egwene just looked mat dead in the eye and informed him that he’s a simp for rand

so we’re all predicting that mat and the girls will be at the white tower at the beginning of s2 and that the caemlyn crew will also be introduced there, SO the ideal introduction for galad would be to have egwene, nynaeve, and mat going for a stroll around the white tower grounds, they come across warders training, cut to extremely sexy shot of galad swordfighting (slow motion optional), cut back to egwene and nynaeve AND mat all drooling

lord of chaos chapters 7-23

• “you [elayne] have a lion’s courage and maybe a fisherbird’s sense” that’s my girl!!!!
  
• elayne and nynaeve always wishing they were as brave as the other is so wholesome
• thom and juilin are not around because they went on a trip to amadicia. after being overworked dads to elayne and nynaeve for 2 books they decided to get married and are now enjoying a nice honeymoon conducting espionage together, good for them!
• “the dragon reborn had no interest in the flyspeck village where rand al’thor had grown up; he was far beyond that” and then a few pages later when he sees the two rivers girls “[wondering why verin and alanna were poking around] was hardly most important anyway. these girls were from home.”
  
• if i were to record all the rand moments that hurt my heart in these chapters then i would just be copying out his entire pov sections into this post, so i will attempt to limit myself

• i hate how desperate the two rivers folk are to make perrin their lord. wasn’t their whole culture about wanting to rule themselves and not having any respect for nobility? smh
• alanna non-consensually bonded rand as her warder!!! holy shit!!!!!! given that i’ve been spoiled on so much, i think this might be the biggest shock i’ve had so far. i knew alanna was somehow sus bc people kept saying “i can’t believe the show made me like alanna” lmao but i was NOT expecting this!!!! how on earth is this plotline gonna play out???
• poor poor rand. his freakout is so understandable and justified, but it hurts to see him losing it at the two rivers girls and scaring them. i doubt this would happen in the show since show!bode is too young to be brought to the tower for training, but imagine show!mat’s reaction to hearing that rand channeled on his sister and scared her so much she cried ️ rand would be a dead man walking
• “best that [the girls] wanted to stay clear of him. best for them. he just wished he could have talked a little while longer about home. a little while longer with them seeing only rand al’thor.”
  
• “it would be so wonderful to channel whenever she wanted. she never even noticed the tears that began leaking down her cheeks.” i wonder if nynaeve will ever get unblocked, surely she must for her own character development if nothing else, but on the other hand her block is a good way of making sure she isn’t too OP since she’s one of the most powerful channelers in the book (aside from rand, who has the taint on saidin keeping HIM from being too OP)
  
• gawyn in his dreams seeing himself as less handsome than egwene thinks he is and her as more beautiful fuck me that’s cute ok?
• nevertheless egwene’s sudden internal declaration of love for gawyn is insane. last i heard she was conflicted between him and galad, and even then only very far in the back of her mind. she’s barely ever thought about him!
• skipping a few chapters ahead but it’s relevant here: we learn that galad is rand’s half-brother (which i’d already been spoiled on), however, i’ve heard that the two of them never meet again for the rest of the series. so WHAT is the fucking POINT??? this is the problem with having so many characters and plotlines spread so far across the world. all the relationships become missed opportunities or dropped threads, or incredibly rushed to force a bond between characters who interacted twice 3 books ago. i would kill to have fewer plotlines in exchange for more characters being in a single plotline together more often. argh!!!!
• **vague spoilers in this bullet point for information in future books that i’m not supposed to know about yet but do** “[in egwene’s dream] two ravens alighted on [mat’s] shoulders, claws sinking through his coat into the flesh beneath. he seemed no more aware of them than perrin had been of the hawk and falcon, yet defiance passed across his face, and then grim acceptance.” baby boy you deserve better (from the vague spoilers i’ve heard about your fate anyway). it is interesting that ravens are a seanchan thing as well as a dark one thing, if i didn’t know otherwise from spoilers i’d probably think that all these ravens in mat’s future meant he would become evil and join the dark one
  
