He's hungry like the wolf.
Alright, so we’ve covered the world
of Wheel of Time, the monsters, and the first of our heroes, Rand al’Thor. Now,
we’re moving onto the heroes that share the stage with him. And the next logical
choice for me would be Perrin Aybara. Why? Because he’s got the second most POV
chapters after Rand. FYI, I’ll be HEAVILY summarizing the story of Eye of the
World for Perrin until Shadar Logoth, as his story is virtually the same as
Rand’s. Kay? Kay. Let’s get to it.
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| The simple life that he can't have, tragic. |
Perrin Aybara grew up in the Two
Rivers. Oldest son of the Aybara family, he spent most of his teenage years not
on his family farm but serving as the apprentice to Emond’s Field’s blacksmith
Haral Luhhan. His life was relatively normal until the Winternight when he was
20. Trollocs attacked the Two Rivers, specifically targeting Rand and Perrin’s farms,
the Forge, and Mat Cauthon’s house. The visiting Aes Sedai, Moiraine, and her
warder Lan, convinced Perrin and his two friends to travel to Tar Valon, the
Aes Sedai capital, to protect them from Trollocs. They’re joined by traveling
Gleeman Thom Merillin and Rand’s “it’s complicated” girlfriend Egwene al’Vere.
They race across the district over the course of about a week. On the way, Lan
trains the boys in their weapons of choice, Mat with his bow, Rand with his
sword, and Perrin his axe. The axe was a gift from Master Luhhan, it was commissioned
by a merchant guard that refused to pay so Luhhan kept it. He gave it to Perrin
after seeing him “train” with it. They make it to Baerlon, where their Wisdom, Nynaeve
al’Mera, caught up to them in the hope of returning them home. Perrin and his
friends also start having nightmares about a man who’s eyes and mouth are on
fire, offering them either to work for him and be rewarded or die. He calls
himself Ba’alzamon, meaning Heart of the Dark, and implied to be the Dark One
himself. They’re forced to run after a Myrddraal attacked them at an inn. They
keep running, ending up in the ruined city of Aridhol, renamed Shadar Logoth
after the city seemingly swallowed up an army of Trollocs. Trollocs follow them
into the city, and they groups end up separated.
Perrin ends up crossing the river,
losing his horse and most of his supplies on the way. After a little time
searching, he finds Egwene. Egwene was able to keep a hand on her horse, stout
Bela, and her supplies. The two of them start traveling together, hoping to run
into their friends as they continue trekking towards the Andoran capital of Caemlyn
on the way to Tar Valon. While there is some tension between them, Egwene can
be… demanding and they don’t have much luck finding additional food, there able
to keep trekking. They make it a few days before running into a man in furs. This
man introduces himself as Elyas Machera, and offers them a fire and some food. They
try to lie to Elyas about where they’re going and why, but Elyas doesn’t buy
any of it. Partially because their geography is WAY off, they’ll be about 100
miles north of Caemlyn and aren’t likely to run into anyone else between their
location and the Spine of the World Mountain range. Elyas introduces his
friends then, a group of wolves. Elyas seems to be able to communicate with the
wolves. He admits that the only reason that he approached them was to know why
Trollocs and Half-men (Myrddraal) are in the area. One of his wolf friends, the
lead female named Dapple, acts as a lie detector for him.
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| Don't be fooled, he really hates that axe. |
They finally tell Elyas the truth,
mostly, that they’re escaping Trollocs and on the way to Tar Valon for
protection. Elyas admits that he’s not the biggest fan of Aes Sedai. When they
discovered that he could talk to wolves, they tried to Gentle him, and he had
to fight to free himself. Perrin asks if that would have worked, or if talking
to wolves is a manifestation of the One Power. Elyas says no, that it’s an old
thing, older than people using the Power or human civilization itself. It’s
hard to get an exact date, as wolves understand time differently than people,
but by their reckoning, it’s been millennia since talking to wolves was common.
