Lets take a stroll down memory lane.
Last time on The Wheel of Time,
the hunt began. Nynaeve and Elayne began investigating where Liandrin and her
Black Ajah cohorts ran off to. The two captured and Stilled members gave them
two locations, one said Tear to help a Forsaken get Callandor, and the other to
Saldea to get to a false Dragon named Mazrim Taim. Not buying either, Nynaeve takes
Elayne to the room Liandrin had hidden her son in. They found a symbol drawn on
the floor from Tanchico. That coupled with sketches of the stolen items from
the 13th Depository made them believe they ran off to Tanchico to
try to find the other half of a Saidin A’dam. Mat ends up joining them as he
believes Nynaeve is the only one who can fix his head. And he humbles both of
Elayne’s brothers in a 1-v-2 duel, his staff vs their swords. Oh and Min
followed them in disguise, wanting to flee the Tower for a lot of reasons but a
big one being Elida telling her that she’s engineering the restructuring of the
Tower to hunt the Dragon Reborn. Rand and his group traveled the Waste with the
Aiel. On the way they find a Tinker band that were killed, assumedly by the Tardaad
Aiel’s enemies the Shaido. In his dreams, Lanfear suggests he might be able to
find the Sakarnen, the Saidar counterpart to Callandor and they could use the
two to kill the Dark One. The Wise one
of the Tardaad, Bair, is a Dreamwalker and promised to teach Egwene to be one
as well. Lan meets a Maiden of the Spear named Melindhra who claims to be a
Malkieri born woman that wants to help him revive their people. Perrin meets
Lord Luc and his second, a woman that initially went by Mandarb but changed it
to Faile after hearing that Perrin knows a horse named Mandarb. Perrin begins
to rally his people to defend the Two Rivers from the Trollocs themselves and
to drive out the Whitecloaks. He also makes plans to free the Cauthons, as he
promised Mat he'd look after them. Liandrin and her people arrived in Tanchico,
murdered the leadership and effectively took over the city. So, fun times all
around. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Ep 20: The Road to the Spear
We begin the episode with Rand and
Lan doing more sword practice while Moiraine watches. When they take a break,
we get a bit of a lore dump with Rand explaining to Lan how he can ‘think of
nothing’ while fighting. This is a concept well talked about in the books by
this point, the mental exercise of the Flame and the Void. One must just
picture a flame in their mind, feed their emotions into it, all their fears, passions,
worries, and so on until they’re feeling nothing and can be hyper focused on a
task. Rand uses it a lot to fight, and it’s the mental state he needs in to access
the True Source. Lan realizes that Rand’s dad Tam, who taught him this
meditation, was a blademaster. Rand nods though he says he doesn’t know a lot
of his dad’s past beyond Tam being a soldier when he was young. Rand admits not
feeling connected to any place since leaving the Two Rivers and learning he’s
not Tam’s biological son. Lan suggests he could develop a connection to the
Waste and the Aiel. Rand uses a metaphor from his Sheepherding days, saying
that if an ewe dies while giving birth, they cut the ewe they selected to
foster the orphaned lamb and smear its blood on the lamb to trick it into
seeing the baby as its own. He says he looks like Aiel, but he’s not Aiel. Lan
suggests he could try. They get back to sword training, Lan suggesting he might
stop going easy on Rand this time. Egwene joins Moiraine and tells her the
proverb about how a watched pot never boils, and Moiraine says if only it was
that easy to stop a pot from boiling.