• “that awful amnesty of [rand’s] had been announced in cairhien, but surely no man would chooseto channel.” do you think they can help it any more than you can, egwene? do you think it’s any less a part of them than it is a part of you? another entry in the male-channeling-as-metaphor-for-queerness list
  
• the wise ones saying egwene has become like a daughter of their tents i will be very sad when she has to leave them and return to the aes sedai
• “[gareth] might be cold toward [elayne] now, but once he had had a warm smile for a child and a pocket that always held hard candies.” poor elayne wants a dad so bad!! i hope she gets to meet tam al’thor someday. she probably won’t but she deserves to.
  
• “[nynaeve] shoved her chin up in a ridiculous fashion so she had to look down her nose to see elayne” jsdkfjg ELAYNE i love you and your lack of self-awareness
  
• “with the dragon scepter across his knees, rand lounged on the dragon throne” the Rand Bisexual Sitting counter has ticked up by 1
  
• “my lord dragon, lord of the morning, prince of the dawn, true defender of the light, before whom the world kneels in awe” what a sexy list of titles
  
• rand constantly thinking of moiraine’s advice
• “even mat had the sense to stay away from a woman if he thought he would harm her” i feel like this is the nicest thing anyone’s ever had to say about mat’s approach to romance lmao poor mat
  
• i am so conflicted about berelain. it’s hard to look past her predatory behavior towards rand and perrin back in tsr, and yet other women are so awful and slut-shamey to her that it makes me want to stan her out of spite. “[the wise ones] treated her as a woman of sense and respect, which made no sense at all to egwene…the mayener flaunted herself in scandalous clothes and flirted outrageously” maybe the wise ones aren’t so petty and shallow that they focus on the way berelain dresses over her intelligence and leadership skills, egwene.
• i think i would like to see berelain get a real love interest who actually loves her heart and mind and not just her appearance. that would be very nice for her.
• “he pulled one of the gilded chairs around to face her and sprawled in it, booted feet stretched out in front of him” Rand Bisexual Sitting counter up 1 more
  
• “he looked so tired. and hard, hard enough to make the smile appear odd. he seemed harder every time she saw him.” “she had changed so much from the girl he grew up with…he had to think of her as aes sedai. it was saddening.” ️ i didn’t care all that much about rand and egwene’s relationship in the show and i cared about it far less in the books, but man it hurts to watch it deteriorate
  
• “whatever the car’a’carn wanted, nothing must happen to the only son of  a maiden ever to come back to them.” AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH
  
• “rand thought that he would sleep well that night” LMAO famous last words
  
• “[bael] had two [wives], which mat always said was either a dream or a nightmare and he could not decide which” rand really wants us to know what mat’s thoughts on polyamory are
  
• we finally meet the famous elder haman! and loial’s mom! now i see where loial gets his hastiness from. speaking of loial, i miss him so much!!!
• sad state of things indeed that going back to shadar logoth makes me nostalgic for the good old days. i want my ef5 back together goddammit!!!! i feel like my liveblogs for the whole second half of the series are just going to be me complaining about how split up everyone is
• “rand stared north and west, not toward emond’s field, but toward the farm where he had grown up. when he turned away and opened a gateway to caemlyn, it was like tearing his own arm off” out of all the rand moments that have hurt me, this one is towards the top. my whole chest is aching!! physically!!
  
