in the Age of Legends work against them now. They came to power in a post-scarcity world (a fact which is highlighted later on), and while the might have sneered at their lessers, the Aes Sedai of that time weren’t “children,” they were people worth respecting at some level. Which is why Rand-as-Lews Therin is given respect (because the Forsaken fear the man he used to be), while intelligent and powerful channelers like Nynaeve, who is the equal of the female Forsaken, are considered illiterate children. The inability to respect the changed circumstances they find themselves in is one of the major factors that prevents them from being as effective as possible.
@@@@@ 17 – also possible, and thematically resonant, that Taim was set up to be the Demandred parallel. One thing I realized on a reread is that you can easily see Taim handing Rand all the goads and tools to motivate him properly (he wants glory, responsibility, power) and Rand doesn’t utilize them properly. And makes other mistakes, of course. But if he gave Taim the attention and respect he was asked for, things might have gone differently. Visit the Black Tower more. Acknowledge Taim’s value. Make him more prominent as Rand’s right hand. And while we know Rand wasn’t deliberately snubbing the guy, a major theme of Rand’s arc in particular is that his internal narration and the external perception of his actions diverge more and more as the series continues. I mean, Rand obviously hates and fears Taim from the word “go,” which can’t help, but why should Taim know what Rand is thinking? All he knows is that he got exiled to this backwater farm to train a bunch of rubes into using the Power and got no credit for it, or less than he thought he should, and then realized at some point “hey, I’m training this super-powerful army and they don’t know Rand from a hole in the ground, maybe they’ll be loyal to me personally” and from there it’s easy to see why he might be further tempted to be the hero of his own story and get power and immortality by joining the Dark One.
Not hard to imagine a similar story playing out 3,000 years earlier with LTT and Demandred.
@19, that’s how I read the whole taim deal, he was the parallel, he wanted glory, simple
Really, what is is, but of LoC Demandred doesn’s suit Taim at all. For one, as in this chapter, Demandred is is supposed to be taller, just a little less than Lews Therin, and that Illusion won’t work on the long term. Also, Demandred is too arrogant, the humiliated pride of Be’lal suits much better Taim. Also that dynamic works in the last book, “You think this! I’ll show you better.”
I believe notes were made, but most in the head. He didn’t, RJ, have to go rewriting notes if he changed his mind.Canon is canon.
@@@@@ hari coplin. Be’lal got balefired. End of Be’lal.
@22 Why? Isn’t it what balefire does, rather than that it exists. Well, if you believe so, you believe so. I believe it matters if you’re balefired back a year, an hour, or a second.
@23 Once you get balefired you are destroyed out of existence, your soul is erased from the Pattern, you don’t get reincarnated. End of story. In one of the books Shaidar Haran or someone who speaks on behalf of the Dark One quite openly states that even Dark One can’t do anything after a person is balefired. I presume you are talking about Be’lal because Mat and Aviendha got saved when Rand balefired Rahvin thereby whatever Rahvin did recently (shooting lightning on everyone) got undone. However this doesn’t apply to a person who got hit directly with balefire. That person is deleted from existence full stop. It won’t matter if the person who did balefire is in turn attacked by balefire even 1 min after. Maybe everything they did is undone but what is erased by balefire cannot be undone.
@24 I think this is a misconception. When balefire, your soul does not cease. It simply burns a little back in time. Semirhage, or Rahvin’s souls can be reborn into new body’s. Souls are not lost if balefired, that is someone’s fears. Let me scrutinize what you said.
The Dark One talked of Rahvin. He said even he cannot go beyond time. Rahvin was eradicated many hours before his death, before the initial attack on Caemlyn, this Aviendha and Mat are alive. Why do you think the same time limit applies to the Dark One’s ability to catch souls. It is preposterous. He was seeing what might have been happening to Be’lal. He said of Rahvin he can’t bring him back. No work on Be’lal.
I think you are putting balefire on a pedestal it doesn’t deserve.
Perhaps I am a White, but if I say, it is for truth. The Dark One will be able to think for a minute or two to recycle someone. In practise he doesn’s, he makes them into Trollocs, Myrddraal, Draghkar or something else. But it is ridulous to think that the shortest possible balefire, of a nanosecond or less back in time would prevent his ability. No, at some point the soul is beyind his reach, but Moiraine’s balefire did not cut it. (I appreciate her, but she was thinking of killing him, not of life ever after.)
