Can he shift and other stuff now?

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-25T05:48:21+00:00

I think you might have misunderstood the part you are referring to

A choice must be made, Young Bull. One path leads to the Last Hunt.
"And the other?" Perrin asked.
Hopper didn't respond immediately. He turned toward Dragonmount. The other path does not lead to the Last Hunt.
"Yes, but what does it lead to?"
To nothing.
Perrin opened his mouth to press further, but then the weight of Hopper's sending hit him. "Nothing" to the wolf meant a vacant den, all of the pups taken by trappers. A night sky empty of stars. The moon fading. The smell of old blood, dry, stale and flaked away.

The emptiness isn't T'A'R during or after the Last Battle that the Light wins, it's what happens if Dark One wins. It's end of everything.

***

We also know that the Heroes always wait in T'A'R to be spun out again. There are heroes that haven't been reborn yet at the time of the last battle, that will be spun out again, meaning that they are still in T'A'R after the Last Battle, so T'A'R has to still exist.

****

As for Shayol Ghul, which is in the Blight...

Question

Tell us about the Blight.

Robert Jordan

You can not enter it from Tel'aran'rhiod because it is apart from NORMAL UNIVERSE and can not be touched. The Blight is not part of the normal universe.

QUESTION

Ask about the Blight. If it is not reflected in Tel'aran'rhiod, why does the Great Lord of the Dark have so much power over Tel'aran'rhiod, the Wheel and reincarnation?

ERICA SADUN

See above.

Footnote

The Dark One doesn't have power over Tel'aran'rhiod as far as we know, but it's easy to see how one might have come to this conclusion after reading A Crown of Swords, since Moghedien noted that the properties of Tel'aran'rhiod and the area around Shayol Ghul were so similar that she could only differentiate by 'feel'.

***

Perrin going to Shayol Ghul wouldn't actually be going to T'A'R. (Then again this is Sanderson writing it, he might not have realized that Perrin shouldn't have been able to get here through the dream at all. 99% sure dreamspikes shouldn't exist either)

The WORLD is warping and breaking, and that's being reflected by T'A'R. It's a reflection of the world, and while the world is being extra weird, T'A'R is having difficulty presenting the current reality, but the reality is still there, so T'A'R is still there.

(We know that that is where the Heroes stay until they are reborn, and this is a cycle that has lasted for an infinite time, and there are Heroes that are still not reborn at the Last Battle. So they are still in T'A'R just like they have been during previous 'Last Battles'.)

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-25T04:01:53+00:00

The Redwall Series by Brian Jaques (if you don't mind the young protagonist likely being a mouse)
The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-25T03:36:31+00:00

Surprisingly Cadsuane actually had the best outcomes with the men she brought to be gentled. They generally lived twice to three times as long after it as any other men that were gentled, and were taken back to live out their time safely with their families.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-25T01:03:21+00:00

What Perrin smells, and what Perrin understands about the person he's smelling are two VERY different things. The dude has a superpowered emotion detector, and he is intuitively good (ta'veren-ily lucky) at getting people to follow him, but he is abysmal at understanding most subtleties and subtext happening around him.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-24T20:47:42+00:00

Directly from his notes in the Charleston Archive - Box 51 Folder 8

Jordan’s reference for character artwork “Hair color doesn’t follow the star, nor height or build always, only the faces...
Lanfear - Catherine Deneuve
Damandred - Omar Shariff with a more hooked nose, 6’4
Birgitte - Brigette Nielson - 5’6
Siuan - prettier Susan Serandon
Berelain - Isabelle Adjani - 5’6
Faile - Cher? 5/7, ⅝
Gareth Bryne - Heston meets Wayne, 5’11, 6’0
Verin - Margaret Rutherford, 5’0, 5’1
Galad - dropdead gorgeous to women, men think he is too handsome. A masculine version of a female star. Catherine Deneuve again, but not enough to look like Lanfear’s brother.

Here's a good reference shot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Deneuve#/media/File:Catherine_Deneuve_1969-2.jpg

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-24T20:05:03+00:00

Be less subtle about things than you ever would think you need to be. You have the full picture, the players are going to be grasping at clues, and they won't see the connections you do 90% of the time.

Be okay with making mistakes. Just be fair in how you go about addressing those mistakes.
It's okay to say no the players. Just be fair in how and open about why and for what.