• mat’s thoughts about how hard it is to keep elayne and nynaeve out of trouble being interrupted by someone asking if he’s ever wondered what it would be like to be a warder SHOULD be foreshadowing and i am so MAD that it isn’t. i see your mat being rand’s warder AUs and i raise you mat being elayne’s warder AU! gimme!!
• “if any two women needed looking out for less, mat did not know them” mat drank his respecting women juice “but no two were more likely to get a man killed because they would not listen to reason” mat spat out his respecting women juice
  
• he’s so cute tho he’s like “i hope they’re okay. but also i hope they’re in trouble and wishing i was there to help them. not TOO much trouble though, i don’t want them to get hurt or anything! i just want them to miss me that’s all” when will these 3 admit they’re besties
• every time mat’s habit of collecting cool rocks and feathers and shit is mentioned i receive +1000 emotional damage. and despite how accustomed he’s gotten to wealth, it’s still cool rocks and feathers and shit that he likes to collect instead of expensive items. he is my baby boy.
• and olver collects things like that TOO AAAHHHHHH STOP!! MY HEART
• “now he had saddled himself with a boy” accidental baby acquisition realness! mat, hugging olver tight and actively seeking out adoption papers: i can’t believe i’ve been saddled with this boy
  

me every time a wheel of time character suddenly declares that they’re in love with another character

mat and perrin whenever they go too far away from rand for too long

diving into lord of chaos! the 3 terms i know from this book going in are The Box, dumai’s wells, and asha’man kill. what do they mean? i don’t know, but i know they’re iconic (and traumatic) and i will be keeping an eye out for them

• the similar names are starting to get out of hand. took me a solid paragraph to remember demandred was a forsaken and not some cairhienin (since a lot of cairhienin names have the -dred ending). and every time i see “mazrim taim” i feel like mat and tam al’thor are making up fake names to get free trials of stuff
• our first glimpse of shayol ghul and the dark one! very exciting. does the dark one have a corporeal form or is he just like a spirit entity? a deity of sorts? how will rand be able to battle and defeat him? (all rhetorical questions ofc)
• i wonder if shayol ghul will exist at all in the show since they’ve changed the dark one’s prison to the eye of the world. now that i’m thinking about it i think that was a great decision bc a) shayol ghul feels like a lotr knockoff whereas the eye and the blight are more distinct and memorable b) what even is the point of the eye in the books? does it ever come up again after the first one? why did moiraine even need to take the kids there in the first place (i’m sure this was explained at the time but i completely forget)? why is there just a pool of untainted saidin chilling there? how is that possible? how can saidin be matter, i thought it was just some intangible force? why doesn’t rand think about going back to the eye to try and use this untainted saidin? all this to say that the show’s version of “the eye is the dark one’s prison and moiraine has to take the kids there to defeat him” is much more clear-cut. and c) older hardened rand going to the eye to battle the dark one in the series finale the same way little baby rand did in the s1 finale will be a beautiful full circle moment and WILL make me cry my eyes out
• is it just me or is the aes sedai not letting elayne go to caemlyn very uhhhhh stupid? i understand they want her to finish her training but, political powerhouses as they supposedly are, you would think they’d realize that a huge country being in turmoil because they have no ruler MIGHT cause problems. “if rand has you and caemlyn he has andor” so you think the solution is to keep elayne away and let him have caemlyn all to himself? how is that not worse?
  
• if elayne can make ter’angreal now, i think she should make a matching set of Fuck Hut-esque ter’angreals for all members of the polycule so that they can long-distance date more effectively
• “min’s laugh had a huskiness to it; elayne supposed many men would find that attractive. and she was pretty, in a mischievous sort of way.” i swear to god elayne is the most bisexual straight character i’ve ever encountered. i can’t wait for the show to make bi elayne canon
  

• “if [rand] learns about the viewing he might decide it isn’t what we want, only the pattern, or his being ta’veren. he could decide to be noble and save us by not letting either of us near him” elayne says, and she is bang on, but min replies “more likely, if he realizes we’ll both come running when he crooks a finger, he’ll crook it. he won’t be able to help himself.” doing rand a huge disservice and proving that elayne knows him WAY better than she does
  
