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 55: The Threads Burn
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Rand al'Thor
Rand is chasing Rahvin through the palace with Rahvin leaving much damage and many of his supporters dead in his attacks. They are nearly equal in the power, but Rand has the fat man angreal which makes him much stronger. A Myrddraal leading a group of guards comes upon Rand and he channels cold so intense the Myrdraal breaks apart. Many thoughts from Lews Therin come into his head, mostly of Ilyena being dead. Rahvin channels balefire at Rand, which he barely avoids, then returns the same at Rahvin. Afterwords Rand recognizes the residue of a Gateway to Travel into Tel'aran'rhiod. He makes a similar Gateway and enters the World of Dreams to continue the battle.
Rahvin tries to "unmake" Rand, but fails due to knowledge from Lews Therin. Rand sends lightning bolts through all the doorways and passages nearby.
Point of view: Nynaeve al'Meara
Nynaeve finds herself in the middle of a battle between Rand and Rahvin. In between retching (because she has tried to take off the a'dam), Moghedien pleads with her to leave the place because it is dangerous. Nynaeve ignores her and decides that she may know more about Tel'aran'rhiod than Rahvin does, which she sees as an advantage. The two argue for a considerable time until Moghedien simply refuses to move from where she is because of the danger. Nynaeve punishes her through the a'dam with her own flows for her intransigence, and she is not gentle. Finally, Moghedien comes around. Just about then there is a huge commotion so bad that the two women can hardly keep their feet. It is obvious that the battle continues, and what's more they can hear the sound of a man running. She realizes that the Spider is a raving coward and it almost makes her feel brave. She pulls Moghedien behind her and chases the fading steps.
Point of view: Rand al'Thor
Rand continues the battle with Rahvin. Rahvin creates a Gateway and when Rand approaches to learn where it goes, he is caught in a trap instead. Rand is being turned into an animal of some kind, which will then have no access to the One Power.
Point of view: Nynaeve al'Meara
Nynaeve, with Moghedien, continues to follow the footsteps she hears, but avoids getting too close. She gets a glimpse of the man and finds it is not Rand, then continues to follow him as stealthily as she can. Finally she spots him without being seen and channels fire so that it fills the space Rahvin is in, floor to ceiling and wall to wall as hot as she can make it. Rahvin is horribly burned but he quickly puts up a shield of air to protect himself from the flames.
Point of view: Rand al'Thor
Nynaeve's attack on Rahvin sets Rand free. Rand notices the fire from the balcony above, then Rahvin backs out of the fire, facing an unseen attacker. Rand unleashes all of the saidin he holds into a balefire attack. Rahvin simply ceases to exist.
Point of view: Nynaeve al'Meara
Nynaeve is afraid that Rahvin will attack and kill her and Moghedien. Just as he is about to attack, a white bar turns him to mist. Rand climbs the stairs, appearing in front of her. She makes the leash on the a'dam disappear, which continues to work as Elayne said it would. Rand wants Nynaeve to tell Elayne to forget him because he has something else to love. He also tells Nynaeve that Lan says the same to her. Nynaeve tells him that it is evil to come here in the flesh.
She then deals with Moghedien by making her drink a cup of forkroot. Before Moghedien sleeps, Nynaeve mentions some things Moghedien said that Nynaeve had never mentioned in Tel'aran'rhiod thus realising that Moghedien must be physically sleeping in Salidar (comming there as Marigan together with Nynaeve and Elayne). Finally, Nynaeve tells her that she will see her in Salidar.
Point of view: Rand al'Thor
Rand exits the palace to find a huge mass of Myrddraal and Trollocs attacking the rise where his banner flies. He uses small weaves of balefire, many at once, to attack. The Shadowspawn finally begin to flee.
The next thing Rand sees is Aviendha and Mat. He runs and hugs them both. The balefire that he had used on Rahvin wiped Rahvin's thread from the pattern far back enough that they hadn't been attacked and killed. Not everyone survived, though, and Rand is sad for those that didn't, especially the Maidens.
