Re-Reading "The Shadow Rising": "Chapter 4: Strings," "Chapter 5: Questioners," and "Chapter 6: Doorways"
While Thom offers counsel and sanctuary to Mat, Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve have to figure out just what to do with two sisters of the Black Ajah.
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For this week’s edition of Wheel of Time Wednesday we’re taking a look at a few more chapters of The Shadow Rising. These chapters not only shed light on Thom Merrillin and his desire to protect the young men of Emond’s Field but also on Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne, who find themselves confronted with some thorny moral questions when it comes to their charge of hunting down the Black Ajah. Even though not a great deal happens in these three chapters, they nevertheless lay the groundwork for many of the plot developments that happen later in the book and in the series.
Though I don’t love the way that Thom Merrillin’s story ends up at the conclusion of The Wheel of Time as a whole–I’m a staunch opponent of his romance with Moiraine–I do like that we get to spend some time with him in this early part of The Shadow Rising. He genuinely seems to care about the young men from Emond’s Field, if only because he still feels the bite of his failure to save his nephew from the Red Ajah. Even though, like many of the others, he misguidedly distrusts the Aes Sedai–as I’ve written here before, I am very much a stan of the White Tower–he nevertheless deserves credit for caring about Mat, Rand, and Perrin as people rather than as pieces on a game board or as weapons to be used against the Dark One. To be sure, he has the privilege of being able to adopt this point of view, since he doesn’t have the weight of the world itself on his shoulders. It’s lucky for Mat, who can’t quite seem to decide whether he wants to leave Tear or not, that he has someone like Thom squarely in his corner.
While Mat is grappling with whether or not to leave Tear–not that he’s going to be able to do so, regardless of what he might think–Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne are engaging with a bit of questioning of two of the members of the Black Ajah that have fallen into their hands. There’s something more than a little suggestive about the chapter’s title, “Questioners,” which can’t help but make you think of the group of Whitecloaks who bear that same name. Unlike the religious zealots, however, the young women would clearly never go so far as to use torture, though that possibility does seem to hang in the background. After all, it’s not as if they are bound by the Three Oaths and the limits they impose, since they are still Accepted. This begs the question: just how far will they or should they go when it comes to finding out what the Black Ajah intends to do to Rand, now that he holds Callandor and they have managed to escape?
It’s very clear, though, that they’re not going to get any useful information out of either Joiya or Amico, and the ambiguous nature of their statements represents one of the narrative enigmas in The Wheel of Time as a whole. Because we as readers are often left with as little knowledge as the characters–for all that we sometimes get to spend time with those who have sworn their service to the Dark One–we also don’t know whether one or both of them is telling the truth about Liandrin’s intention, or whether they’re both knowing. Thus, when Joiya and Amico continue to spin their particular tales, we’re left wondering: are they telling the truth, or do they have some other nefarious plot in mind? After all, we’re dealing here with individuals that, like their Sisters who still serve the Light, can manage to twist words, and they have the additional advantage of no longer being bound to the Three Oaths and their injunction to never be able to lie. And does anyone really believe that Joiya has really abandoned the Dark? One gets the sense that she is just saying this because she knows that doing so will throw her enemies even further into confusion.
Adding further confusion is the fact that a new False Dragon has emerged in the person of Mazrim Taim. Those who’ve read the series before know that this particular figure will come to have a large role to play in the broader events of the series. As Logain amply demonstrated, any False Dragon can wreak havoc, and the stronger they are in their ability to channel the more chaos they are able to sow.
Into this morass strides Moiraine, showing herself to be truly enraged by the recalcitrance of the man she has helped to raise and whose destiny as the Dragon Reborn she continually urges him to accept. We know by now that Moiraine is not the type of person to lose her temper, and she most definitely isn’t one to do so in front of others. It thus says a great deal about her state of mind that she would express her anger and frustration about Rand in front of Egwene and the others. Say what you will about Rand, but he certainly has an almost uncanny ability to get under the skin of the women in his life. However, this is Moiraine we’re talking about, and we know that she isn’t going to just sit by and let him do whatever she wants. No matter what it takes, no matter how much danger she has to put herself in, she’s going to make sure that he survives to fight the Last Battle, and that he has been as prepared as he could possibly be.
I know that the book seems to desperately want us to view her as just as suspect and manipulative as any of the other Aes Sedai–or so I’m forced to conclude, based on the fact that she is almost always framed through other character’s points of view–but I quite enjoy the way this character refuses to be bound or tamed by the book in which she is located. No matter how much Rand and the other people from Emond’s Field might view her with skepticism or sometimes outright hostility, nothing they do or say could ever make me dislike Moiraine. It certainly helps that she is one of the few people who seems to actually know what the fuck is going on, while most of the main characters remain so wrapped up in their nonsense that it’s honestly surprising they ever actually manage to defeat the Dark One at all.
Lastly, let’s talk about the fascinating little conversation between Egwene and Elayne regarding who is going to end up in a relationship with Rand. Of all of the things that the Amazon series has changed about Jordan’s books, updating–and sometimes outright changing–the gender dynamics is such a blessing. I’m not saying that Jordan was the worst person about writing convincing relationships between men and women that the fantasy genre has ever seen, but there are just far too many moments when the gender dynamics are so cringe they make me want to throw the book across the room. I’m particularly glad that they gave Elayne the chance to have desires that exist outside of her binding to Rand. I also just enjoy getting to spend time with Elayne, who brings much-needed balance to Egwene and Nynaeve, who are always striking sparks off one another.
I quite enjoyed these few chapters. Even at this early stage, however, it’s clear that it’s going to take The Shadow Rising even more time to get off the ground than the other volumes in the series that we’ve encountered already. Say what you will about Jordan, but he was a man who, as he went on, started to lose a bit of the narrative momentum, even as he grew more adept at immersing us fully in this fantastic world. Thankfully, I love getting to spend time in The Wheel of Time, and I can’t wait to continue working my way through The Shadow Rising with all of you.