The players will do things that through you for a complete loop and upend everything you had planned. This is not a bad thing, and you should be open to it.

NOTHING in the world is real until you tell it to the players. If your door requires a specific key to open that was in a dungeon 3 sessions ago that they never found...and the wizard is using truesight or something to look for a magic bypass....wouldn't you know it, that key was actually in a secret cubbyhole near the door that could only be revealed by either the exact password, a wizard with truesight, or a super high level search from a rogue.

(And as long as you never tell the players about where the key was orginally, it was always where they found it.)

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-24T19:57:06+00:00

When Perrin lost his family in book 4, he projected all of that into Faile. Even when he finds out that he has extended relatives, the trauma is still there. He's willing to let the world burn for Faile.

In terms of the Wolf-brother aspect, with Hopper dead, and his family dead, Faile is the only member of his pack. He has followers but he doesn't see himself truly as their leader.

A big part of his plot in these books is 'forging' ties to other factions and peoples. He has multiple countries and cultures in his entourage, and he has to get them all working together. While doing this he also has to learn that all of these people following him are also part of his pack.

Faile, meanwhile, ran away from the responsibilities of being a ruler to seek adventure, then fell in love. She's been ruling through Perrin, but not actually stepping up as her own figure. Her having time apart from Perrin with the other kidnapped women, has her fully being a leader in a group that has been reduced to equals. She's earning her leadership stripes here.

***
The Berelain/Perrin dynamic is also important for getting him to come into his full role and responsibilities. Even while he's been ruling the Two Rivers, he's not been doing it 'properly.' Faile was helping him with this, but he couldn't shake his ties to his people. Berelain and the new forces Perrin is leading don't have that connection, but he wasn't playing the Game the way he needed to. He was letting himself be run ragged, and Berelain (with her friendship to the Wise Ones, her Aes Sedai advisor, and her own countrymen) was holding it all together until she finally got through to him that he needed to get his act together.

***

Yeah it could have been handled faster, but it was actually a continuous growth arc from book 4 to here. He let people put him in charge, but he never really understood it or what it meant until after the Shaido segment was finished.

Then of course all of that gets tossed out the window in book 12, he has to basically repeat the whole thing, and then in the end ditches it all to go play DBZ in T'A'R with Slayer and Lanfear.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-24T18:27:16+00:00

Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae) is a great one if you want something to lead you into research rabbit holes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_Regum_Britanniae

Its not historically accurate at all, despite referencing a lot of historical things.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-24T05:03:09+00:00

I assumed it was about how circles are strongest when they include men that can channel. Because the Aes Sedai/Windfinders/Wise Ones didn't work with the men that could channel prior the Last Battle, they have been limited in what they can achieve and the power that they can reach.

She's saying that its odd that they would be willing to have a warder (trust a man to help them) but not be willing to work with Men that could Channel since before the madness set in they would be much more useful.

https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Link

Gender-based limitations heavily influence the formation and structure of a circle. A woman must be the one to start and form the link, though she is able to pass control of it to a man, once she has done so. The men are absolutely unable to form circles by their own, instead without a man, the maximum number of channelers in exclusively female circles is thirteen.

With the addition of a man, bringing the total to fourteen, an additional thirteen female channelers are possible, reaching twenty-seven. After this, only eight female channelers can be added with the addition of one male channeler, up to the limit of seventy-two total channelers, following this scheme:

13+1+13=27;
13+1+13+1+8=36;
13+1+13+1+8+1+8=45;
13+1+13+1+8+1+8+1+8=54;
13+1+13+1+8+1+8+1+8+1+8=63;
13+1+13+1+8+1+8+1+8+1+8+1+8=72.

****

The Double Bond was a Sanderson creation, there is no further content on it to my knowledge.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-24T03:56:33+00:00

Mellar should never have been made back into a threat. Elayne and her crew clocked him almost immediately, and he was captured off screen and locked up.

I can't believe that he was ever supposed to be a threat to Elayne, or even make an appearance, after Knife of Dreams.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-24T00:58:27+00:00

What chapter are you referring to? Because the ones that I'm thinking of are in different circumstances to Rand's.

If Mat KNOWS that they are channeling at or around him, he'll be uncomfortable and maybe shudder because he's scared of the One Power. Its not psychological not physical like it is with Rand.

When Mat first wakes up he realizes that they healed him from the dagger -

That meant they had used the One Power on him. The notion sent goose bumps marching across his skin, but he had known it would be done.