Later, Moiraine and Egwene have dinner
with Bair and Melaine. Egwene asks if only the Wise Ones have servants and we
get a lore dump about Gai’shain. This feeds into the Aiel honor system of Ji’e’Toh,
Honor and Obligation. One gains Ji by doing honorable and impressive things and
Toh for failing to do things. The most Ji you can gain is by touching an armed opponent
without weapons, earning the touched much Toh. To offset this balance, the
person can agree to be Gai’shain and serve the other for a year and a day,
touching no weapons or fighting in any way in that time period. The Aiel are
actually somewhat offended by the idea of professional servants. The funniest example
of this the books gave was of a man that had to take his own soon-to-be
mother-in-law as Gai’shain because he shoved her over during a raid while she
was holding a butcher’s knife. Moiraine says they’re very comfortable answering
unimportant questions. She asks how they knew they were coming. The Wise Ones
explain that they can see a bit into the future, that it’s easiest to see
things just before or right as they’re starting and much harder to see just a
random event in the future. They say that they didn’t see Egwene coming, and
that there was a 50-50 chance of Rand coming too. Though, had he not arrived,
they believe he would have died as would the Aiel. If he survives Rhuidean,
some of them could survive. They reveal that Moiraine would have died too if
Ran, Lan or herself not come, or if she doesn’t go to Rhuidean. Bair begrudgingly
explains there’s a way to see a bit into the future in Rhuidean, and that they
wanted Moiraine to decide to head there on her own.
As Rand and Lan head into camp,
Aviendha stops Rand and tells him she told him not to touch swords. Rand is
rather annoyed by this attitude of hers, and says that Aiel doesn’t
touch swords, and asks if she can just decide if he is one or not. He tries to
brush the stick she held to his chest aside, but she knocks him to the ground
and swaps it for a spear. She insists no one holds a sword this close to Rhuidean,
the city in the clouds, and turns her spear to Lan and says that it includes
him. The two start circling around each other as the other Aiel hoot their
approval. Aviendha asks if he’s asking her to dance (the Aiel call combat the
dance of spears), and he just unsheathes his sword. They duel. Aviendha is good,
but Lan is Aan’allein, the one-man nation (Old Tongue title) and he disarms her
a few times in their exchanges. Before they can conclude their duel decisively,
the Wise Ones stop them and say that it is time to end this. Turns out, Aviendha
has the potential to be a Wise One and they’re insisting now that she begins
her training. Training long delayed because of her (gestures at her whole body)
this. She tries to refuse but this is not something she can refuse. She hands
over her spears to Bair, who breaks them over her knee. She says she also
refused when called but eventually learned her duty. They also take her Cadin’sor,
her armored clothing, and say her new clothes will be there when she returns.
She asks their leave to go to Rhuedean, and they accept, and tell her if she
doesn’t return her belongings will be given to her family in remembrance. She claims
she’ll be back before they reach the slopes of Chaendar, the mountain outside
Rhuedean.
Later, Moiraine asks if Rand intends
to go to Rhuedean tomorrow. He doesn’t answer. She says that many men wait
weeks on the slopes before going, but Rand isn’t them. He asks her what she
wants, and she says she’s just trying to help him. He says she’d never helped him,
but she counters that’s all she’s done. She demands he tell her what he’s planning,
and Rand tells her he will, if she says to him plainly that she’s not trying to
use him for the White Tower or her own gains. She says she won’t stop him from
fulfilling his destiny, but she won’t stand by while he puts his head on a
chopping block either. Rand says that’s not good enough.
The next day, Rand approaches Rhuedean
with his squad and Rhuarc. Rand asks Rhuarc if he’s been and Rhuarc confirms
all Clan Chiefs and Wise Ones go. Rand asks how the Car’a’Carn will be different
from the Clan Chief. Rhuarc pulls up his left sleeve and reveals a tattoo of a
golden serpentine dragon with a green eye on it, he says all Clan Chiefs are so
marked. Rand realizes that they’re the People of the Dragon, and Rhuarc confirms
that’s an old name for the Aiel. He says that the Car’a’Carn will be marked
twice. They reach the city, which is shrouded in a perpetual mist. They’re
spotted by a group of Shaido, and after a tense moment both sides agree to
stick to the peace of Rhuidean. By custom, any who reach the mountain are allowed
to return to their holds in peace. They enter the Shaido’s tent. One of their warriors,
a real son of a bitch named Couladin, notes that they brought Wetlanders to Rhuedian.
They ignore him because Couladin sucks. Rhuarc asks the Shaido Roofmistress Sevanna
where her husband is. She says he’s dead, but her new husband, Muradin, his son
is in the city and she is sure he’ll return soon as the Shaido’s new chief.