It’s an old thing that has come back again, and that makes Aes Sedai nervous. Perrin
admits to having reservations about trusting Aes Sedai too, much to Egwene’s
annoyance, but admits they don’t have a choice. Elyas has a wordless conversation
with the wolves, one that Perrin swears he can almost hear. One of the wolves
look at him, and he knows the wolf is called Hopper, somehow. Elyas offers to
travel with them and offer them the wolves protection. Their unsure if the
wolves can help, but Elyas laughs and boasts a pack of wolves can kill a
Myrddraal easily. They’re willing to help someone else who can talk to wolves,
a Wolfbrother as they call them, and his companion. Or at least Dapple, the
lead wolf, is. Perrin keeps feeling like he can almost understand the wolves,
but keeps denying it.
They spend the next few days
traveling with Elyas and his wolf brethren Dapple, Hopper and Wind. Egwene and
Bela are obviously uneasy about the wolves, but Perrin is… not totally comfortable
but willing to accept them for their help. They travel from until twilight each
day, the wolves staying out of sight until then to rest by their fire. Perrin
has stopped having nightmares, he’s back to just having dreams of his life
before Winternight. The only difference is that a wolf seems to always be
present in his dreams. Which is strange but nice. On the third day, they run into
a group of huge mastiffs that try to intimidate them. Perrin almost attacks
them with his sling, but Elyas stops them and seems to call the wolves off with
a whistle and hand gesture. They travel on to the next thicket, and meet a
group of Tuatha’an, the Traveling People in the old tongue, sometimes just
called Tinkers. As their name implies, they’re a nomadic people, they travel in
brightly colored wagons and are in search of “the Song.” They believe finding
this song from the Age of Legends will bring about a new Age of Legends, and
while they don’t know what it’s called, they believe they’ll know it when they
hear it.
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| Um... hi? Holy crap, they answered. |
Egwene is uneasy about the Tinkers,
fearing that they’ll try to steal Bela and everything they’ve got. It’s a
hurtful stereotype that Tinkers steal things. Elyas tells her that while he doesn’t
exactly jive with the Tinker’s, they don’t steal more than anyone else and less
that others. The camp is full of dancing and music, which stops when they enter.
They meet the leader of the camp, the Mahdi, named Raen. The Tinkers are nice
enough, and in some cases maybe too nice. Case in point, Aram, Raen’s grandson,
who is instantly smitten with Egwene and seems to try to convince her to stick
around. He reminds Perrin of Wil al’Seen, the pretty boy of Emond’s Field that
often played around with different women. The Tinkers also hold to a tradition
that confuses Perrin, the Way of the Leaf. The Way of the Leaf is a super strict
form of pacifism that requires its followers to abhor violence and do no harm
to others, even in the defense of their own life. It’s a fine philosophy…
except when you live in a world with literal flesh-eating sadists running
around. Just sayin’.
After some dinner chit-chat, Raen
relates a very strange story to Elyas and Perrin. Egwene was eating with Aram
and his mother. Bro works fast. A rumor circulating between the different
Tuatha’an communities is about a group of Aiel. A band of them traveled through
the Aiel Waste two years prior. Tinkers are one of only three groups that can
do that without pissing off the Aiel, the others being merchants and Gleeman.
Cairhienen also used to be able to travel, but they lost that privilege after
the King Damodred fiasco 22 years ago. The Aiel actually actively avoid the
Tinkers, for reasons they refuse to explain. The band, though, came across a
group of Far Dareis Mai, the Maidens of the Spear. They’d been massacred, with
only one survivor. She dragged herself to the “lost ones” as she called them,
despite her disgust, to pass on a message. Raen also mentions they’re were
about a hundred dead Trollocs there, which confused as Trollocs stay away from
the Waste normally, as it’s D’jevik K’Shar to them, the Killing Ground. The
woman told the Madhi that “Leafblighter means to blind the Eye of the World, Lost
One. He means to slay the Great Serpent. Warn the People, Lost One. Sightburner
comes. Tell them to stand ready for He Who Comes with The Dawn.” Sightburner
and Leafblighter are names fr the Dark One, and He Who Comes with the Dawn is the
Aiel prophesied hero. Perrin recognizes the Eye of the World from the dreams
where Ba’alzamon threatens him, Ba’alzamon telling him the Eye won’t serve him
and all that jazz. Egwene comes back, singing from the fun she’d had with Aram.
