Great chapters - thanks to MG for trading me, and additionally for setting himself up so perfectly :)
About half of this post had to be cut because I realized it was full of spoilers. I'll save it for later.
Chapter 13 was previously accidentally left out of my post; it has now been appended.
Chapter 8 - Simion and Noam
This is a perfect example of what I love about Robert Jordan's writing. In just a handful of pages, not only does the entire town of Jarra become a living place in my memory, but we get this FANTASTIC story about these two brothers: Simion, the chinless frog-faced villager; and his brother Noam, who is - like Perrin - a man who could talk to wolves.
Rand is only a day or so ahead of the main party, and everywhere he goes, the Wheel weaves the Pattern around him. In his short stay in Jarra, Rand's presence caused not only a cascade of weddings - "" - but also caused the larger part of a patrol of Whitecloaks to abandon their oath. I like to think of ta'veren as "turning up the gain" on whatever is inside the people around them - they don't so much cause people to do specific things; they just break down the natural inhibitions that keep society together, amplifying whatever your natural tendency is until you can no longer exert self-control but have merely become a slave to the passions you've been keeping in check. We see this with the Whitecloaks; one of them obviously joined for the glory, as the presence of a ta'veren causes him to abandon his unit to go off hunting the Horn; another obviously has a particular desire to stop the Dragon; the rest are mostly bullies and boors, looking for a shield from behind which they can behave like thugs and filth peddlars.
But these chapters are really powerful because of the brothers; and I really loved how we get the story of Noam so quickly after a post by MG where he opines that "I understand what the author is trying to do - make it seem like to join with the wolves is to become an animal - but it’s just not...I just can’t buy into it." Noam has become EXACTLY what Perrin fears! And Simion's obsequiousness as he tries to solicit the help Perrin and Moiraine is such a powerful testament to the love he bears for his brother - as is the act, at the end of the chapter, of giving his consent to let his more-wolf-than-brother run away to live out what life he can find as a "wolf". Just really, really great storytelling; and it hangs so heavily on the hinges of the person we've learned Perrin to be over the previous two novels, I don't know that it would have been a story we get to hear had Jordan really managed to fit this story into a classic fantasy trilogy; it certainly would not have had the same efficacy.
Chapter 9: The World of Dreams
"...wolves live partly in this world, and partly in a world of dreams..."
"Run now! You must not be here now. Danger. Great danger. Worse than all the Neverborn. You must go. Go now! Now!"
This is *great* stuff; we'll come to learn a LOT more about this "world of dreams" over the next 11 books, but this is a fantastic piece of color for the world of WoT - especially coming so soon on the heels of what we saw happened to Noam. I realize we've been seeing stuff like this since book one, when Rand pricked his finger in a dream and woke to found it bleeding - but the more it develops, the more I really enjoy it. One of the things that makes me hate and fear sleep so much is the power of dreams to really screw with your (my) head; the idea presented in this series that even PHYSICAL harm can extend beyond the dream and into the waking world is such powerful stuff BECAUSE of the deep-seated racial respect/awe/fear we have for the power of dreams. Plus, that shadow tendril TOTALLY JUST SKINNED THAT POMPOUS JERK.
By the way: if you're digging the whole wolf-brother stuff, I recommend checking out the anime "Wolf's Rain"; it's a personal favorite of mine, and the way they wolves behave in that reality has a lot in common with the muthology that Jordan is wrapping around wolves in his world.
"I do not want *any* purpose in the Pattern..."; amen to that, brother. Reminds me of that old Chinese proverb, "寧為太平犬，不做亂世人") ("It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period." - however, being a wolf is pretty much awesome whenever.)
"The Power filled him. Something leaped from his outstretched hands; he was not sure what it was. A bar of white light, solid as steel. Liquid fire. For an instant, in the middle of that something, the dog seemed to become transparent, and then it was gone." Rand is wielding something called balefire. We'll find out more about it later, but it's AWESOME (and also incredibly, incredibly dangerous.)
Chapter 10:
The girls are stupid and impetuous; we meet Dain Bornhald, son of Geofram. He's a pretty angry dude.
Chapter 11:
Things are tense in Tar Valon and surrounding area. The Whitecloaks are growing braver, but will not engage in an open confrontation. The girls' behaviour in these two chapters reminds me of the old Mark Twain quote: It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. That being said, I think Verin bears some of the blame for the behaviour of the girls here; they just rode all the way from Falme and it would seem that at no point in that trip did Verin think to start coaching the girls on how to comport themselves in general; that old Aes Sedai habit of just keeping all the facts to yourself and then exploding in anger when people decided - out of the ignorance YOU forced on them - to act in ways that are perhaps best avoided.
Chapter 12: Siuan Sanche
Siuan Sanche, the Amyrlin Seat, is probably my favorite Aes Sedai. We learn a lot from her conversation with Verin; there were two false Dragons who suffered the exact same fate the moment Rand declared himself the Dragon Reborn.
“The true Dragon has been Reborn,” Verin said almost to herself, “and so the Pattern has no room for false Dragons anymore. We have loosed the Dragon Reborn on the world. The Light have mercy on us.”
Chapter 13: Too much, too soon
Faolain is an interesting character - it seems like, if things had worked out just a little bit differently, Faolain might have been a friend to our intrepid bunch; however, because of their rapid advancement through the ranks, she is both threatened by them and jealous of them, which makes her a quick enemy instead. Had they all come up through the ranks together, it seems likely she'd have been more of a comrade-in-arms.
The Tower already knows that Liandrin was Black Ajah, killing and stealing everything they could before they left; several of the ter'angreal stolen had no known use, and Egwene speculates internally that perhaps the Black Ajah DOES know their use and has been keeping it to themselves. I find it more likely that they just stole everything they could readily lay their hands on.
Siuan's punishment doesn't seem exceptionally harsh, and I wish Jordan had found a different occasion on which to advance them; obviously, they will need to rise through the ranks at a more rapid pace than Aes Sedai are accustomed to, but it stretches credulity to think that the Amyrlin would raise them to Accepted in more or less the same breath as announcing their very public punishments.
