Re-Reading "The Eye of the World": "Chapter 21: Listen to the Wind," "Chapter 22: A Path Chosen," and "Chapter 23: Wolfbrother"

Separated from their friends, Nynaeve, Perrin, and Egwene have to survive in a world very different than the one they knew.

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To keep myself on task when it comes to offering up critical readings of The Eye of the World, I’ve decided to start doing them on Wednesdays. I mena, who doesn’t like a bit of consistency, particularly when it comes to a newsletter? 

Welcome, then, to Wheel of Time Wednesdays! 

This week, we’re looking at Chapters 21, 22, and 23. These three chapters mark a major moment in the series, as we start to follow the scattered company of Emond’s Fielders as they contend with a very dangerous world. In 21 we get to see the inner workings of Nynaeve’s mind, while in 22 and 23 we are finally allowed inside Perrin’s head, to see just what goes on in that ponderous mind of his. 

Personally, I love it that we now get multiple points of view. As I’ve written before, I find Rand a bit of a chore to spend too much time with, and he is definitely one of those characters who works best in very small doses. Even though she can be endlessly exasperating and as stubborn as a mule, I still think that Nynaeve is one of my favorite characters (even before I saw her brought so masterfully to life on-screen by Zoë Robins in the Amazon adaptation). She is also, as Moiraine takes pains to point out, capable of being one of the most powerful women to wield the One Power in centuries. 

That’s admittedly quite a lot for one young woman–and she is young, for all that she tends to think of herself as a guardian for the other people from Emond’s Field–and so it's no wonder that she struggles against what the Aes Sedai tells her about her true nature. Like so many other people from the Two Rivers, she has a very particular way of looking at the world and her place in it, and it takes a lot to get her to change her mind. However, for me the most powerful part of this chapter isn’t her stubbornness. It’s her obvious fondness for Egwene, who she clearly sees as a younger version of herself and therefore in need of protection and guidance. Say what you will about Nynaeve; she genuinely does care about others, even if she sometimes has a hard time showing it in a way that isn’t abrasive and caustic.  

It’s also clear at this early stage that there is something romantic bubbling between Lan and Nynaeve, though it will take a frustratingly long time for either of them to admit as much. To some extent that’s not surprising, as each of them is very proud and unwilling to admit something as akin to weakness as love or having a crush. It’s really quite charming to see the extent to which Nynaeve tries to hide–even to herself–how much she wants to impress Lan with her tracking abilities. For Lan’s part, it’s also clear that he, despite his loyalty to Moiraine and his avowed purpose as the exiled heir of Malkier, feels something for Nynaeve. 

After spending a chapter with Nynaeve, we then move to Perrin. Of the three male protagonists, I find Perrin to somehow be both the most and the least irritating. To be sure, he has the same sort of relentless self-doubt–particularly when it comes to women–that Mat and Rand do, but this is tempered somewhat by his more introspective and deliberate attitude toward almost everything. Due to his great size he needs to make sure that he doesn’t rush headlong into situations. I don’t want to lean too much into this, but there is definitely something of the Samwise Gamgee about him, and he has a sort of homespun wisdom that I appreciate. 

It’s an interesting narrative choice to pair Perrin off with Egwene, considering we haven’t really seen them interact that much. In dramatic terms it works, however, as the two are very much different personalities. While we don’t get Egwene’s point of view in these chapters, it’s still lovely to see her giving Perrin a piece of her mind and making it abundantly clear that she’s not going to be pushed around by him, not regarding her use of the One Power, not about her decision to become an Aes Sedai, and not about anything else, either. 

And then there’s Elyas Machera.

Like so many other characters, Elyas has a clear Tolkien counterpart: Tom Bombadil. They’re both creatures seemingly sprung out of the earth (though Elyas is, of course, a mortal man), and neither of them feel any particular loyalty or affinity to the other people who inhabit the world. Instead, they are both more at home in the woods and wilderness, and for Machera this means that he spends far more time with the wolves than he ever does with humanity. While he does end up taking Perrin and Egwene under his wing, it’s still clear that he’s a very dangerous person to cross, and that he doesn’t feel any particular loyalty to them, for all that they belong to the same species (sort of).

At a broader level, the journey that Perrin and Egwene take, both before meeting Elyas and after, shows just how big this world really is. It’s sometimes easy to forget, given the events of the later novels, just how sparsely populated vast swathes of the continent really are. This is a world that has seen numerous wars and conflicts and cataclysms, so it makes sense that people would tend to cluster in cities where they can have at least a measure of safety from the dangers outside. 

As with the chapter with Rand and Mat, Nynaeve, Perrin, and Egwene all have to proceed through this part of their journey without really knowing where they’re going to end up or even if the other members of their company are still alive or have been slain by Trollocs. All of them also have to really grapple with who they are and whether they really have what it takes to survive in this dark, dangerous, and perilous new world.