Perrin is a bit judgy, until he realizes that Egwene was really just trying to
distract herself from the hellish memories of the last few weeks. She hugs him
and starts crying. Perrin, uncomfortable and wishing “ladies man” Rand was
there to help, apologizes. She makes him promise to dance with her on the next
holiday and he agrees.
They spend the next few days with the
Tinkers, traveling slowly as the Tinkers like to stop early and enjoy
themselves. Perrin is antsy, but Elyas tells him to enjoy the peace while they
can. Perrin wonders if they should start
moving faster, but Elyas’ gut tells him to go slow with the tinkers and they’re
trusting it for now. Egwene is going full hog into Tuathu’an culture, even
learning a hip swaying dance that makes Perrin REAL uncomfortable. Perrin has
to deal with both the Tuathu’an teasing him with their dancing, and Raen’s wife
Ila giving him CONSTANT judgy looks for his axe. Lady, maybe let the boy do his
thing? Kay? Perrin is feeling the wolves more and more, despite his attempts to
ignore them. Perrin has another dream that night of home, but then Ba’alsamon
shows up, destroying the wolf guarding Perrin’s dream. Ba’alzamon rants some
more that the Eye of the World won’t serve him and that he can serve or die. He
releases a raven that pecks Perrin’s eye, waking him up. Elyas arrive to shake
Perrin awake, telling him it’s time to go. Perrin can sense the wolves “Sending”
him feelings of fire and pain, hate and killing. The trio bid farewell to the
Tinkers, Raen telling Elyas they’ll look for a Stedding to hang out inf or a
while. Aram clearly tries to get Egwene to stay with him, but she’s pretty
eager to get gone.
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| He's hungry, not unlike that of a wolf. |
As they travel, Perrin keeps
getting Sendings from the wolves, seeing images of the Dark One. Perrin wonders
why the wolves didn’t protect his dreams like he thought they were, with the
wolves butting in to tell him that he won’t be safe in his dreams until he
accepts what he is. He forces their Sendings out of his head, and realizes that
he actually can force them out. They run. Eventually the reach a stretch of forest
where hoards of Ravens are searching for them. Right, I forgot to mention that
before. The Dark One is Lord of the Grave, and as such, holds sway over animals
that feast on death. Basically, any carrion eater, rats, ravens, vultures etc,
can be the Dark One’s spies, or his agents. The Borderlands actually has a
standing order to kill ravens on sight I order to prevent what their dealing
with. There are Ravens sweeping the area in murders of hundreds. If the birds detect
movement, they will descend on them and obliterate the target. As a very
unlucky fox demonstrates.
They begin running through the field,
timing their runs to when the ravens shouldn’t be able to see them. They run
and run and run, growing more and more exhausted. The ravens eventually notice
them and start closing in on them. Perrin, remembering something Lan said about
all creatures of the Dark One delighting in causing pain and misery, contemplates
killing Egwene. To give her a quick and relatively painless death instead of
letting her suffer. Before he can make a choice, though, the birds fly off. Elyas
then reveals that they’d entered the place of safety he promised, a Stedding.
Remember, a stedding is an area of land that Ogier live in, where the One Power
vanishes for Channelers. Something about it also keeps away Trollocs, Fades,
and animals possessed by the Dark One. Perrin wonders if they shouldn’t just
stay in the stedding until this is all over, but Elyas points out that Stedding
don’t keep people out. They drink from a spring and do their best to relax in
the stedding.