• “you and i will divide him up like a pie. maybe we’ll let the third have a bit of crust when she shows up.” ugh. min you are losing my esteem left right and center. i absolutely loved her the first 4 books, things took an abrupt nosedive in book 5, and book 6 is not off to a promising start. some of you guys have assured me that min/rand will get much better once they actually have screentime together (though others have said that it remained their least fav rand ship throughout), which i hope is the case bc at the current moment there’s a long ways to go before i will ship it. at this point i’m advocating for mat straight up taking her spot in the polycule rather than being added as a fifth jkdjfg
• very fitting that the next scene opens with faile saying “a man is not a horse or a field, neither of you can own him” i do feel like she ought to take her own advice there lmfao but i’m glad to see her again!!! despite how much the tsr relationship drama pissed me off, i actually really love faile? i think that’s an unpopular opinion, but I Just Think She’s Neat
• so it seems it’s perrin’s turn to experience the homoerotic ta’veren pull! very interesting how faile thinks about “sharing” perrin with rand with similar language as elayne and min do about sharing rand romantically with each other. if you wanna be my lover you gotta get with my fellow ta’veren to whom fate has inexorably linked me
• tangent but i’m realizing that mat’s struggle with his fate-pull to rand is so fucking SIMILAR to min’s and aviendha’s. good GOD just put him in the polycule!
• “why did the dragon reborn need perrin now, so strongly that perrin could feel it across however many hundred leagues lay between them?” fellas is it gay to need your buddy so strongly that he can feel it from hundreds of leagues away
• i know we hate gawyn, but him thinking about swearing an oath to give his life for elayne’s when he was “barely tall enough to peer into elayne’s cradle” that got to me okay? and i can’t blame him for believing the rumors that rand killed morgase and elayne and now wanting to kill rand for it. “gawyn had chosen to stay because his mother had always supported the tower, because his sister wanted to be aes sedai” that was an aha! moment for me where i felt that i understood gawyn’s decision in the coup much better - he has no reason to disbelieve the charges against siuan (esp since he was already suspicious of her for concealing elayne’s whereabouts) and he truly thought that supporting elaida (who was his mother’s advisor for most of his life) meant supporting the tower, and therefore his mom and sister. i still have no strong opinion about gawyn either way, time will tell whether i join the ranks of gawyn haters or end up taking him under my wing as a problematic fav
• sevanna mentions a small cube that a wetlander gave to her with instructions of what to do with it once she had rand. mesaana mentions something called a “stasis box.” could one or both of these things be THE box????
• i am 65% sure osan’gar is ishamael brought back to life (we know he’s a male forsaken but not rahvin, and i don’t think any of the other dead ones are important enough to make a comeback), but i wonder who aran’gar could be
  
• “stripped to the waist…sweat slicked his hair to his skull, rolled down his chest…figures like that on the white banner overhead twined around his forearms, glittering metallically red-and-gold” god bless, we continue our tradition of a sexy description of rand to kick off the book (post-prologue). i vividly remember tfoh opening with a sexy description of him lounging by a window in rhuidean, and i believe tgh began with him shirtlessly sparring with lan
  
• “sometimes he was so sick of himself that he really was ready to die”
  
• “rand said nothing; mat’s secrets were his own” protective boyfriend! “he supposed mat had to have read a book sometime, somewhere, but mat did not have much interest in books” exasperated boyfriend!
  
• bashere is so chill i love him. how he has a daughter who is Like That i have no idea. i hope we get to see him and faile interact sometime.
• “he would welcome more men who could channel walking the earth unmolested. finally he would stop being a freak.” man that just shattered my heart. sometimes it really hits that rand is only a deeply lonely 20-year-old trying his best. also, rand’s channeling abilities as metaphor for queerness example #372456
  
• “i’m going to build something, leave something behind. whatever happens, i will do that! i’ll defeat the dark one. and cleanse saidin, so men don’t have to fear going mad, and the world doesn’t have to fear men channeling” just copy in all my commentary from the previous bullet point, crying emojis included
  