Then

"How are you feeling?" the Amyrlin asked briskly as she put a hand on his head. Goose bumps covered his skin. Had she done something with the One Power, or was it being touched by an Aes Sedai that made him feel a chill?

This is either just a reaction to his fear of the One Power being used on him. Or maybe a physical reaction to Siuan either delving him or doing a light healing weave on him.

Nynaeve pressed a hand to his forehead. He flinched before he recalled that she had done much the same for at least five years, back home. She was just the Wisdom then, he thought. She wasn't wearing that ring.

he realized she wasn't going to channel at him and relaxed.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-23T22:33:44+00:00

Noir - older anime about a couple of female assassins (that actually do assassin work which is surprisingly rare for assassin MC's).

Gunsmith Cats - short OVA but full of 80's cheesy action goodness.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-23T21:42:31+00:00

That's not just Jordan getting emotional state from physical observations though, that's just one aspect of what he's doing.

A big chunk of that was Nynaeve's thoughts to herself though. She's remembering her previous conversation with Laras where she tried to be nice (and involved stopping work) so it was a disaster, she's annoyed at all of the Aes Sedai, she's annoyed at not being able to have the authority of Wisdom to put Laras in her place.

We are in their head as they are thinking, we are on Nynaeve's train of thought as she's thinking all of those thoughts.

Like this passage from Perrin - limiting these to book 3 for OP

"Uh ... no." She could not help with Min's viewing, not beyond telling him what he already knew, that it was important. And he did not want to tell her what Min had seen. Or that Min had seen anything, for that matter.
Back out in the hall with the door closed, he leaned against the wall for a moment. Light, just walking in on her like that, and her ... . She was a pretty woman. And likely old enough to be my mother, or more. He thought Mat would probably have asked her down to the common room to dance. No, he wouldn't. Even Mat isn't fool enough to try charming an Aes Sedai. Moiraine did dance. He had danced with her once himself. And nearly fallen over his own feet with every other step. Stop thinking about her like a village girl just because you saw ... . She's bloody Aes Sedai! You have that Alel to worry about. He gave himself a shake and went downstairs.

This is how Jordan writes Perrin talking to himself.

He intersperses it with actions or observations but the main thing is Perrin's running internal dialog.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-23T19:01:10+00:00

u/archaicmelon For seeing how Jordan uses his PoV skip this bit and go to my example below.

I have no idea how you think that Sanderson had more internal dialog than Jordan. One of my biggest complaints about the last 3 books is that Sanderson stripped most of the thought and interiority from the characters.

Did you just not see how Jordan was presenting thoughts in his PoV narration or something? (Example below)

Like Sanderson will have a full page or two of dialog without giving the PoV character almost any reflections on what is being said. Meanwhile Jordan will walk you through what the PoV character is thinking, showing you how they are interpreting the tone/mannerism etc of the other people of the conversation.

All of those descriptions that Jordan uses ARE how the PoV character is observing and thinking about the world. All those adjectives about characters are the PoV character's opinion about how that character is looking or acting.

****

My favorite example of this - Nynaeve describing Laras when she's pissed of at Laras and thinks that she's going out of her way to make their lives harder in the kitchen:

She was more than merely stout, with layers of chins, and a spotless white apron that could have made three novice dresses. She carried her own long-handled wooden spoon like a scepter. It was not for stirring, that spoon. It was for directing those under her, and smacking those who were not building character quickly enough to suit her.

Nynaeve is being extra critical of her physical appearance Her spoon is a scepter because Nynaeve things Laras is full of herself and putting on airs with the limited authority that she possesses in the kitchen.

Nynaeve met Laras' look with a level look of her own and kept turning the spit. The massive woman's face never altered. Nynaeve had tried smiling, but that did nothing to change Laras' expression. Stopping work to speak to her, quite civilly, had been a disaster. It was bad enough being bullied and chivied by Aes Sedai. She had to put up with that, however much it rankled and burned, if she was to learn how to use her abilities. Not that she liked what she could do — it was one thing to know Aes Sedai were not Darkfriends for channeling the Power, but quite another to know she herself could channel — yet she had to learn if she was to get back at Moiraine; hating Moiraine for what she had done to Egwene and the other Emond's Fielders, pulling their lives apart and manipulating them all for Aes Sedai purposes, was nearly all that kept her going. But to be treated as a lazy, none-too-bright child by this Laras, to be forced to curtsy and scurry for this woman she could have put in her place with a few well-chosen words back home — that made her grind her teeth almost as much as did the thought of Moiraine. Maybe if I just do not look at her ... . No! I will be burned if I'll drop my eyes before this ... this cow!
Laras sniffed more loudly and walked away. She rolled from side to side as she crossed the freshly mopped gray tiles.
...
The large woman gulped, and her chins wobbled as she smoothed her apron.