They notice an oddly shapped boulder
that they comment on, and Elyas gives them a history lesson. This stedding was
supposed to be turned into the capital city of the legendary Artur Paendrag
Tanreall, Artur Hawkwing, a city built where Aes Sedai have no power. The
people, who loved Hawkwing, had a statue commissioned and built for him before
the city was started. Hawkwing died before they could begin building, though,
from an illness that an Aes Sedai could have healed I might add, and his rivals
decided that they didn’t even want the memory of Hawkwing to survive. During
the “Hundred Years War” that followed, and lasted 123 years, at one point one
of those rivals pulled the statue down, not wanting to be measured up to a
legend. How depressing.
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| How much do I love Marcus Rutherford? So much this white Perrin feels weird. |
Later that night, Elyas and Perrin
discuss the thing he’d contemplated when he thought they were going to die. Elyas
says that Egwene would have asked him to do it, if it came between the axe or
the birds. Perrin, in frustration, says he hates his axe and wants to throw it
away. Elyas advises to keep it, so long as he hates it. If he ever grows to
like using it, that’s when to throw it away and be done. Their discussion is interrupted
by a Wolf Sending, telling them men and horses are setting up camp near the
water. These men turn out to be Children of the Light, Whitecloaks. Crap. Whitecloaks
are private army based in the nation of Amador. They try to ‘spread the Light’
wherever they go, and by that I mean they demand that people follow their strict
interpretation of what is righteous and good, and to kill Aes Sedai, as they
believe no person should have the power to break the world. Not nice dudes is
all I’m saying.
Elyas and the wolves do their best
to distract and kill Whitecloaks while Perrin and Egwene hide. They’re
discovered, though, and Hopper attacks the Whitecloaks to protect them. Hopper
is killed, and in a blind rage he attacks the Whitecloaks before being knocked
out. He’s brought to this army’s leader, Lord Captain Geofram Bornhald. He and
Egwene are tied up and their belongings in front of Bornhald. Bornhald gives an
air of a kindly understanding grandfather, but he’s already decided the two are
Darkfriends. By the rule of their organization, they’re bringing them along to
be Amador for interrogation. He says that Egwene MIGHT be released if she
repents and tells the Hand of the Light, the interrogative portion of the Children,
all she knows, but Perrin will be executed. He killed two men in his rage.
Egwene and Perrin are held as the
Children’s captives and forced to march with them. Perrin receives particularly
harsh treatment for killing the Children, particularly from Bornhald’s second
in command Jaret Byar. There’s no pleasure or heat in it, though, he just seems
to like torturing Perrin. He also spends a lot of time explaining to Perrin
what waits him with the Hand of the Light, also known as Questioners. Lots of
hot irons and pincers are in his future. After a few days of this, Byar
returns, kicking Perrin hard to wake him, and tells Perrin his dilemma. The
Children need to be in the Andoran capital of Caemlyn in a few days, they want
to follow and harass the delegation from Tar Valon carrying Logain. The problem
is, Perrin and Egwene are slowing them down. They can’t kill them without a
trial, and they can’t spare the mounts to make them go faster. He implies that if
they escape, the Children wouldn’t have the resources to follow them, and he
drops a sharp stone by Perrin.
Perrin senses a trap, believing
Byar will let them get loose, but make sure guards are nearby to kill them
immediately. Before he can say anything to Byar, though, he gets a Sending from
the wolves. It’s a combination promise that help is coming, and confirmation that
Elyas and Dapple survived the attack. Perrin gets tongue tied with realizing
their okay and grins, which pisses Byar off something fierce. He goes to execute
them, the guards outside are attacked, and then so is Byar. The assailant is none
other than Lan. Lan, Moiraine and Nynaeve
had caused a commotion in the camp and use the distraction to free the two and
Bela the horse. They escape, which is good, but after meeting Nynaeve, she begins
looking Perrin over, confused as to why his eyes seemed to have turned Yellow. Moiraine,
knowing what this is somehow, tells Nynaeve to back off. After discussing what
had happened since they were separated, they set out again.
