Welcome back to my re-read, recap, and reaction to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. This post will only have spoilers through the current chapter.
You can find my previous chapter recaps HERE.
Chapter 17: Heading West
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Nynaeve al'Meara
Elayne pretends to be worn out from the heat when a maid brings Nynaeve a couple of bonnets. As soon as the maid leaves they dress in less fancy clothes, don the bonnets and gather up their belongings. They leave by the back stairs and the back gate and walk several miles before Thom and Juilin catch up with a wagon. They successfully avoid Galad and reach the menagerie around noon, where Valan Luca confronts them. He is still mad at Nynaeve for calling him a beggar and believes them to be thieves rather than a lady and her maid.
Elayne tells Luca that she is avoiding an arranged marriage and that her brother is looking for her. He insists though that they become performers, to blend in, to make it more difficult for someone to find them. Thom demonstrates his juggling and mentions other skills he can use to perform. Elayne notices a high rope, belonging to Sedrin (who died from a fall mere hours ago), and decides to become a high walker, along with Juilin. She demonstrates, but uses channeling to make her performance safe. Nynaeve doesn't get a role to play right away. The performers gather around and begin getting ready to depart, now that they will have funds.
Nynaeve takes an interest in Cerandin, the boar-horse trainer. She recognizes the animals from Falme, as something that the Seanchan use and Cerandin is clearly Seanchan. Elayne joins her and they probe to find out what her history is and make sure she is not a sul'dam. Cerandin decides that Elayne really is a high lady and prostrates herself as she would to one of the Seanchan Blood. Elayne tells her she does not need to act that way and they agree to exchange information on each other's lands.
REACTION:
I enjoyed being in Nynaeve's head for her reassessment of Thom. It's a subtle thing, but I like the way that Jordan reminds his readers that she's smart. She won't underestimate Thom again. She might will bully him no doubt, but she'd do that to anyone. Once she learns he used to be a court bard, she immediately guesses correctly that he probably dabbled in court intrigues himself, she notices that he disagreed with Elayne over whether her mother is as influential as Pedron Niall, and she accepts that he might know as much as she previously thought he was pretending to know.
Nynaeve starts out thinking everyone else is a fool, but she's willing to let them prove her wrong. That's actually not a terrible way to approach life even if it won't make you popular with a lot of people the first time you meet them.
Re: Elayne and Juilin doing the high rope walk on an invisible platform made form the One Power. This seems like a profoundly bad idea. As far as they know, they are being pursued by the Black Ajah and one of the Forsaken. Why would you advertise your ability to channel at a distance? Short of that, aren't they are a significant risk of exposing themselves as channelers if either Elayne or Juilin falls and lands off the rope but on the platform?
I guess you have to set up some tension for later in the book and Elayne has never been presented as stable or wise. It's plausible.
It's interesting, and makes some sense, to run into one of the Seanchan in this type of situation. Those Seanchan animals cannot exactly be hidden. Where better to hide out than the menagerie? I wonder if there are menageries in Seanchan?
I like the reintroduction of another one of the Seanchan, from a world-building standpoint. Jordan is humanizing their society after introducing it as a monstrous one. The message seems to be that a group of people can have evil, stomach-turning practices, but that not everyone who exists within that society (even someone who blindly accepts institutional slavery) is completely evil, or stomach-turning. That's a difficult thing for a modern reader to accept, but we deal with that in the real world also. Institutional slavery existed essentially from the dawn of humanity and wasn't widely made illegal until the last two centuries. Can you disregard all the good done by slave-trading societies throughout history? I think doing so is an over-simplified way of looking at events. But it's definitely a difficult thing to sit with - and we see as much from Nynaeve while in her head in this chapter.
I wonder what Nynaeve will eventually end up doing in the circus? That unanswered question feels like it has a chance to build up to something later.
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