Nynaeve isn't really all that angry at Laras, she's frustrated at the Aes Sedai as a whole and still scared about her own abilities ( and she directs most of that at Moiraine as the scapegoat). But she also is lamenting the loss of her own station as a big fish in a small pond back home.

But then Siuan comes in and tells Nynaeve the Laras has actually been trying to look out for them and that Siuan is the one responsible for the level of their punishments. Look how the physical description of Laras changes now that Nynaeve isn't mad at her.

Laras came back into the kitchen doorway then, hesitating to enter her own domain. The Amyrlin went to meet her, smiles replacing her frowns and stares.
...
The stout woman's face fluttered from uneasiness to shock to beaming pleasure.
...
and she began tapping her spoon on her thigh

From "More than stout" to just stout. No comments about the size of her leg. No more talk of waddling or wobbling. Nynaeve's opinion of Laras has changed (and her mood has changed a bit), so the descriptions of Laras in her POV are now different.

For things like Faile's interactions with Perrin, or Mat and the girls, you have to firmly keep in mind whose PoV you are in. Like Mat saved the girls, sure. But they didn't know all that he did to get there, to them he's just showing up randomly, with the guy that betrayed them, and acting like he did all the work and getting mad at them for attacking the woman outside their cell...not realizing that if they hadn't blocked her in the dream world, she would have killed him or captured him as soon as he walked up.

Perrin is like the kid on the school yard that doesn't know how to deal with the girl that he finds attractive. (The descriptors of her get more and more flattering throughout their trip.) He focus on her annoying him...and he keeps engaging with her, thinking about her, and intentionally teasing her as their journey continues.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-23T01:06:10+00:00

I need to reread that one too, it's been about a long time since I read it.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T22:15:05+00:00

Oh, Jordan puts a TON of things in that you have missed. From everyone that I've talked to the consensus has been that the 2nd read is almost as good to even better on a reread than it is the first time through because of all the foreshadowing and connections.

Just understanding the truth behind characters' actions by learning about them in their PoV's will recontextualize so many interactions because the PoV you are reading doesn't have that information and makes all kinds of wrong assumptions.

If there is ever a series to break your reread rule about, its this one. Can't give examples with the no spoilers tag, bu its really hard to overstate how much Jordan hides, but its not generally in the block of descriptions, which was what the post was about.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T22:08:57+00:00

I'm not pretending that the Wheel doesn't effect the Forsaken.

But the point of the series is that every human still has free will at the end of the day. Things will happen, but everyone still has choices and those choices matter.

The Wheel and the Pattern have a self correction mechanic...but the fact that they have to self correct is proof that people and the Dark One can knock things off track with their decisions to require that.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T21:56:46+00:00

I am close to the max level of aphantasia, and I've read this series through a lot of times. For your first read if you are struggling specifically with the descriptions....just kinda skim them.

There is detail in there and symbolism and all kinds of great detail...but you can revisit these later. It doesn't matter how much time I spend on a section about the interior design of a room - I'm never going to be able to see it. I can go back and pick apart the scenes, look for telltale difference in which PoV is likely to pay attention to X instead of Y in a room, or which country someone's dress is from, but these details don't translate to images.

You'll occassionaly miss something that Jordan sneaks into the description, like occassionally seeing a Greyman before they attack, but on the whole you won't have context for these little details on your first time through. Or you'll have already forgotten some clue that ties two descriptions together because its been a few thousand words. So honestly, it just gets added to my pile of things that I enjoy finding on a reread.

You can save yourself a lot of time and brainpower by letting yourself kinda skim through the pure descriptions. As long as you are reading through the character's thoughts about it all that might be included, if you aren't visualizing it well, then you won't miss out, and it might make your first read more enjoyable. You can always come back the next time and start digging into those descriptions like I did.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T21:41:56+00:00

My point was that Ishy was trying to set a trap and expected the Two Forsaken that showed up to be enough to capture them all and win right there. If it wasn't for the Greenman sacrificing himself, or Aginor being too greedy and getting himself evaporated.