• lots of mentions of rand’s luck, and taim even says he has the dark one’s own luck. which as we know is a mat thing! leave me to grasp at what cauthor straws i can, ok? now that i mention it, i’m 90% sure that the very first instance of “time to toss the dice” was actually rand, when he was trying to take them all thru the portal stone in tgh
• lews therin when rand yells at him to shut up: surprised pikachu.jpg. interesting that he may be an actual conscious (?) voice that rand can talk to, rather than just memories etc. but does this mean that lews therin will never truly get to rest in peace, if some part of him is still alive thru rand? that’s so sad :(
• i feel that entrusting all these male channelers to the tutelage of some powerful and dangerous guy who just showed up who rand is getting bad vibes from right off the bat may not be the smartest idea, but poor rand is so overworked, he really doesn’t have many other options
• “to the maidens, rand was all those children come back, the first child of a maiden ever to be known to everyone”
  

• okay okay okay i’m fine moving on
• “he had to stay away from [aviendha]. he carried death with him like a contagious disease; he was like a target, and people died near him” see? elayne was bang on
  
• rand absolutely owning the maidens by telling a joke so bad even i can’t work out the punchline. i love him.
• “tolmeran’s doubts centered on mat. despite what he had heard from cairhienin of mat’s skill in battle, tolmeran thought it flattery from fools for a country man who happened to be a friend of the dragon reborn” i just KNOW there are rumors that mat only got his job because he’s sleeping with rand, i just know it
  
• “they were honest objections, and semaradrid’s even had validity” so rand thinks that tolmeran’s objections about mat are NOT valid. supportive boyfriend!
  
• the maidens giving rand advice for how to get aviendha’s attention i’m crying they are his big sisters and moms!!! i love them!!!!

• had to post this passage in full bc i’m hollering. i rest my case about there being rumors that mat is sleeping with rand. he is so anxious about anyone finding out rand teleported to his room for a pre-dawn bootycall (which, come on, rand, you can’t just teleport directly into someone’s room in the middle of the night, mat would’ve been well within his rights to stab you)
• “how do you know you’re in love with a woman, mat?” “how in the pit of doom should i know?” mat has no time for your heteronormative assumptions rand
  
• i feel like rand didn’t even need mat’s input on anything, he just came bc he wanted to talk to him usually rand keeps his problems close to his chest, but he’s venting pretty freely to mat rn
• rand saying “no man should have another man’s voice in his head” about his own problems and mat thinking he’s talking about HIS problems AAAAAAHHHH JUST FUCKIN TALK TO EACH OTHER YOU IDIOTS!!! YOU HAVE (SOME OF) THE SAME PROBLEMS!!! GIVE EACH OTHER THERAPY!!!!! GODDAMMIT
• mat has adopted a child!! he really went “i’ve only had olver for a second and a half but if anything happens to him i’ll kill everyone in this town and then myself.” he is such a dad!!!! him kneeling down to talk to olver instead of talking about him over his head to another adult because he used to hate when adults did that to him this will be all the more touching in the show with Dad Mat already established by his devotion to his sisters
  
• i am so sooooo curious about the lands beyond the aiel waste and wonder if we’ll ever see more of them

aviendha, to rand: those pants look great. and i bet they would look even better on elayne’s floor.

elayne: are you hitting on rand…for me?

time for my end-of-tfoh post!! this one is LONG but i just had so many thoughts on the last few chapters

• i LOVE nynaeve nerding out over healing and elayne over making angreal. they are so cute and powerful!! it’s nice especially to see elayne develop her Thing™ the way nynaeve has healing and egwene dreaming
• min and elayne reunion! interesting to finally see 2 of rand’s gfs acknowledge to each other that they both like him. and good for them for not wanting it to affect their friendship and for trying to make the best of it, though elayne is understandably less than thrilled at the prospect of sharing rand (when as far as she knows she’s still the only one of the 3 who’s had any sort of actual relationship with him)
  
• “i saw that you’d fall in love with him, i don’t know what he feels for you” wow min no need to make elayne feel more insecure than she already does. min is just not buttering my bread this book i have to say.
  
