2015 Re-Readalong: Eye of the World and The Great Hunt

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

Aah thanks, I couldn't remember if she said when it had been arranged. I agree that something must have prompted her to do that - Min seems a likely idea. Obviously Myrelle didn't know initially who she was holding the bond for (other than just to save Lan), but by the time Egwene finds out, I think she's had a good idea of what Moiraine had in mind.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

Moiraine has the ageless look - it comes in within a couple of years of swearing the oaths and we know Siuan lost it when she was severed

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

And the Two Rivers is not the only place she is not recognized, when they travel through backwater Ghealdan in book 3 she is also not recognized

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

The song Rand sang was a song Mat recognized, which definitely did not have that effect the last hundred or so times he'd heard it sung.
I think Mat's rescue of Moiraine was several weeks after the transfer.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

Behind on notes! And reading, because I was sick. Brain dump:

Chapter 17

• Moiraine dancing reminds me of her Aes Sedai test, where she practically danced her way through all of it.
• A man called the thing he saw flying over the town the Dark One's handiwork, and Rand hopes the man just saw a bat and calls anything he doesn't understand the Dark One's work. It's funny how often this happens in the books -- don't understand how it works? It's from the Dark One! But it also happens in real life, too, though I see it more often in the other direction -- something good happens and we don't understand it or we don't care to understand it, but god did it! In other parts of the world, the opposite is true, and bad stuff happens and it gets blamed on evil spirits or witchcraft.
• Lan says, "The fact that the price must be paid is proof that it is worth paying."
• Rand hoped Min was all right when they saw the inn in flames.

Chapter 18

• Mat speaking the Old Tongue caught the Fade's attention -- why?
• Mat, unhorsed, rubbing at his throat -- the foreshadowing we've already talked about here.
• Perrin, on why he called out Manetheren during battle: "And we have a right. Moiraine says we're all descended from those Manetheren people. They fought the Dark One, and we're fighting the Dark One. That gives us a right."
• Egwene almost understood Mat's Old Tongue.

Chapter 19

• Is it possible Mat was affected by Shadar Logoth, and that's why he convinced the other two to wander off? Did Mordeth/Shadar Logoth sense something vulnerable in him to tweak and twinge to make him want to explore?
• Accents are interesting. Baerloners sounded like they had mouths full of mush. Seanchan drawl. Illianers have a different sentence construction. Mordeth is mushier than Baerlon.

Chapter 20

• Moiraine: "Mashadar is vast... The whole White Tower could not kill it." But Rand and Nynaeve manage to!

Chapter 21

• It's really amazing that everyone came through Shadar Logoth and the Trollocs unhurt (except a few horses).
• We get the first mention of the Ways. Moiraine believes them closed. How did the Dark One open them?
• Moiraine mentions, too, "Aes Sedai powerful enough to Travel" -- like it's the lack of Power in modern Aes Sedai rather than the lack of knowledge that keeps them from Traveling.
• Moiraine: "Opposition from within the White Tower, even from the Amyrlin Seat, I accept. There are always Aes Sedai who will accept only one solution." Is she talking about the Red Ajah here, with regards to gentling? Also, she knows Suian is on her side. Does she pretend even to Lan that she's not as close to Suian as she is?
• Nynaeve knows of 2 wilders in her lifetime who died from the Power. Think if Moiraine knew that! She'd be even more shocked than by just the 2 in one village.
• We see here Nynaeve starting down the path of becoming Aes Sedai to get revenge on Aes Sedai.

Chapter 22

• Perrin: "If he was the leader, it was time to start leading." Oh Perrin, you have no idea...

Chapter 23

• Do you think Elyas helped Perrin and Egwene because the wolves sensed Perrin? Elyas bringing Perrin in would definitely be beneficial to the wolves and to Perrin -- instead of wolfiness being a complete surprise, now Perrin knows it's a thing that can happen, unlike most Wolfbrothers.
• I love Elyas.
• Even though he doesn't consider himself Gaidin, he's still willing to kill Darkfriends. He also stood up to the Red Ajah (and other Ajahs as well, since he had to kill a few Warders to get away).
• He's met the Amyrlin Seat.
• Perrin: "Everything but Darkfriends." Ha. He just doesn't know about the Darkfriends.
• And an hour after finding out it's possible to talk to wolves, Perrin starts doing it.

Chapter 24

• We get the first mention of Mat acting strangely.
• Tower of Ghenjei
• hand in Tremalking
• I'm sad we didn't get a pre-dagger chapter from Mat's point of view.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

That last bit, pre-dagger chapter from Mat's point of view. That would have been so great! We get Rand and Perrin before they grow too much from how they started in Two Rivers, but not Mat.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

I agree completely. I'd loved to have seen inside his head before he got all mixed up by the dagger and the healing. Heck I don't think we get a PoV from him until book 3, do we? The first I remember is when he wakes up in the White Tower.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

Some notes on chs. 28-33

Chapter 28: Footprints in Air

- Lots about Nynaeve:

If only there was a way to get rid of the woman. Lan would be better by himself - a warder should be able to handle what was needed, she told herself hastily, feeling a sudden flush; no other reason - but one meant the other.
And yet, Lan made her even more furious than Moiraine. She could not understand how he managed to get under her skin so easily. He rarely said anything ... and he never took part in the ... discussions with Moiraine. He was often apart from the two women, scouting the land, but even when he was there he kept a little to one side, watching them as if watching a duel. Nynaeve wished he would stop. If it was a duel, she had not managed to score once, and Moiraine did not even seem to realize she was in a fight. Nynaeve could have done without his cool blue eyes, without even a silent audience.