There is a difference is all I can say.
SPOILER WARNING
But Rand himself did end up turning and resorted to using the true power himself. Eventually he was able to turn himself back to the light. Perhaps this exact same thing happened to earlier dragons.
@24 I’m pretty sure it doesn’t delete the soul. Otherwise the DO would be arranging for his minions to balefire the Heroes of the Horn. It just sets the victim on the path to reincarnation before the DO can react to the death.
@26 that may be your belief but I don’t think it’s supported by the text or by what we’ve been told about balefire.
Regarding your little byline, I’m still a bit peeved that the show didn’t bring enough of those WoT-ian curses in! Mother’s milk in a cup!
“Not one of them has ever considered that they might be pawns in the Dark One’s plans, that such a being might discard them as easily as they discard those Darkfriends who serve beneath them” – to be fair, Semirhage in this very chapter does reflect on this a bit, but yeah, I love how gloriously petty the Forsaken are. It’s a good illustration of (I believe) a Tolkien quote ‘evill will shall evil mar’.
This is one of those things I’ll have to look up again (especially in light of AMoL) but I always have a hard time sometimes separating what i shappening in different Ages, vs in different TURNINGS. And I will also add that Ishamael actually has a slightly different motivation than the DO (and of course it’s also possible he is either flat out lying, deluded or mistaken), if I recall correctly. Like, if I recall – and I could be wrong, there is only one Dragon in this particular turning of the wheel…Lews Therin, and then reborn as Rand. I don’t think there is actually a ‘Dragon’ in the other Ages within this turning. But in other Turnings, the ‘Dragon’ has other variations and outcomes and what not. I don’t even remember if he’s necessarily called ‘the Dragon’ in the other turnings.
The WoT show also kind of played with some of this too and evoked certain aspects of the AMOL finale which I thought was an…interesting…choice.
Love Sylas’s commentary and seeing what he catches and misses!
Minor typo: “but when the Breaking was over and only women could safely channel, the modern Aes Sedai had male Aes Sedai to connect to.” I think that should be “no male Aes Sedai”.
@30 – Fixed, thanks!
@27 Rand accessed the True Power through his link with Moridin and only because Semirhage was forcing him too strangle Min via the sad bracelets. He acted out of desperation and Semirhage was shocked. I don’t think this qualifies as “turning.” I’m not sure if he ever used it again, for one. More importantly, turning would involve swearing to the DO, which he never did.
Interview: Nov 21st, 1998
TPOD Signing Report – John Novak (Paraphrased)
John Novak
[Is balefire the eternal death of the soul?]
Robert Jordan
If someone is balefired, the Dark One can’t reincarnate them. But they CAN be spun back out into the Wheel as normal. Balefire is NOT the eternal death of the soul. He also made a comment to the effect that even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the Dark One cannot bring someone back. There was a long line, so I didn’t press.
Interview: Jan 16th, 2003
COT Signing Report – Tim Kington (Paraphrased)
Question
(inaudible)
Robert Jordan
Yes, the Champion of the Light has gone over in the past. This is a game you have to win every time. Or rather, that you can only lose once—you can stay in if you get a draw. Think of a tournament with single elimination. If you lose once, that’s it. In the past, when the Champion of the Light has gone over to the Shadow, the result has been a draw.
Interview: 2011
Twitter 2011 (WoT) (Verbatim)
Andrew J. Parker (25 April 2011)
Can you settle a debate? Will Rand’s soul be the Light’s champion in every Age, or could it ever be someone else?
Brandon Sanderson (25 April 2011)
I believe that Ishamael implies in the books he and Lews Therin have fought thousands of times.
BRANDON SANDERSON
So at least one major character seems to believe it’s always Rand. Whether he’s right or not is another question.
Footnote
Brandon is reported as having said on tour that Ishamael’s and Rand’s souls are often woven together in the Pattern, somewhat like Birgitte and Gaidal.
Very useful – so if somebody could clarify…is Rand’s soul spun out every AGE, or every TURNING? (Obviously it appears to be spun out at least twice in this turning in the Second/Third age respective for the Dragon/Dragon Reborn roles – but is that a per turning thing, or are there also ‘Dragons’ in the other ages. For example, the theory of Jesus or other figures as a potential ‘Dragon’ in the First Age which is roughly the one proposed to be ours).
Also, is the second age ALWAYS an AOL type age, etc?