Couladin says that he will go in after him, but the Wise Ones tell him to shut
up, and that if Muradin doesn’t come back he can then ask permission and
Bair and Melaine may give it. Rand steps forward and asks for permission to
enter. Bair gives it, but Couladin loudly objects as Couladin sucks. He says
that it’s death for outsiders to even be here. Rand says that his mother was
Aiel, but Bair corrects him, saying his father was one but his mother was something
else. Couladin, again, loudly objects and says he’s presenting himself like a
woman. Bair, the badass, tells him to stop putting his nose into Wise One
business. If he’s so interested in their work, he can put on a dress and ask to
be trained and she’ll consider it. Melaine then gives her approval. Couladin
tries to rush Rand, but Bair blocks him with a flow of air, revealing she can channel.
She orders everyone other than Rand and Moiraine back to their tents. Egwene
tries to go with, but Bair says if she asks she’ll be refused. Rand’s destiny
is there, and Egwene’s isn’t there yet. Moiraine officially asks to go. Baer
and Melaine are hesitant to allow her to go, as they’ve already disrupted how
their visions said this was supposed to go. Moiraine was supposed to ask
unprompted. Moiraine asks if that makes a difference, and they say maybe. But they
do know she’ll die if she doesn’t go, so they give her permission. They tell
her that inside she’ll see three rings. She can step through any one of them
and they’ll show her a thousand possible futures. She’ll take some of that knowledge
back with her. To Rand, they say he must enter the Glass Columns, where he will
see the history of the Aiel through the eyes of his ancestors. They tell them
to leave any weapons there to honor the last true Aiel. Rand takes off his
sword and Moiraine drops off several knives. They tell them they won’t address them
again until they return, as the city is the city of the dead. They say Rand is of
the Past and Moiraine the future. Moiraine asks if he’s ready, Rand says no,
but they set off anyway.
They enter the misty city. Around them
are tower statues that don’t strike them as Aiel work. Moiraine comments that the
dry fog is weird too, as she can almost see threads of the Pattern woven in
them before they vanish. They travel into the city and find Avendesora, the
Tree of Life. It’s an old tree, roughly 3000 years old, a product of the Age of
Legends. Moiraine says that the Aes Sedai knew the Aiel had it, just not where.
Rand says that it feels peaceful underneath it. Moiraine reveals that Cairhien
had one like it, given to them from the Aiel as payment for an old debt. Rand
says he never saw it in Cairhien, but Moiraine says that her uncle Lamen, King
of Cairhien, cut it down to build him a grand throne. This obviously pissed the
Aiel off like nothing else could and was what triggered the Aiel War. The Aiel don’t
even think of it as a war, the clans that came over the wall were an execution force.
They burned their way across the land, until they found and killed him on the
slopes of Dragonmount. Rand realizes that’s why his mother was on the mountain,
and why he was born there and fulfilled the first prophecy. He realizes that
they’ve been tied together since before his birth. She says sometimes fate
seems strong, and other times it seems fragile. Rand tells her she shouldn’t
have come here before entering the field of Glass Pillars. He sees Muradin in
the distance, or who he assumes is Muradin, Frozen in place. He steps after him
but gets hit by a blowing wind.
In the blink of an eye he’s Janduin,
an Aiel warrior in the middle of a battle. He kills several Illian soldiers
before being told by another Aiel that they found her. Who is her? Shael, Rand’s
mother. Yep, this is the memory of Rand’s biological father. Shael is very dead
at this point, but he tells her body that he killed Lamen himself and tries to awaken
her. Bael, the other Aiel, says there’s no sign of the baby and Janduin screams
in agony.
We return to Rand, who is also
screaming. He looks at his hands and they’re covered in blood. He takes another
step forward, the wind forcing him backward.