REACTION:
The people killed specifically by Rahvin during the battle were brought back because Rand's balefire blast essentially erased Rahvin from existence prior to any of his deadly battle deeds. However, the people not killed specifically by him were not brought back directly - even if some events likely played out differently without Rahvin's direct involvement. Nevertheless, some of of the people not killed by Rahvin were probably saved anyway by the fact that Mat / Aviendha / etc. were brought back and put in a position to save more people. Undoing Rahvin's life thread means that Mat, Asmodean, Avi, etc., all fought in that battle the entire time. The effects of at least some of Rand's attacks on Rahvin survived (nobody balefired Rand), even though there was no Rahvin there for him to be fighting because the balefire means Rahvin died before he attacked Mat, Avi, etc. Then after Rand returns from the World of Dreams, he begins using balefire in micro-shots against the shadowspawn, undoing their recent work from the battle, too, some of which was different than it would have been in the timeline wherein Rahvin was still alive. Since some of Rahvin's Andoran soldiers begin fighting trollocs to end the chapter, we can guess that some of them might have only been serving him due to mind control. However, that's a bad assumption unless Rahvin applied the mind control during the battle - and we should assume he did not. If he applied it shortly before the battle though, then maybe.
That's all... very confusing. It's like a messed up time travel plot but it's messed up and hard to follow on purpose. The reader is supposed to think, "no wonder this weave is banned."
It's worth remembering - for the future - that Rand loses himself inside of Lews Therin's mind for a long stretch in this chapter. He even starts to see his own body begin to look like Lews Therin in the World of Dreams (though that was Rahvin - or at least Rand thinks so.) We know it's possible to change one person into something else based on what Moggy did to Birgitte in the previous chapter and that she threatened to turn Nynaeve into a horse. But why would Rahvin do that particular change to Rand? Why leave him an adult who knows how to channel? That seems like a bad plan to me. I'm not sure I buy that it was Rahvin. My boy Rand is extremely close to being officially insane.
Rand al'Therin Telamon- just as he did in Tear - follows a Forsaken into the World of Dreams in the flesh... where Nynaeve (with Moggy on a leash) are waiting. I want to be annoyed by that plot convenience but it makes complete sense for the Forsaken to use this strategy. They think they know the turf better in tel'aran'rhiod than Rand does, so they pick that turf to fight him from. It's just that Rand is Rand and the most powerful ta'veren of all time. It's not a fair game.
The best part of this boss fight was Nynaeve's part in it. She literally melted Rahvin's face off! It was also powerfully cathartic to see Moghedien sobbing and pleading for Nynaeve to let them leave. Nynaeve has been (pretty foolishly) abusing herself for being a coward, for most of this book, and now she's acting bravely to the point of madness... and doing it calmly... while her book-long foe is the coward. Their entire interaction and role reversal in this chapter was well-earned and highly enjoyable.
After all her years hiding in shadows, the Spider was such a coward she almost made Nynaeve feel brave by comparison. Almost.
Nynaeve saving Rand largely helps to sell the fact that Rand won this fight at all... against a much more strongly skilled opponent. Rand shouldn't have realistically been able to win, otherwise. Moiraine saved him from Be'lal. Moiraine saved him from Lanfear. An angeral (and Lanfear) saved him from Asmodean. A sa'angreal saved him from Ishamael. Now Nynaeve saved him from Rahvin before Rand finished him off.
Is there a lesson that Jordan is teaching? Yes! It's that even the Chosen One cannot do it by himself. It's worth keeping that lesson in mind as we read the series going forward.
I love the Nynaeve and Rand relationship. Most of Rand's relationships with women have a romantic undertone or a combative one built around a struggle for autonomy and authority. There is none of that with Nynaeve. She is like his fierce, ridiculously loyal, older sister. I wish these two had more on-the-page time together. It's fun to read and it's one of my favorite relationships in the series.
Looking at it on the whole, this is our Wisdom's book. She had the big character arc journey - moreso than anyone else including Rand. She defeated TWO forsaken over the last two chapters. Nynaeve completes her big moment of victory by revealing that she's reasoned out that Moghedien is hiding in Salidar. She even tricks Moggy into drinking so much World of Dreams forkroot that they'll be able to attach a waking-world a'dam to her neck once they're both back in the waking world, and before the Spider can wake up and channel again. So she now has her own captive Forsaken tutor, the same as Rand has had in this book.
An absolutely dominant victory for Nynaeve. If Elayne or Egwene continue to give her any lip, I hope she (or preferably someone else) boxes their ears. They should all be in awe of her.
I'm looking forward to the wrap-up chapter to close this book. It's been a fun ride and another great title in the series. However, I think we are currently bereft of a "where do we go next" framing and I expect that to arrive in the final chapter.
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