Here Sammael cusses “Tsag! Bajad drovja!” According to the list of Old Tongue word translations on the WoT Wiki (from the WoT Companion), this translates as “Bollocks! Spawn of a beldam [i.e. an old, often ugly and malicious, woman]!”
I used to ship Semirhage and Shaidar Haran most vehemently, back when I thought he was an actual (if special) Myrddraal. The fandom generally disapproved. I regret nothing.
Graendal is far from the most relatable Forsaken, but I find some resonance in her backstory as an ascetic with repressed hedonism. Though I just vent my hedonism by writing and continue my glowering asceticism.
I found the Semirhage POV passage in this chapter to be well done. Gruesome in its own memorable way, but as a villain POV I think it’s second only to “Memories of Saldaea” in The Fires of Heaven (where Kadere the trader reminisces about his sister Teodora as he murders a colleague). Both are incredibly economical as they reveal character and advance the plot; they even observe Aristotle’s unities (time, place, action), with humor, irony and horror intertwined. Tip of the hat to RJ.
I found one grammar error: “and and”.
Let’s see. When Rand was chasing Asmodean, the heel of his left boot got caught in a closing skimming gateway. The Dragon Scepter is a spear that was cut off by a traveling gateway. When Rand skimmed from Cairhien to Caemlyn, he told the Aiel to get away from the gateway, and waited for confirmation before he closed it. A short while later he cut two trollocs in half by opening a traveling gateway.
Yes, I think Rand is aware of the dangers of gateways.
Yeah, Semirhage believes she’s a “counselor” or a “spire” on the board. She’d never think she might just be a pawn. ;-)
I can’t imagine what would count as a draw in this game. The Light and the Shadow each possessing half the world and not trying to attack each other? Even if they were both incapable of mounting any military attacks, I don’t see what would prevent Shai’tan from recruiting darkfriends on the Light Continent.
If the Light loses once it’s the End. Forever. Since the Wheel keeps turning, to Ishy’s rage and disgust, obviously the Dark has never won. Not even once. Give the DO full marks for persistence but he hasn’t found a winning formula yet. Every cycle he goes down. Why Ishy finds this cause for despair I don’t know.
I wonder is the end of the Age of legends is an example of what Jordan meant by a Draw?
@38 – I don’t think the DO experiences failure in a cycle. It’s something I’ve contemplated many times since it didn’t make sense to me that the DO would keep making the same mistake over and over. Finally I figured that, since the DO is outside space and time, the DO would experience every age that existed, from beginning to end, at one time. So he basically the DO has one shot to break the Wheel. I’m assuming here that the DO is omnipresent, capable of being everywhere at all times in all ages, simultaneously.
Looking at the prologue of this book (How does this world fare, Demandred?) and RJ’s interviews about draws and wins by the Shadow, I think we can say that the Dark One isn’t omniscient. He’s playing many many games at the same time, winning basically all of them (I win again Lews Therin), but not all realities, and he needs to win all realities to win definitely.
@40 – RJ was very clear that the DO only needs to win in one reality. That was even in the books (book 2, I believe).
Birgit @33: Thanks for finding those quotes, I was just going to post them myself as proof balefire doesn’t destroy the soul, only lead to reincarnation. But here’s another quote from the same source, for Masha and anyone else who was commenting on the Dark One’s abilities re: balefire:
Interview: Apr 20th, 2004
Week 3 Question (Matt Hatch)
There are many theories that attempt to create a connection of time duration to the transmigration of the dead Forsaken. Are there time and/or power constraints on the Dark One’s ability to transmigrate souls?
ROBERT JORDAN
There are definitely time constraints on the Dark One’s power to transmigrate a soul. The soul doesn’t have to be secured immediately—that is, the Dark One doesn’t have to be ready to snatch the soul at the instant of death—but the longer that passes after the death, the less chance that the Dark One will be able to secure the soul. Someone who has been killed with balefire in actuality died before the apparent time of his or her death, and thus the window of opportunity for the Dark One to secure that soul for transmigration is gone before the Dark One can know that the soul must be secured unless the amount of balefire used is very small. Remember that the more balefire is used, the further back the target’s thread is burned out of the Pattern.
(Emphasis added)
So yes, since we explicitly know Moiraine could only use a little bit of balefire, it is entirely possible the Dark One still could have snagged Be’lal’s soul to reincarnate him.