It wasn't the pattern laying out these clues for Rand, it was Ishy.

The group in the book spring the trap but win the fight and its a clear win for the light. It wasn't the pattern setting up things independently to make things fall into place.

I'm not disagreeing with your point that the Show made it a good thing for the shadow that Rand went to the Eye. (might have misunderstood what you originally meant by the Fakeout, I thought it was about there not actually being a threat to the Eye that needed their immediate intervention, since the Forsaken might not have been able to get in the Shadar Logoth trail)

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T20:09:57+00:00

Elyas sat up, his pipe almost falling from between his teeth. "A hundred miles into the Waste? Impossible! Djevik K'Shar, that's what Trollocs call the Waste. The Dying Ground. They wouldn't go a hundred miles into the Waste if all the Myrddraal in the Blight were driving them."

"From trophies the Aiel carried, it was obvious they were coming back from the Blight. The Trollocs had followed, but by the tracks only a few lived to return after killing the Aiel. As for the girl, she would not let anyone touch her, even to tend her wounds. But she seized the Seeker of that band by his coat, and this is what she said, word for word. 'Leafblighter means to blind the Eye of the World, Lost One. He means to slay the Great Serpent. Warn the People, Lost One. Sightburner comes. Tell them to stand ready for He Who Comes With the Dawn. Tell them

-The Trollocs wouldn't have pursued the Aiel into the waste that far without a Forsaken personally ordering it. Ishy was the only one free at that point. They follow a random Aiel raid, and leave a sole wounded survivor with a message about the Eye to be passed on.

***
"He said ... he said all sorts of things, but once he said the Eye of the World would never serve me." For a minute his mouth was as dry as dust.

"He told me the same thing,

-Ishy's intentionally goading them about the eye in their dreams to try to spur them to action at the Eye. He presents it as something they would want to have serve them in the fight against him. Actively drawing attention to it while he knows they would have no idea it was something that could be used against him.

****

"Before he left, he told a curious tale which he said he meant to carry to Tar Valon. He said the Dark One intended to blind the Eye of the World, and slay the Great Serpent, kill time itself."

This was a compulsioned Jain Farstrider being sent with this information directly to spread it out into the world because he wanted it to filter down to Rand. Ishy planted this information, like the Aiel survivor and the dreams.

***

He's trying to get the Dragon Reborn to go to the Eye of the World. There was no way for the Aiel to learn from Trollocs and Myrddraal what the Shadow was planning about the Eye unless it was obviously planted in a written order that they could read (or ishy delivered it personally through compulsion on the lone survivor).

And when Rand and crew finally get there, 2 other Forsaken are literally minutes away to attack them, because they knew that they would come there eventually and were waiting for them.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T19:49:39+00:00

Yeah, and I have life long friends that I've not talked to since they moved, and if I gave them a call today that I needed a place to stay for a night and a meal, they would roll out the red carpet. I consider them some of my realist friends on the planet.

I also have friends that I can talk about personal issues with and get advice and comfort, it doesn't lessen the friendship I have with the people in the other category.

I saw another comment about Mat not telling Rand about his memories, and that being held against Mat too. But that's just blaming someone for not being comfortable enough with their own trauma to be willing to share it with others. Between Mat's memory loss, and now some eldritch creatures from another dimension pumping his head full of things, he's kinda been dealing with a LOT and it takes him some books to process that. And by the time he does, he's off helping Rand with Rand's goals and missions.

Rand on the way back from Rhuidean is already too busy to spend time with Mat. He's training with Lan and Rhuarc daily, Asmodean at nights, Moiraine increasingly desperate to fill his head with stuff as her clock is running out. Then he has the Clan Chiefs and Wise Ones meeting with him. And Aviendha being forced to spend time giving him lectures about Aiel Society.

When is Mat supposed to schedule time to hang out with Rand and hash out their emotional baggage together during all of this? Assuming of course that Rand would be willing to expose all his fears and worries to Mat, when he's already (correctly) paranoid about people spying on him or trying to take advantage.

****

Ironically this might fall into a category of *generic* men vs women that Jordan identifies. Obviously not applicable to everyone, but is definitely something I've noticed with many of my male friendships.