He sees through the eyes of another
ancestor, Mandein, Rhuedean for the first time. He witnesses the fog exploding
from the city for the first time. His wife, a dreamer named Sealdre, tells him
that an Aes Sedai called Latra called them here and that he must agree with
whatever she tells him. He asks if the others will come, and she says some
will, but those that don’t will be lost to time. He leaves his spear with her
and heads into the city. He finds Latra as she opens a secret knot in Avendesora
and takes a glass sphere from it. It’s revealed this is THE Latra Posae Decume,
the Tamyrlin Seat that once refused to help Lews Therin with his plan to defeat
the Forsaken. The men asks why they were called. Latra says that the true Aiel are
dead, and then asks why they don’t carry swords. Mandein says that it’s forbidden,
but Latra guesses that he doesn’t know why. She says there’s a lot he doesn’t
know. He asks what she will ask of them. Latra tells them that the leaders of
the Aiel, Chiefs and Wise Ones must come here and be tested, to learn their
history and why they don’t carry swords. She gives them the prophecy of the Car’a’Carn
as well, saying he’ll come from Rhuedean at dawn. She channels through the sphere
and makes the Crystal Pillars. She tells them to travel through the pillars, to
learn their history and know what the Aes Sedai call them Oathbreakers. Mandein
is the first to go, saying he doesn’t fear his past and that they’re not oathbreakers.
We return to Rand who takes more
steps forward and sees the bodies of failed Chiefs. He’s almost to Muradin now.
Another step and another jump back.
Rand is his ancestor, Lewin, who is
looking at a cutting of Avendesora, the Chora tree. He tells his friends that
he feels peaceful just holding onto it, but is clearly joking about it. Adan,
their Seeker, chases them off, saying that that tree is more precious than any
of them. He tells the other they’re headed to the desert to build a city where
they’ll plant it. Lewin finds his mother sobbing. She tells him that his sister
was taken by bandits. They also took a woman named Colline as well. Lewin wants
to go after them, now, but fighting is forbidden to them and Adan orders them
back to their wagons. He chants that all will be well as if he believes it.
Lewin and his friends refuse to just let them be taken and agree to go after
them. They’ll wait until dark, sneak in, and then escape, no violence. Lewin
and his friends Alijah and Charlin sneak in at night. They plan to grab the
girls and go. Charlin tells them to keep their dust veils up to hide their
faces. They head in. Lewin finds another captured girl named Maigran and tries
to get her to leave but a bandit awakes and tries to attack him. Charlin
tackles the bandit and a fight breaks out. Lewin almost gets killed but he
grabs a spear and cuts the man’s throat. His friend Charlin was stabbed when he
tackled the bandit and dies. Alijah
grabs the sword, but Lewin tells him to leave it. It’s a weapon and only a
weapon, forbidden by the Way of the Leaf. The Spear can do more, it can put
food in the pot. They return with the girls and Charlin’s body. They take the
girls back, but cast out Lewin and Alijah for breaking from the Way of the
Leaf. Adan, who is Lewin’s grandfather, calls them strangers and oathbreakers.
His mother tells him to cover his face, saying that she doesn’t know him, but
he has the face of her dead son and she doesn’t want to see it on a killer. And
this is why I hate Tinkers. Yep, the Aiel an the Tu’athuan used to be the same
people, followers of the Way of the Leaf. Alijah asks what they can do, and he
says they’ll follow them to protect the true Aiel.
Rand returns to his body and takes another
step. Muradin literally pulls his eyes from his face as he screams in agony.
Meanwhile, Moiraine sees the sand
shifting and shaking under the Avendesora. She channels at the great tree,
revealing the glass sphere hidden within it. She takes it and stores it in a
pocket. She is drawn away and towards the three rings. It’s three rings standing
upright and against each other in a triangle shape. She sees Aviendha floating
in them and screaming before she joins. She sees her life play out in. She’s a
humble fisherwife with Siuan, she’s the Amyrlin Seat and executes Rand, she
releases Lan from his bond, she takes Rand as a Warder, she sees Lan before
her, she executes Rand again, she kneels to Rand and swears herself to him.
Rand takes another step, passing
Muradin as he screams.
He’s now Adan’s grandfather, Jonai.