At this point, Perrin’s story remerges
with Rand’s in Caemlyn, so we’re going into high-speed summary mode. They
reunited with Rand in the Queen’s Blessing, Moiraine being able to zero in on
the boys now that she’s close. She gives Mat a quick fix to hopefully tied him
over until they can get him to some healers that can cut his connection to the
dagger. After hearing multiple warnings from multiple sources about the Eye of
the World being in danger, Moiraine insists they use the Ways to get to the
Great Blight. Using new party addition Loial, they travel the ways and arrive
in the country of Shienar in the Borderlands, before continuing onward to the
blight. They trek through the ruins of Lan’s country of Malkier, arriving in
the Green Man’s grove where the Eye was hidden. They’re attacked by two of the thirteen
Forsaken, the Dark One’s most powerful minions, Aginor and Balthamel. Balthamel
is killed by the Green Man, and Rand faces off and defeats Aginor, and then Ba’alzamon
himself. Perrin and Mat had run off for safety during this fight. They return
to Shienar’s Fal Dara keep while trying to figure out what happens next as the
story ends.
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| One more pic of Rutherford... cuz. |
Perrin Aybara begins the story as a
blacksmith’s apprentice. He’s got big, powerful arms and shoulders to go with
his big, powerful body. He’s at times thought to be slow of wit, but he’s
actually just exceedingly careful for fear of hurting others. He’s got some
talent with his one-handed axe with its crescent blade. Part way through the story,
after meeting Elyas Machera, he learns that he is a wolfbrother. Wolfbrothers
are men, Wolfsisters are a thing we just don’t meet any, that have a connection
to wolves. This allows them to speak to wolves telepathically, for lack of a
better term. Wolf communication is a combination of sights, smells, sounds and
metaphor that is more or less translated into the Wolfbrother’s tongue upon receiving.
We don’t see much of it in this story, but this bond also gives Perrin access
to the sharpened senses of a wolf. He can see in the dark, hear a pin drop, and
smell people coming. It also comes with yellow eyes and an increased preference
for red meat, which is deeply concerning for Perrin. Perrin is also a Ta’Veren,
a focal point of the Pattern. This basically means chance flows around him
differently, causing improbable events to happen around him. Things like, say,
ending up in the woods and meeting a man who can give him the basics on being
an entirely different sort of human, those unlikely events are just an average Tuesday
for a Ta’Veren.
Perrin is going to appear in the
Amazon Wheel of Time adaptation premiering November 19, 2021. He’ll be portrayed
by Marcus Rutherford. He’s been in the films Country Lines and Obey, and the TV
series Bulletproof. The story goes that for his audition for the part, he made
the producer and casting director cry with his performance. Information that
has me super excited to see how he handles being Perrin.
Perrin Aybara’s arc is similar to
but distinct from Rand’s. While Rand’s story is about whether he’ll hold onto
his sanity long enough to save the world, Perrin lives in constant fear of whether
he’ll hold onto his humanity. The change in color of his eyes and diet, as well
as having wolves calling out to him is a jarring experience and he doesn’t always
handle it well. We only get a taste of the struggle he’ll be dealing with for
the rest of the series here, but I can promise you that he doesn’t adjust to
his new senses quickly. Perrin, I like as he’s just kind of a nice guy in the
early books. He’s soft spoken, slow of thought and of action simply because
those are qualities a blacksmith needs to do quality work. And, in his
experience, acting with haste or without thought always leads to trouble.
Looking at you, Cauthon. In general, I think the Wolfbrother is one of the more
interesting aspects of the Wheel of Time. It’s explicitly not a product of the
One Power. It’s a unique kind of magic that grew from a time when humans needed
the strength of a predator to survive. The fact that it’s something old come again
is also a neat detail, as it ties back into the whole “time wheel” concept. Perrin
is an integral part of the Wheel of Time story, and I’m looking forward to see
Marcus portray him on screen. Next time, the final of our Ta’Veren trio, Mat Cauthon.
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