To which I then say to hari coplin: for some time, right up to the last book, I believed exactly the same as you do, that Taim was Be’lal in disguise and this would be revealed in AMOL. Honestly it would explain so much, and not just the things you mentioned: the taint protection, the True Power usage Taim has in the last book, the plots that seemed to go against what Demandred/the Dark One wanted (saving Rand at Dumai’s Wells, hiring Slayer to kill Rand if that was Taim, the attack on Algarin’s manor), the sigil, the way “Samon” swayed people’s will in Tear vs. how Taim did the same with the renegade Asha’man. Heck, all the ways he acted like Demandred could have been Be’lal deliberately doing so (using his knowledge of Demandred’s personality and envy/hate for Lews Therin) to fool both the readers and Rand as to where Demandred was hiding.
And we even know how it could have been done: the plan to have Taim broken free and proclaimed as Rand, which Joiya Byir spoke about, would have been come up with while Liandrin and the thirteen were staying in the Stone with Be’lal, and we know Be’lal met with Alviarin (prologue of ACOS) which could have been part of that release scheme. The difference is I thought he actually switched places with the real Taim, Compelled him to act like him, and disguised him with a reversed Mirror of Mists to be balefired in his place. If he was the same size as Taim, and with taint protection and a tied-off weave, he could have maintained an illusion as Taim indefinitely, IMO. Or there might even be a ter’angreal that can do that, he had plenty of time to go through the Great Holding in the Stone. But either way, a switch could have been made, with the real Taim questioned first like Cabriana was so Be’lal would have all the info he’d need to pull it off.
It’s my own idea so I’m a bit biased, but I think it’s better than the random “he got visited by Demandred, decided to turn to the Shadow, and then served him and Moridin as a new Chosen” explanation we got instead. It even would have lent more resonance to the faceoff between him and Egwene when she healed the Pattern.
Ah well. But I’m glad to know I’m not alone in this loony theory! ^_^
@22-@26
RE: Balefire and Forsaken rebirth
And @42 Macster:
The Dark One tells Demandred, in this book, that he can’t resurrect Rahvin because of balefire. He needs to snatch the soul at the “moment of their death, or soon after” in order to do this technique. No matter how little balefire is used, it would seem to me the person being balefired ceases to exist before the “moment of their death.” This provides no moment for the Dark One to snatch their soul for re-insertion. They have to be reborn the old fashioned way, as the wheel turns. I know RJ says otherwise, so it must be as the Creator has decreed, but I’m not seeing how the logic holds up.
Just popped in to say that I enjoy these posts very much and to point out that this one is missing several tags that previous Reading The Wheel of Time had. Such as: “The Wheel of Time” and “Robert Jordan”. Not sure if that is intentional or not, but i know I did not see the post for several days after it was uploaded.
@44 – Fixed! Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
@41 Austin
Verin says that the Dark One is full of contradictions in book 2. He only needs to wins once, but we see him winning many times in alternate realities. In all of Rand’s alternate lives the Dark Ones wins (I win again, Lews Therin). In the world that Rand, Hurin, Loial and Selene visit the dark One won 1,000 years before, during a conflict with Hawkwing, and there’s almost no life left (only some grolm, and maybe even then were brought by Selene as a test for Rand).
The Dark One must win only once to destroy a timeline, but he must win all timelines to destroy reality. That’s the contradiction Verin was talking about.
Late to the party, but some thoughts:
@39 – THIS, exactly. It neatly explains how the Dark One never ever learns its lessons. It’s experiencing all the turnings at the same time, like an evil Dr. Manhattan.
@46 – No, just because Rand heard a voice in his head saying “I win again Lews Therin” does not mean the Dark One was freed in those timelines. That’s the only thing that means a victory for the Dark One… being completely freed. “I win again” could have been a projected thought from Ishamael, or a bit of Rand’s madness, or whatever. But even if the Dragon is killed in a timeline, or Trollocs overrun a continent and kill Hawkwing, that does not mean the Dark One wins that timeline.
Austin is right @41, though the conversation was in Book 3, not Book 2. From TDR Chapter 21, A World of Dreams, with Verin and Egwene:
So the Dark One has never been freed in any world, whether the primary, or a mirror world or a world of If.
Well,
@33 seems to conmfirm Be’lal is Taim. It seems to outright say it is impossible, but we know there are always exceptions. So it must be like this, since there doesn’t seem alternatives.