• “who was the third woman? aviendha had better be keeping a close eye on him” that’s some delicious dramatic irony and my first reaction was to laugh, but also, it really hits home how scummy it was that aviendha and rand slept together. like, elayne has put so much trust in her! at least aviendha is very aware of the wrong done and plans to make amends for it, from her mention of having toh to elayne now. and elayne’s conflicting letters give rand juuuuust enough plausible deniability regarding her feelings and intentions towards him that it MAYBE doesn’t count as cheating. still, doesn’t sit right with me and my elayne-loving heart.
  

• back to cairhien. poor rand, he’s got so many problems, and to top it all off everyone in cairhien (still) wants to fuck him. the show better have some cairhienin lords as well as ladies thirsting over rand or else it’s a coward
  
• “moiraine smiled. ‘you learn quickly. you will do well.’ for a moment she looked almost fond.” MOMRAINE
  
• “[mat’s] green coat hung open, and his shirt was half unlaced, exposing the silver foxhead dangling on his sweaty chest” someone get rand a glass of water, he’s thirsty
• rand intentionally letting mat be scared by the 3 aes sedai (well 2+aviendha) to make him more susceptible to what rand needs to order him to do ️ 1x06 rand “pulls a sword on moiraine to protect mat from her” al’thor would be horrified. oh it hurts to see who my sunshine boy is being forced to become
• mat insulting elayne and in the same breath saying he’s glad she’s not here to hear the news of morgase’s death. matlayne rights!
• i never believed even for a moment that she was really dead, but rand’s guilt over it hurts!!
• mat straightaway advocating for finding elayne and putting her on the throne. matlayne rights!
• “i will see you tonight or i will see you dead” rand you can’t just summon asmodean for a bootycall right in front of your girlfriend and your boyfriend and your ex-girlfriend and your mom
  
• “you will never choose what risks i take, rand al’thor. never. know it now.” obsessed with this line, i want it tattooed on my brain
  
• “‘i said, shut up!’ rand drove the foxhead against mat’s chest with a hard finger.” mat internally: [chanting] top me top me top me
  
• “the stormy meeting with rand had gone on till the sun set” i wonder what happened in mat and rand’s fade-to-black stormy meeting that lasted until sunset
  
• melindhra is evil [pretends to be shocked] (i’d already been spoiled on it but i’m certain i would’ve been able to guess even if i hadn’t) poor mat is so traumatized from having to kill her :((((
• “i am the car’a’carn, remember.” “you have shaving lather on your ear, rand al’thor.” they are so married
  
• aviendha defending her brother-husband when asmodean suggests that mat killing melindhra is the reason the maidens are mad
  
• “amazingly, [moiraine] gave mat a warm smile” MOMRAINE
  
• “you have changed from the boy i first saw outside the winespring inn” MOMRAINE
  
• lanfear really said If I Can’t Have Him No One Can
• “he could end it. only, he could not. he was going to die, perhaps the world would die, but he could not make himself kill another woman.” interrupting my bullet list because only a picture can express my feelings about this:
  

• thank god moiraine has a braincell and yeets lanfear through the ter’angreal
• i’m 100% confident that moiraine is fine. no body no death! and i’ve heard about things she does that have not happened yet therefore she’s still alive
  
• lan and rand’s reactions though but please lan, i know you’re Going Through It but please don’t give rand your terrible “you and i bring nothing but pain to the people we love, you should push everyone away” relationship advice as your parting words, the boy is emotionally fucked up enough already
• moiraine’s letter to rand MOMRAINE!! and rand crying
• sulin’s verbal ear-boxing to rand over his dumb hangups over women in battle was much needed, but sadly it didn’t really change his opinion, only convinced him there was no point arguing with the maidens. rand’s concern for the maidens and valuing their safety over the other societies’ would be so touching if it came from a place of them being his Family and the aiel he’s closest to instead of just being because they’re women
• “i thought maybe they were going to go in one at a time and kiss you out of your miseries” mat you’re projecting, i know you’re the one who wanted to go in and kiss rand out of his miseries
  