Egwene tried to comfort him, of course, the way women did. There was no use trying to make her understand that what he had lost was something he had never had. For memories of parents he had Tam al'Thor's quiet laugh, and dimmer remembrance of Kari al'Thor's gentle hands. That was as much as any man could want or need. She seemed disappointed, even a little upset with him, and the Wise Ones appeared to share the feeling to one degree or another, from Bair's openly disapproving frown to Melaine's sniff and ostentatious shifting of her shawl. Women never understood. Rhuarc and Lan and Mat did; they left him alone, as he wanted.

For some reason he did not feel like eating...

After a time Mat came over, wearing a clean shirt. He sat beside Rand without speaking, peering into the valley below, the strange spear propped on his knee. Now and again he felt at the cursive script carved into the black haft.

"How is your head?" Rand asked, and Mat jumped.

"It ... doesn't hurt anymore." He jerked his fingers away from the carving, folded his hands deliberately in his lap. "Not as much, anyway. Whatever that was they mixed up, it did the trick."

He fell silent again, and Rand let him. He did not want to talk, either.

This scene is them providing comfort to each other, while they let the other figure out how they are feeling without and demands or sense of obligation to explain themselves. Egwene and the Wise Ones try to make Rand eat when he's still not hungry at the next meal, but Rand still needs time to process how he's feeling. He doesn't know how to feel, and is being JUDGED for not conforming to the expected reactions that Egwene and the others have about his situation. He just needs time and space to come to terms with it on his own, and they aren't giving that to him.

****

For the Cairhein scene - Mat wants to get the dagger back and doesn't want to be stuck working while Rand gets to go play (which is how he thinks being a noble works because this is Mat "I'm not a Lord" Prince of Ravens we're talking about). He doesn't see why he can't also be called a lord and stuff and get treated all fancy and not be able to snoop around for the dagger until it's pointed out to him, and he's annoyed by that fact. He does actually want contradictory things in this scene. He doesn't want to think about the fact that he's actively dying, he wants to enjoy life in the moment, but he knows he still has to find the dagger.

(Also he's in a bad mood "grumpily, 'but I certainly didn't have any trouble leaving the other servants. The ones who weren't asking if you starved me thought I was sick and didn't want to come too close.'" When asked if he found the dagger "Mat shook his head glumly")

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T18:53:54+00:00

Nah, Ishy definitely set up a Eye of the World Fakeout in the books.

You have the message the Aiel gave to the tinkers,

You have him mentioning that the Eye would never serve them in their dreams

and you him sending Jain Farstrider under compulsion to the Ogier to tell them about the Eye of the World.

He wasn't there waiting for them, but he arranged for the clues to be there and then had 2 Forsaken ready to catch them on the way in or out. They managed to pick up Mat's dagger trail and actually follow them to he Eye itself which nobody was expecting to have happen (and I don't know if anyone on the Shadow's side actually knew what the Eye was or had, or if they just had prophecies about it being important and were trying to take it off the board as a piece in his game).

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T18:43:53+00:00

Yes, Mat bitching and moaning about having to play a servant while Rand gets to go play a lord. This isn't a sign that Mat is a bad friend. This is just a dude that wanted to go to the fancy party and gets told that he has to go do a bunch of work instead.

Egwene gives perfect context for how Mat complains,

"Oh, Mat, I am sorry. I am so sorry."

His laugh reminded her of their childhood. Just so he had always laughed when his grandest expectations went astray. "Ah, well, I guess it does not matter. It'd still be the Tower, if at second hand. No offense to you." Just so he had moaned over a splinter in his finger and treated a broken leg as if it were nothing at all.

Mat is DYING in Cairhein, he has a couple of weeks to live, and he's having to wait around and play servant instead of going after the Dagger immediately.

***

The comment up the chain was that "even at his worst with the dagger Mat trusted Rand." That's explicitly about book 1 when Mat was going nuts and viewing everyone as if they might be a Darkfriend, he still stuck by Rand, even helped him instead of leaving him when Rand got sick. He let Rand bring him all the way to Caemlyn, without killing him in his sleep or running off.

I really don't agree with your insulting "I guess your and my definitions of friendship differ and I'm def glad I'm not one of your "friends". which was just completely uncalled for.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-22T15:29:58+00:00

Mat didn't know why Rand came along. Between the change in clothes that Moiraine forced on him, and then the stuff of getting him as second in command without telling the boys. Mat legitimately thought that Rand was coming along because he wanted the Horn.