He wonders the burning remains of his caravan, many of his people dead or
injured. Adan joins him and asks where his parents are. Sulwin, another of his
people, say they can’t keep going like this. In the old tongue, Jonai says they
bury their dead and move on, what else is there? He says the others will meet
them at the Spine of the World as his daughter dreamed. Sulwin says that her
group is going south. The Aes Sedai has killed the last man who can channel,
the earth is settling, they can set up some place safe and sing the song of harvest
again. Jonai asks them not to go, but they do. She offers to take Adan with them
but he refuses, saying he won’t be an oathbreaker. Jonai says they’ll bury
their dead and move on. Later, Jonai says his daughter saw great things in her
dreams as they bury her. She saw it, a city in the desert, a place they can be
safe. Adan asks where it is, and he says East, toward the dawn. They take their
last wagon to carry their Chora cutting, Jonai saying that he was taught to care
for his cutting by his grandfather and he’ll teach Adan. Adan asks how they’ll
cross the spine, and he says together.
Back to Rand. He’s much deeper now.
Another step and he’s Rhodric, an Aiel during the Age of Legends. Rhodric meets
with Latra Sedai. He tells her that her orders have been followed and they’re
sending out 10,000 wagons, each with a Chora cutting. She gives him the glass
sphere, her fellow Aes Sedai Solinda wants to stop her, but Latra insists that
the Aiel can be trusted with it, they’ve shown courage through their adherence
to peace. Solinda asks how she can think of Peace when they’re surrounded by
Death. Latra basically tells her to shut up as they need to protect the Glass
Sphere from those mad men, for fear of what would happen if they found a woman Aes
Sedai who’d agree to work with them and use it. She reminds Solinda that it was
a woman Aes Sedai, once called Mierin but now going by Lanfear, who broke into
the Dark One’s prison and started all of this. She tells Rhodric that that the
sphere is Sakarnen, the women’s equivalent to Callandor. Callandor is protected
in a new fortress, so she’s trusting Sakarnen to Rhodric to keep it safe, to
find a place where it can be placed where no one comes to harm. He agrees to
keep it until they have need of it again. Latra tells them the Aiel to keep to
the Way of the Leaf, now and forever. He knees and he and the other Aiel swear
to do so. He takes the Sakarnen and places it in a Chora cutting. His partner
Comran asks if he’s going to be okay, and Rhodric tells him that all will be
well.
Rand takes another step. He falls
to his knees as he does so, clearly exhausted. He gers up and keeps walking. Behind
him Muradin falls dead.
He is Charn, an Aiel in the Age of
Legends before the Bore. He’s servant to she who would one day be Lanfear, Mieren.
She joins him as he watches Aiel gather crops, asking if this is where he’s
from. Charn says it is, his family still works out there and bringing in the
harvest. Mieren asks why he isn’t down there, and he says today is too
important, there’s always tomorrow. She tells him that tomorrow everything
changes. He asks what she’s actually doing. Mieren reveals she found a thin
patch in the Pattern, and on the other side they detected a great energy
source. Like the True Source and the One Power, but much more potent. And, it
seems like anyone could use it, and with equal strength. She says that soon
even a non-channeler like Charn will be able to use this power to do things
like harvest crops without his hands. Charn laughs at this and says some things
are good to do by hand. Mieren tells him to go and sing with his family, enjoy
the moment. Charn bows and heads out. He stops to ask if she’s sure and she
says she is, nothing is more important than the people you love. Charn joins
them and starts harvesting. He gets a few cuts in before the giant floating
sphere that is Mieren’s lab blows open, dropping rom the sky. A yawning hole of
blackness forms in the sky.
Rand flashes back through all of
the memories back to the present and back again. Among the pillars he falls to
the ground at the center. Before his eyes, tattoos form on both his arms, gold
dragons forming at the back of his hands and up his forearms.
Later, he finds Aviendha passed out
on the ground. She sees his markings and is terrified. Rand apologizes to her,
saying he apologizes for not understanding about the swords. She incredulously
asks if he does now. He says he knows enough to know he’ll never fully
understand. He asks if she saw Moiraine, and she says Moiraine is still inside.
She gets up to leave, asking if Rand is coming. He says he has to stay for Moiraine.
She tells him to do as he wishes as a Wetlander. He passes out under Avendesora.
Moiraine is still falling through possibility.