• mat saying “i like canoodling as much as the next man but don’t you think there are a few too many people watching” when rand and aviendha are having a Moment jdkfjg he really said “are you serious? right in front of my salad?” and this from mat of all people who you would think wouldn’t give a shit about other people’s pda. he’s totally jealous
• there are some sort of matrandlayne rights here in the fact that mat and rand are breaking into elayne’s palace together the same way they both did separately in the past
• “now i find i truly like the sight of you on your knees” moghedien that’s gay
  
• “nynaeve took hold of the silvery leash where it joined the collar and pulled the forsaken’s face close to hers” nynaeve that’s gay
  
• fat little man angreal my beloved. if rand ever loses that little guy i’ll be devastated.
• so rand can enter tel’aran’rhiod without a ter’angreal? and i believe mat will eventually reunite with elayne and nynaeve who have ter’angreals that can be used even by someone who can’t channel. are you thinking long-distance cauthor because i’m thinking long-distance cauthor! no i don’t care if nynaeve says rand loses part of himself by entering tel’aran’rhiod this way, how else is he supposed to call his boyfriend, nynaeve?
• i was so convinced rand was gaslighting me when he kept insisting he’d entered tel’aran’rhiod back in tear because i had 0 memory of any such thing, but as i was typing out my complaint i remembered that must’ve been what he did in his final battle with ishamael lmao fuck man too much Stuff happens in these books, my memory cannot possibly retain it all. also that battle with ishamael was confusing as hell to me and i don’t think i realized that entering tel’aran’rhiod was what had happened, i was just kinda like “all right rand left this plane of existence somehow, cool, moving on”
• nynaeve and rand’s reunion healed and hurt me at the same time. they’ve both changed so much since they last saw each other
• i already made a post weeping over rand reuniting with not-dead aviendha and mat but i simply must reiterate how much it made my heart swell!!!!!
• also, certain book readers were seriously complaining about nynaeve’s “fakeout death” at the end of 1x08 when the entire ending of tfoh is the way that it is LMAOOOO possibly the best example yet of “turns out things book readers criticized the show for were already present in the books but so much worse” (not that i’m bothered by fakeout deaths personally, if i had it my way no characters i like would die ever) (the other biggest example is certain readers saying that the relationship drama in the show was petty and immature. how someone could say that with a straight face after reading the way LITERALLY EVERY RELATIONSHIP IN THE WHOLE BOOK SERIES is written is beyond me)
• rand protectively watching over mat and aviendha chatting by the fountain together ❤️❤️❤️ randwich rights!
• rand granting amnesty to male channelers and deciding to start a lil school! this is going to be a fun plotline
• ASMODEAN!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
• oh asmodean we barely knew ye. gone far too soon. rip king. i’m genuinely so pissed off about this actually, there is so much wasted potential!! he had the potential to be SUCH a fascinating character with SUCH a fascinating relationship with rand, but it was barely explored. URGH!!! curious to know who killed him tho, you would assume it was another forsaken but that almost seems too obvious…………

RANDWICH!!! RANDWICH!!!!! RANDWICH!!!!!!!!

rand ordering asmodean to play the saddest song he knows after mat tells him he’s leaving

highladyluck:

Mat: “We’re taking her with us.”

Every other character:

lesbiancytherea:

• “Is that all?” Rand said. “You know Nynaeve’s temper. When Cenn Buie called her a child last year, she thumped him on the head with her stick, and he’s on the Village Council, and old enough to be her grandfather, besides. She flares up at anything, and never stays angry past turning around.”
• [Thom] “One old grandfather starts ranting at me about the kind of stories I should or should not tell, then a girl-child shouts at me to get out, and threatens me with a great club when I don’t move quickly enough for her. Who ever heard of treating a gleeman so?”