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Big smile. And Nynaeve has something else to keep out of her mind, too:

Something of it [the tense "feel of the world"] tickled the corners of her mind, as when she listened to the wind, but now she knew that that had to do with the One Power, and she could not bring herself to embrace these ripples at the edge of thought.

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No, I won't have to do with that filthy thing, I deny that I can ... This may be an early form of what later becomes her mixture of weather sense and sense for upcoming trouble.

And Lan tells her she'd best go home? Knowing that she is not in the habit of following reasonable advice? Hm.

- I find the riot at Whitebridge quite puzzling. There is one line of events I can follow (if with some difficulty) - Gelb's tales, followed by the appearance of the fade, so once more people taking coincidence for causality, "it must have come from that ship", and people rush down to the docks and Domon has a narrow escape.
But there is a mass of people suddenly running away from the town when Rand and Mat flee (have they all seen the fade?), and what about the burning of houses that followed? Old tensions, hatred among neighbors, scores settled at the opportunity?
And the next day most of the people flat out deny that anything unusual has happened? Are they ashamed? Or did they really suppress what they must have seen? That's crass.

Chapters 29 / 30: Eyes without pity / Children of Shadow

- Perrin, the axe, the wolf, questions of leadership and control ...

What is this place? I don't think I like it.

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Egwene feels the loss of the Power quite sharply.

Perrin ... will you dance with me at Sunday? If we're home by then?

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Just great. Still gave me shivers when Perrin remembers it in ToM.

- Enter Byar, and almost all we need to know about the man is already there in ch. 30. Brutality masked as zeal, and a readiness to bend the rules.

Chapter 31. Play for your supper

The summary way this is told would making a timeline of these events next to impossible.

Btw, how does this match the voyage of Moiraine, Lan and Nynaeve? In Whitebridge they were just one day behind Rand and Mat, in Caemlyn the delay has become three or four days (because of the detour to free Perrin and Egwene). Given they were on horses while Rand an Mat walked most of the time, one might call it a narrow miss. Could they have asked at inns? Could they have heard about any unusual (ta'veren) effects? But considering the map, the probably did not ride through Four Kings or Market Sheran.

Chapter 32: Four Kings in Shadow

Eerie. Hake the honest criminal & Gode the darkfriend? High time Rand channels, and as we've come to expect, he has a reaction to it three days later.

Chapter 33: The Dark Waits

Scarves, again. (In the TOR paperback, it's pages 455 and 496). The editor had something else on her mind, it seems.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

Ealandrelle Melyma said:

I'd loved to have seen inside his head before he got all mixed up by the dagger and the healing.

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Dunno. It improves him quite a lot.

Ealandrelle Melyma said:

Heck I don't think we get a PoV from him until book 3, do we? The first I remember is when he wakes up in the White Tower.

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True.

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Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

I just have to say that the scene where Perrin and Egwene is chased by ravens are one of the worst scenes in the whole book for me. I hate birds, and cringe at the thought of their hard beaks pecking at me (This is what happens when you accidentally see "Birds" by Hitchcock at a way too early age :shifty)
Anyway, I always get tense when reading that scene, and that always makes this very real for me...

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

Aduiavas, I agree. I had no reason to dislike birds but that scene is just sooooo creepy. I think it's that if they had been spotted, what could they do? Their weapons would have been useless against hundreds of birds. They were out in the open with no place to hide that birds couldn't penetrate. Maybe if they found some water they could dive deep enough but that's not really a good solution and I think they say there was no water nearby other than the stedding. Oh man, if they had been caught... *shudder*

My thoughts from the next batch...

Chapter 28: Is this where Nynaeve develops her block? All that anger every time she thinks of the Power or Moiraine.

Chapter 29: Beside the ravens, I love Elyas's speech about Perrin's axe and how as long as he hates it, he will use it wisely, and if he ever doesn't, he should throw it away. I was learning how to shoot a gun and learning martial arts at the time when I first read this book, and I wasn't too sure if I was pleased about learning to do violence. I kept repeating Elyas's words to myself along the way, that I would use my skills more wisely because I disliked what they meant.

Chapter 30: Up until this point, I thought the Whitecloaks were just a faction with different beliefs. When the wolves say the Whitecloaks are off, like rabid dogs, I really started to realize that they are made up mostly of crazy fanatics and they got a whole lot scarier to me. You can't reason with people like that.

