Re-Reading "The Wheel of Time": "Chapter 3: The Peddler"

In the third chapter of the first book, we get to meet more characters, even if not much else happens.

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In less capable hands than Robert Jordan’s, the first few chapters of The Eye of the World could very well verge dangerously on the boring. After all, it takes us several chapters just to meet the various principals of the story, let alone for them to face their first crisis and get out of Emond’s Field. Somehow, with each chapter, Jordan manages to draw us further into this world, giving us a greater sense of the characters involved, in the process helping the eventual stakes to be that much greater. 

In this chapter we get to meet Padan Fain, one of the most fascinating and deranged characters to have emerged from modern fantasy. Though he will come to play a major role in the lives of Rand and the other young men in the village, at this point he is nothing more than a peddler, someone who has been a regular part of life in Emond’s Field for as long as Rand can remember. Yet, even so, there are slight hints that there is something not quite as it should be about Padan Fain. He seems to take an inordinate amount of pleasure in describing the chaos that has begun to overtake the world outside, and he also seems to enjoy stoking the fears and concerns of the people of Emond’s Field, no matter how much discord it might cause.

Just as importantly, this chapter also introduces us to the third young man who will come to play such a key role in the events of the Third Age: Perrin Aybara. From the moment that we meet him we’re led to see him as a kind of gentle giant for, though he is shorter than Rand, he is much more powerfully built (which makes sense, considering that he is a blacksmith’s apprentice). He’s a far more deliberate character than either Rand or Mat, and the novel points out that he doesn’t like to do anything in a precipitate fashion, his imposing size engendering in him a desire not to hurt others inadvertently. Longtime book readers know that this will become one of the key characteristics Perrin will exhibit throughout the series, for better and for worse. 

And then there are the women. After having heard about Nynaeve for a couple of chapters, we finally get to meet the formidable Wisdom, and she is every bit as fierce as her reputation would suggest. I love how Nynaeve’s strength is emphasized in this first encounter, for though she is shorter than the men she has such a presence about her that she seems to tower over them. Of course, since this is Nynaeve we’re talking about, there also has to be a mention of her braid, which will become the feature for which she is best known in the rest of the series. She hasn’t really started tugging on it, but you can almost feel her wanting to do so. 

This chapter introduces us to the gendered dynamics that will come to structure the rest of The Wheel of Time, for better and (often) for the worse. Rand seems completely flummoxed as to how to deal with Egwene who, for her part, seems equally perplexed at why Rand can’t quite figure out how to talk to her in the way that she wants to be talked to now that she is on the cusp of adulthood. It’s the quintessential awkward teen moment, and it works quite well, since it remains true that teens (and people generally, I have found) don’t know how to talk to one another and be honest about their feelings. At this point in the novel it’s charming, and it hasn’t yet acquired the cloying repetitiveness of later books.  

Arguably the most important thing about this chapter, however, is the conversation about the Dragon. By this point the most we know about the Dragon is that he immolated himself in the prologue. Now, however, we get the sense that he might have a greater role to play in the events of the Third Age than we had supposed. What’s more, we learn that this is a source of consternation for anyone with a brain, particularly since the number of False Dragons seems to be on the rise, which means that war can never be far behind. 

At the same time, it’s also clear from this conversation just how much skepticism–if not downright hostility–the common people feel about those who wield the Power. Rand’s words are particularly revealing in this regard, for he reminds Mat (who, in typical Mat fashion, is quite excited about the eruption of chaotic events) that it was the Aes Sedai who broke the world. Though the full consequences of Rand’s beliefs won’t become apparent for quite some time to come, there’s an interesting bit of foreshadowing here, and it shows just how and why Rand will remain so averse to meddling with Aes Sedai (or having them meddle with him). Indeed, a general hostility to the Power will be something that is a recurring motif in much of the series as a whole, as the common people continue to express a sentiment similar to Rand’s, no matter that it is the Aes Sedai who are some of the key defenders against the Shadow. 

This chapter, like so many of the other early ones in The Eye of the World, is methodically paced, but it is yet another tiny piece of the puzzle that is slowly taking shape. Jordan isn't the type of author who will rush you into anything. Instead, he wants to reveal this world–or at least this tiny little part of it–to you piecemeal, in order to allow you to savor and immerse yourself in it. Some might become distracted or bored by this methodical pacing, but for me this is part of the unique joy that this series provides. It’s a world in which you can truly lose yourself and forget the inside world, and that is a very precious gift, indeed.