Is it bad that I love when nynaeve antagonizes the senior citizens ajdhdhdhfh

jaqobis:

just thinking about the forsaken and their deal is so funny like??? imagine you lived your life in the jetsons and got sealed away and woke up and people were just rediscovering plumbing like shit i’d go feral too

asha-mage:

WoT Musing: The Tragedy of Aram

Elyas makes maybe the most lucid observation about Aram’s central conflict in the entire series. Aram has given up everything he is for the sword: his pepole, his way of life, his beliefs, even his family. Because he could not live with being powerless in a violent world, he could not stay to a peaceful way of life in a world that was too cruel for peace. That left a void in him, a void with he filled with his devotion to Perrin, Faile, and the sword. And it’s not enough.

But part of the reason it’s not enough is because Perrin dosen’t want to be the object of Aram’s loyalty. Perrin so often rejects every part of being a Lord: but especially he rejects the relationship between master and servant, or master and armsman. He dosen’t want power over anyone, he dosen’t want people depending on him as the source of guidance and protection and meaning in their lives, because deep down Perrin thinks he isn’t worthy, and will screw everything up. To that end, Perrin seizes on every small mistake as evidence of his unfitness to lead, and ignores all evidence to the contrary, with a willful stubborn blindness.

And the worst side effect of this, is that Perirn’s most loyal follower, his most devoted ally, the person who gave his all to Perrin….is left out in the wind. Perrin’s refusal to try and lead, leaves Aram lost and angry and bitter, as the person he gave up everything to follow increasingly rejects his aid and his loyalty, rebukes and censures him for doing what he swore to do without offering an feedback or instructions on what he should have done differently, because at the end of the day it isn’t really about Aram. It’s about Perrin’s desire to reject what Aram’s represents, the devotion of armsman to lord.

And so Aram is left to twist in the wind, to become more isolated, more bitter, and more frustrated, which makes him the perfect target for Masema’s manipulation, Masema, who knows how faith in a higher power can be used to take advantage of others, and to fill the void in people when the world around them fails them. Masema, who tells him it’s Perrin that is evil, foul, and corrupt, that gives outlet to Aram’s anger and frustration and the betrayal he feels.

Aram is a victim of Perrin’s indecisiveness, and the worst part is, that he never fully reckons with that, never is forced to confront the consequences of his failure to take responsibility. He accepted Aram’s oath, and then betrayed his loyalty, but being tunnel visioned onto his own insecurities, and his need to save Faile, he never realized it.

So Aram dies a footnote, in both the narrative and Perrin’s view, and that in so many ways is the worst fate he could have had.

excellent analysis, never considered Aram or even Perrin in this light

mashithamel:

I love Nynaeve’s imposter syndrome. She kicks herself for a lack of bravery as she drags a Forsaken she’s taken captive into a battle zone to try to face down a second Forsaken.

I’ve known many women who are so capable but don’t see how talented they are, just the mistakes. It’s a very honest read on this really brave and remarkable woman that she wouldn’t recognize that in herself. It humanizes someone who could otherwise come across as very one-note because she’s always so angry.

Nynaeve is full of contradictions, as are all of the best characters in the series, and I love her for it.

witsserviceablesubstitute:

Having the rigidly Lawful Good character accidentally join a religious Fascist organisation was a genius move… and surprisingly ruthless criticism of law, order, notions of ‘goodness’, and Christianity from the devout Southern American Veteran.

markantonys:

rand reuniting with perrin in lord of chaos

rogue-rook:

this would be the funniest realization meltdown in the entire series and I’m disappointed we don’t get to see it

rogue-rook:

mat was hanged from a tree, gained wisdom, got a spear with a quote about thought and memory, became the prince of ravens, and then they took his eye out? is there ANY odin allusion mat isn’t going to parallel???