Chapters 31-32: I didn't really notice it before now, but Mat was super paranoid all through chapter 31, and then in chapter 32 when he SHOULD have been worried, suddenly he just wanted to stay at the inn and get dinner and sleep in a bed. :rolleyes

Chapter 33: I was trying to remember if the lightning at the inn was actually Rand channeling or if it was maybe some kind of ta'veren thing, but this chapter cleared that up pretty well.

Chapter 34: I had trouble reading this chapter slowly. After all the tension of the last few chapters, I just wanted to skip ahead and see if they were going to make it to Caemlyn or not. Whew.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

I think Nynaeve's block has always been there. It's when she's angry that she's able to let go and not control everything (I get the impression she's one to fly into a lecture when she's angry, without much thought to what she's actually saying). Blocks are a way of wilders unconsciously protecting themselves against channeling.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

Man, I was so close to skipping Chapter 30. That's my least favorite chapter to read in the whole book. Poor Hopper

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

I read it today and I wept when Hopper died... For what? They didn't get away

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

Ah crap. Chapter 30 is my lunchtime reading today.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

I have to admit that I skipped the part where Hopper died when listening to the book

All I can think is that Hopper being dead allows him to become Perrin's guide in the Wolf Dream/Tel'aran'rhiod later. It also, in some ways, cements Perrin being connected to the wolves - he refers to Hopper as his friend. Although he continues to resist for a while yet, I think that moment is where he starts accepting who he is.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

It IS a rough chapter to read (worse to listen to!) but I never skip it - it is the heartbreaking part of it that cements the relationship between Perrin and the wolves to me.

There is only one part of the books that I skip on a regular basis, ESPECIALLY on the audio version, and that is when Machin Shin is talking. THAT will give me the creeps and keep me up all night. *shudder*

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

It is sad to see Hopper die, but it's also beautiful, the way it's described that he got his name.

Mai, I agree, I think that's the moment of no return for Perrin, when he feels Hopper die.

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 28 - Chapter 34

I can cope with reading it. But listening to it was too much, somehow. I can't explain why. It got to me, and as I was listening to it when I was driving, being in floods of tears wouldn't have been great

Re: 2015 Re-Readalong: EoTW, Chapter 35 - Chapter 41

Chapter 25
Someone mentioned somewhere about stereotypes always ending up being true. We see Egwene's beliefs about the Tinkers being thieving etc dispelled here by Elyas.
Even in book 1, Aram is a little creepy.

The lost cannot be happy.

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Something of a prophecy for Aram, but is it true of all former Tinkers, that they're not happy?


Chapter 26

Nobody would ever think what happened to some village folk from the Two Rivers was worth talking about, not unless they were Two Rivers people themselves.

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Heh.

Chapter 27
However friendly the Tinkers are, they're always wary -- they have to be, because they have to be alert to run if needed.

Elyas said:

You had hard days before you met me, and you'll have harder still ahead, with Trollocs and Halfmen after you, and Aes Sedai for friends.

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So true, Elyas, so true.
Do you think Elyas's intuition about when to leave comes from the wolves? Or from the bond?

Chapter 29
How did Elyas know about the ravens? From that wolf or Gaidin intuition?
The image of the ravens tearing apart the fox is a little disturbing, especially given the imagery surrounding Mat.
Is it ever explained how the stedding are protected from the Dark One's touch?
Perrin is super conflicted in this chapter. But I'm going in circles about why: Over his conviction to kill Egwene before the ravens could? Because he's not conflicted over that decision? Because he doesn't know if he would have been able to do it?

Chapter 30
The conversation between Perrin and Elyas here is important. It shapes Perrin's thinking going forward, the whole idea of needing a weapon versus wanting a weapon.
We start seeing the physical changes in Perrin because of being a Wolfbrother. He can see better in the dark, and his sense of smell gets stronger.
The promise of dancing with Egwene is a combination of wistfulness and innocence.
I may have asked earlier why Byar hates Perrin so. Is zealotry the only reason why? Part of it is that he was embarrassed in front of Perrin (and Egwene). But he doesn't hold Egwene in the same hatred as he holds Perrin.
Every piece of evidence is to prove someone a Darkfriend -- there can be no exculpatory evidence for Whitecloaks.

Chapter 31
Mat is compared to a badger. Made me wonder what Dav did with the badger.

Chapter 32
Four Kings made me really, really uncomfortable.
Did Gode really feel something coming from Mat and Rand? "I can feel it coming from you in waves," he said.
He also said that Mat and/or Rand already halfway belonged to the Dark One -- was this because of the dagger?
Mat's blinded.

Chapter 33
In the dream, Ba'alzamon took Mat's eyes.
Why does Mat keep his bow strung? I notice that they all do, throughout, and this is very poor practice for experience archers such as the three wonderboys.
Paitr says he's alone, but "they made me".
Does Rand ever make it back to the Two Rivers for a visit?
Even with the dagger madness, Mat takes really good care of Rand.