Re-Reading "The Shadow Rising": "Chapter 13: Rumors," "Chapter 14: Customs of Mayene," and "Chapter 15: Into the Doorway"
Both Mat and Perrin struggle with what it means to be bound to the Dragon Reborn and push at the boundaries of their own agency.
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This week we return to our reading of The Shadow Rising, focusing on a trio of chapters that focus on Mat and Perrin and their various struggles. As has been the case since the beginning of this book, they continue to find themselves pulled in different directions, with Perrin finding himself drawn to the Two Rivers in an effort to protect them from the Whitecloaks and Mat, for a variety of reasons, being yanked toward Rhuidean in the Aiel Waste. At the same time, they also have to contend with the usual round of issues, most notably their relations with women.
I know I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record at this point, but I really do have to note again just how grating the gender stuff is in this book in particular. It’s been there since the beginning of the series, of course, but now that Perrin has actually started falling in love with Faile, it’s gotten worse. I just want to reach into the book and strangle him. Aside from the fact that he is insufferably noble–which is the most generous way I can frame his desperate efforts to protect her–he is also just rather condescending to her. Small wonder that Faile repeatedly finds herself exasperated by him, even if her desire flares that much hotter (more on her in a moment).
On the other hand, I won’t deny that it’s also heartbreaking to hear about the Whitecloaks and their invasion of the Two Rivers. We, as readers, already know about it, but even so, it’s hard to see a good-hearted man like Perrin have to grapple with the fact that, at least in part, it’s his actions that have brought the Children of the Light down upon the people that he loves. Had he not killed the elder Bornhald, it’s entirely possible that the Whitecloaks wouldn’t have had as much of a reason to seek out this tiny corner of Andor for their unwelcome attentions. Then again, they are also under the malign influence of Padan Fain, so perhaps their invasion was inevitable. Regardless, the fact that Perrin is willing to put his own life at risk makes up, somewhat, for his very backward notions of men protecting women.
Strangely enough, I don’t find Faile nearly as irritating as I do Perrin, for all that she manages to become, in her own estimation, quite like a farmgirl tussling over another farmgirl over a man, coming dangerously close to getting into a fight with the First of Mayene in the middle of the Stone of Tear. And, to be sure, it’s easy to get exasperated with Berelain, who continues to act as if all of the men who are currently in the Stone of Tear are hers to do with as she pleases. Then again, what can one expect from a young woman who has had to try every trick in the trade in order to keep her small nation from being gobbled up by its aggressive neighbor? Even so, it’s rather disconcerting to see these two powerful women reduced to little more than a catfight, once that has to be broken up by a man (and an Aiel man at that) sending them to their rooms. Sigh.
Mat, meanwhile, has his own struggles. We’ve already seen just how bound up he is by fate, and how the fact that he is tied to Rand means that he finds it impossible to get out of Tear, no matter how much he might like to do so. These chapters bring this even further into focus by showing that he can’t even speak about leaving and, for a man like man, this is next to unbearable (as it would be for anyone who cherishes their independence and ability to make their own choices).
I must say that I’ve grown much fonder of Mat this time around than I have been in the past. Perhaps it’s because Dónal Finn is just so damn charming and charismatic in the TV adaptation, or perhaps I’ve just come to appreciate the way that he is truly a lovable rascal whose own good nature often gets the better of him. Either way, I find myself feeling sorry for him with each chapter. No matter how hard he tries to be his own man, he finds that that’s just not in the cards for him at the moment (see what I did there?) When you’re childhood friends with someone like the Dragon Reborn, there’s only so much that you’re going to be able to do in terms of holding onto your self-determination.
The fact that he is bound so closely to Rand’s fate–and that he has so little knowledge of why this is the case–makes his decision to seek out the ter’angreal much more explicable. For someone like Mat, for whom independence is still so important, it really is a matter of life and death as to whether he can find out the truth of what’s going on and why he is still stuck in Tear. As he soon discovers, though, it’s always a risk to engage with something that’s been made with the Power, particularly if you yourself aren’t a channeler.
While Robert Jordan was remarkably skilled at capturing the minutiae and mores of various human nations, he was just as skilled at conveying the terrifyingly strange and inhuman. This is certainly true of the snaky creatures that Mat encounters once he passses through the ter’angreal. One can’t help but get chills at just how strange and unearthly these beings are even if, like Mat, we also want them to tell him (and therefore us) something that will be useful in his attempts to figure out what to do with his life. This being Mat, though, he ends up letting his own curiosity get the better of him, leading to even more confusion as the creatures give him a whole slew of answers about his future, none of which are very illuminating.
There’s something particularly potent about the way that Mat fights back against the mysterious strangers inside of the ter’angreal, desperate to get the answers that he desires. In a very real way, he is once again fighting against the ties of fate that keep him resolutely bound to his own trajectory as a character. For all that I get frustrated with Jordan and The Wheel of Time more generally, it’s moments like these that keep me coming back to these books again and again. Few other fantasy series have so skillfully engaged with the fraught question of what it means to have agency in a fantasy world and few have managed to keep the tension alive with such skill.
By the time that these chapters have come to an end, both Mat and Perrin are poised to take some extraordinary steps in their continuing journey. Their fates might be bound up with the Dragon Reborn, but that doesn't mean that they don’t have their own choices to make. For that matter, Moiraine also gets a brief but meaningful appearance, once again showing that there is always far more to her than meets the eye. You can’t help but sympathize with her, since she once again has to put up with Rand and Mat doing things that are quite likely to get them all killed.
That’s all for this week. Next week we’ll continue with The Shadow Rising, as the various characters begin to go off on their own separate paths.