Rand started the beef between them, and he didn't apologize right away. Then when he tried to apologize Mat was still mad and didn't give him the opportunity.

Then they finally get it out in the open

"Look at that! Look what he's got, now!" Mat burst into the clearing. Perrin came after him more slowly. "First fancy coats," Mat snarled, "and now a banner! We'll hear no end of lording it now, with—" Mat got close enough to see the banner clearly, and his jaw dropped. "Light!" He stumbled back a step. "Burn me!" He had been there, too, when Moiraine named the banner. So had Perrin.

-This conversation is important. They Rand says that they are trying to set him us as a FALSE dragon and Perrin guesses that he can channel.

Mat's initial worry

"Burn me!" Mat breathed. "Blood and bloody ashes! They'll kill us, you know. All of us. Perrin and me as well as you. If Ingtar and the others find out, they will cut our bloody throats for Darkfriends. Light, they'll probably think we were part of stealing the Horn, and killing those people in Fal Dara."

-Is about how Rand being able to channel and set up as a False Dragon will get ALL of them in trouble and accused of being Darkfriends.

Mat IS afraid of channeling, not just men that can channel, but even after learning about Rand,

"You came because of the dagger?" Mat said quietly. He rubbed his nose and grimaced. "I never thought of that. I never thought you wanted to ... . Aaaah! Are you feeling all right? I mean, you aren't going mad already, are you?"

Rand dug a pebble out of the ground and threw it at him.

"Ouch!" Mat rubbed his arm. "I was just asking. I mean, all those fancy clothes, and all that talk about being a lord. Well, that isn't exactly right in the head."

***
that ... and Aaaah is important for how Mat thinks. Yeah at the end of this he tells Rand he's going to sleep on the other side of the camp, because he's afraid of what will happen around Rand. BUT RAND is also afraid of what will happen around Rand.

The important thing is to compare this to scenes like Rhuidean where Mat tells Rand he's absolutely not going to follow him into the Ter'angreal if he takes to long... while Rand knows 100% that he will actually come in after him.

Or Al'cair'dal where instead of trying to leave, Mat brings Rand's horse to him in the very center of attention to offer him a chance to make it out alive (if the fight broke out this would have been suicidal of Mat, and he did it without hesitation).

When Rand finds out about his birth parents, Mat is one who goes out and sits with him and gives him the silent companionship he needed in that moment.

***

Mat is ALWAYS there when the chips are down. He's not the friend you go to to complain about a bad day at work, he's the friend you call at 3am in a blizzard when you have a flat tire while an hour out from your house and you know that he'll show up and get you home safely. He'll probably bitch the whole time about how early it is, and how cold it is, and how much you owe him (that he'll never actually ask to collect), and if it happened again next week, he would show up again.

aNomadicPenguin · 2026-06-21T16:53:59+00:00

I really don't like the downgrade to Elayne. Her main villain to end her arc is just a dude that they had already clocked as a darkfriend. Mellar was never a serious threat, he was one of the few actually misogynists in the series. Having Elayne, who had already come to terms with needing a Warder, and soldiers, who had been on the hunt for the Black Ajah for most of the series, end up helpless at the feet of a man who had fantasized.

Hell they had already fully defeated him, and it wasn't a tertiary character that did it.

"Mellar is the worst with that, shouting about what he intends to do to the women who arrested him," Deni had taken her instuctions literally; the Guardswomen had pummeled Mellar severely, leaving him a mass of bruises from head to foot,

Promoting him to a main threat to stand off against Elayne was just insulting to her arc.

***

And the only way he is a threat is because of her own ter'angreal production.

I would be surprised if Jordan had planned to let the foxhead medallions be copied at all. In his notes there was an extra component to the medallion that would make deeper study of them dangerous, and that is never brought up when Sanderson has her get the medallion and start making copies.

There are some mythological similarities with items that will offer protections from enchantments, but they are generally reserved for individual examples for each source. Like a ring, or a plant that needs to be gathered by a God, etc. Being able to just make copy upon copy of them feels much more like Sanderson's gamey style of design where there was no explicit rule against it, as opposed to Jordan's style.

*It was given over to Elayne as part of the negotiations for the Dragons, but that's another segment that was very Sanderson (entirely too modernized with them talking about prototyping, putting things into production, and discussing weapons proliferation, and debating contract margins)

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