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 30: A Wager
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Rand al'Thor
Rand is enjoying some peace and quiet for a while and avoiding Moiraine, who is trying to spend all of her time teaching him. Some riders arrive, escorted by Aiel. They are nobles from Tear and Cairhien. The Shaido are attacking the city of Cairhien but had not taken it as of a few days ago. Rhuarc says the Aiel with Rand can get there to relieve the city in seven days. The young nobles from the city believe Cairhien can hold out that long, but not much longer. A few of the nobles are tasked with riding back as fast as they can to let the city know help is coming.
Edorion suggests making a bet with Rand that the Aiel can't reach the city in time. Rand is surprised to learn he has money available for a large bet due to his being accounted a chief and receiving a part of the fifth of loot from Tear. Rhuarc suggests sending out scouts and again Rand avoids including Maidens, choosing only male societies.
REACTION:
This chapter mostly exists just to tee up some things that are going to be happening soon. We are now in the latter half of the book and as a result, we should be expecting the action to pick up.
- Rand's Aiel are going to fight the Shaido outside the walls of Cairhien within seven days.
- It looks like Rand is about to get his Tairen military back soon, too. This chapter constitutes the re-establishing of contact.
- Moiraine is teaching Rand as much as she can - almost in a panic to do so. It's as though she knows she's almost out of time. It's easy to forget but Moiraine actually does know some bits of the future, thanks to both Min and her trip through the Rhuidean ter'angreal.
[Note: If she'd stopped trying to bully Rand at any point before this book, she would have had more time.]
- Rand's refusal to send the Maidens on dangerous missions is going to boil over sometime soon.
If you didn't quite pick up on it, the young Tairen officers that Rand meets up with are the same guys Mat used to gamble with inside the Stone of Tear. It seems relevant that we just reintroduced Mat's established friends, even if they didn't meet up with Mat themselves in this chapter. The Law of Conservation of Characters tells me that the reunion will have to happen at some point.
It was humorous to watch Rand find out that he's not only powerful, but he's also extremely wealthy. It makes sense that he is wealthy (King of Tear + Chief of Chiefs for the Aiel) but it also made sense that he never put it together. He has always been so focused on power that it never clicked that power and wealth accompany each other.
Jordan/Rand were clever in recharacterizing the Aiel "Fifth" as a tax. The Wetlands will accept looting, provided that the looters call it "taxes." At least the Aiel will only take the Fifth one time, rather than at frequent and regular intervals.
looting
noun
- The act of looting, the act of stealing during a general disturbance.
- Plundering during riots or in wartime.
verb
- Present participle of loot.
Tax
noun
1a: a charge usually of money imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes
b: a sum levied on members of an organization to defray expenses
2: a heavy demand
The primary distinction between the two terms - a distinction which separates a whole lot of wildly differing emotion - is the vaguely defined "public purposes."
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