She’s in the Ways, surrounded by Forsaken both old and new, in the form of her
former charges like Egwene and Nynaeve, Lanfear cuts her throat and throws her
into the ways. She’s taken Rand as a lover. She’s taken Lanfear as a lover who
tries to strangle her in bed but not in a fun way. She announces that the Tower
will never bow to Rand before Lanfear stabs her. Lanfear cuts her throat again
and again and again and again and again. Lanfear loves to cut throats, I guess.
Back at the camp, Lan and Egwene
are waiting up. Egwene says that it’s been seven days since they left. Aviendha
came back two days ago. She says they should go in after them. Lan says they
wanted them to stay. The sun begins to rise, and Lan starts tearing up. We see
Rand leaving the city as it rises, carrying Moiraine in his arms. He passes her
off to Lan as Egwene hugs him in relief before the credits roll.
This is easily one of the best
episodes the show has put out. Seeing the history of the Aiel play out during
the fourth book The Shadow Raising, and the show did not disappoint with
their depiction. While certain scenes were scaled down slightly, the number of
characters reduced mostly, these were all scenes lifted directly from the
books. Having Josha Stradowski play all his forefathers in the prime of their
lives was a cost saving idea at least a little, it did also show off his range with
his ability to disappear into roles. He plays Rand’s biological father Janduin
differently from how he does Rand, as he did for Jonai, and for Mandein, and
the rest. We see shades of the character of Rand in each man, but each is a
little different. Watching this culture shift backwards from proud warriors, to
people on the run and growing ever more desperate, to scared but reasonably
confident travelers, to the peaceful servants of the Age of Legends was a hell
of a whiplash for me when I first experienced the story. Same with the reveal
that Rand can trace his ancestry back to the servant of Lanfear was as
shocking. Some context is removed from a few scenes that lessen the impact
slightly. For example, in the books we do get a POV from Adan, not jumping from
Lewin to Jonai. In Adan’s chapter we learn that when Lewin was five, he’d lost
literally all of his own children along with his wife. One died of starvation, two
from channeling (his daughter had the spark and died because there was no one
to train her, while his son ended himself rather than risk hurting his family
with the madness) one was taken by raiders and the last died with his wife in the
same raid. He still kept to the covenant, to the Way of the Leaf despite living
through a life so steeped in misery and despair, I feel like that does inform
just how much pain he was in years later when he disowned Lewin for breaking
it. The man had to have felt like all of creation was attempting to destroy him
in that moment, but he had to go on because what else is there? And I liked how
that phrase kept being echoed backwards through time. A number of Rand’s less
important ancestors were cut from this version, forefathers who merely witnessed
big transitions or minor changes to the Aiel culture, like Lewin’s son who started
the tradition of Aiel using short spears, or the original Rhodric, who witnessed
the act of kindness that the Cairhien gave his people that spurned the Aiel to
give them a Chora cutting years later. Though Rhodric’s name was used as the
Aiel that was bid to keep to the way. In the books that was an Aiel named Coumin,
I assume to differentiate him from Charn slightly. So ya, the visions were
good. Same with Moiraine’s. We see more of hers here than in the books, where we
just got a couple word overview of some of the other lives she could have
lived, the only one she mentioned in any detail being remembering a possible
future where she became Rand’s lover and how that blew up in their faces spectacularly.
Having shown them in that weird flipping motion added to the surreal feeling of
those possible futures. The fact she seems all but predestined to be killed by
Lanfear at some point probably isn’t going to do anything for her nerves, but we’ll
have to wait and see. Getting to see Couladin and Sevanna was fun in a
frustrating way. They’ll be relevant to the story going forward, but I think my
repeated comments about how much Couladin sucks in this write up does hint at
how. Calling them future headaches is something of an understatement. Oh, and I
liked how Rand chose to wait for Moiraine and how that ultimately made him perform
the prophecy of coming with the Dawn. In the books he and Mat (who went with in
the books and had his own adventure we’ll get into later) leave basically ASAP.
Even if he was unaware of it, Rand choosing to wait for Moiraine is what lead
him to fulfil that prophecy and that makes it feel more like he’s choosing this
responsibility than being thrust into it. Or so I think. So ya, great episode. Next
time we’ll catch up with the others.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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