A Top 10 for 100: Story Recommendations

After about 2 years, I’ve hit post number 100 on this blog. Obligatory reflections are as follows: This blog now contains about as many words as A Tale of Two Cities. To anyone and everyone who has ever stumbled upon this humble wordpress blog, thank you. To anyone and everyone who ever happens to stumble upon this humble wordpress blog from this day on, thank you. This place has only ever existed for me to practice an aspect of my art and to share what little I may claim to know about the art of storytelling with all of you.

Also, we’re nearly halfway through NaNoWriMo. How’s everyone’s 50k challenge going? I’ll front with you all, there’s some serious effort re-quadrupling that’s going to need to be done on my part.

Anyway, today I’m getting a little bit more personal. Today I offer you 10 of my favorite stories of all time. They have all been discussed at some length on this blog (save for one), so this will be a series of brief overviews of why I would recommend some of the things on here. The first five are in no real particular order, but you could say the last five will be essentially counting down my favorite stories with Number 1 being at the bottom. After 100 posts, let’s boogie!

10: Troy (2004 Film)

Not off to all that convincing a start are we? I’ve discussed the plot of this film at length a few months ago, and lost in all the babble about recreating myth in a historically plausible manner may have been the fact this is one of my 3 favorite movies all-time. Now before you storm off with what remains of my credibility, hear me out. As a history major, I found the manner in which the film was shot and the story told fascinating, considering our primary source of knowledge about the Trojan War is an epic poem, more rooted in myth than history. And before everyone gets their feathers ruffled, there is solid evidence that a war was fought around the city of Troy around the year 1200 BCE. Whether that means the Trojan War of myth actually happened, I’ll leave to you.

In addition to the myth building, the dialogue and monologues in this film are top notch. As soon as I hear Odysseus give that opening line: “All men are haunted by the vastness of eternity” I’m strapped in. If this film had released a couple years earlier, the fight scenes (particularly the large scale battles) would’ve been revolutionary (a la The Two Towers). As it stands, Troy does a fantastic job of fusing the grandiose battles that one would expect involving a war where a face launched a thousand ships, but also highlighting the duels and romantic vision of The Iliad.

9: The Invasion Cycle (Invasion (2000), Planeshift (2000), and Apocalypse (2001) Books)

For any of you Magic: The Gathering fans out there, back in the day every new expansion bloc had a novelized trilogy associated with it. Right around fifth grade, when I was first getting into MTG, I discovered this little dark fantasy saga, and my readings of not only The Invasion Cycle, but also The Onslaught Cycle, The Mirrodin Cycle, and The Kamigawa Cycle, have informed the types of stories I tend to tell ever since. Of these, Invasion and Mirrodin are my favorites, and for nostalgia purposes, let’s discuss the former rather than the latter.

As I mentioned above, The Invasion Cycle is firmly within the realm of dark fantasy. It is brutal, ugly, and at times downright depressing. Whereas Troy blends the poetic elements of war with a bit of the ugly reality, Invasion pulls no punches. Within the first two pages, you are thrust into the total war between the two planes of Dominaria and Phyrexia. The former contains everything that is beautiful about MTG, all the diversity (both beautiful and otherwise) and the latter contains monstrosities out of a realm of nightmares. There are reluctant heroes, all powerful planeswalkers, epic battle after epic battle, and a captured sense of what it might actually look like if two entire worlds went to war with one another. And yet, it’s the quiet moments where Invasion truly shines. While they don’t happen all that often, there’s a heart-wrenching look at infectious disease through the eyes of the main characters. There’s betrayal, there’s a series of questions regarding what is worth sacrificing to save what’s left. As action packed as it all is, The Invasion Cycle is a relatively quick read and comes with a recommendation from me, especially if you want to improve your action scenes and descriptive voice as a writer.

8: Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008 TV Series)

Back in the realm of familiarity for you long time readers. There is no family TV series I can praise more than The Last Airbender. With a plot straight out of the original Star Wars trilogy, a colorful cast of characters from multiple sides of the conflict, this show takes what Star Wars did well, and explores the themes a bit more deeply. It’s a show where you can see the characters’ growth from episode to episode, it’s not afraid to have its main characters fail, and in the end it has a powerful message regarding perseverance in the face of adversity, second and third chances, redemption, and the ultimate triumph of not only good over evil, but the triumph of right over wrong and justice over revenge. I’ve already typed out way too many words on this subject, so if you’re feeling adventurous, hunt down all the old pieces on this series on this blog.

7: Honey and Clover (2005-2006 Anime)

Despite my love of Shonen Battle animes like BLEACH and Akame ga Kill, my favorites are the quirky, borderline slice of life ones like Shokugeki no Soma and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And my favorite of them all is Honey and Clover, which is full-on slice of life. The story of five kids at varying stages of their young lives going through art school and finding jobs and personal direction afterwards. My go to example for producing a story full of drama and emotion, without the presence of a single villain. There can’t even really be said to be an antagonist either (for you wisecracks who would point me in the direction of my own post on Princess Mononoke where I discussed the lack of villains there). If you’re looking for something to experience in a relaxing manner, where you can find high drama in a group of kids searching a clover patch for a four-leafed shamrock, this is the anime for you.

From a storytelling perspective, this is a prime example of a narrative that is entirely character driven. The only outside force acting upon the characters is the ever present forward march of time. And it’s a show that takes it’s time, but like life, it’s never going to let you linger in a moment for too long.

6: To the Moon (2011 Game)

Where do I even begin to express my love for this masterwork of the visual novel genre? To the point where I recommend it to non-gamers wholeheartedly and trampling over the “but really I don’t play video games” excuse. Play this one. It takes 4 hours. Come back to me when you’re done and we can share a box of tissues.

To the Moon is a tightly weaved story in the vein of Inception and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (both of those incidentally have my recommendation). It takes full advantage of the world it builds, namely the existence of a company that can go back and alter dying people’s memories to fulfill their final wishes. It avoids questions of morality and elects instead to focus on the mystery of one man’s life, namely: why does he want to go to the moon? For you writers out there, this is how you revolve a story around outside narrators who are simultaneously the protagonists of the story and not involved in any way. As beautiful as it is heartbreaking, tears will likely be shed, To the Moon can’t be praised enough from my point of view.

5: Final Fantasy X (2001 Game)

But my favorite game of all time has to go to the first Final Fantasy I played. As I replay it now, I’ve come to realize that Tidus’s narration throughout the game is actually spot on. It provides a sense of retrospect that by the time the final act comes around, the decisions that are made carry that much more gravity. At the same time, it never completely removes the player from the moment. It could almost be taken as his thoughts immediately following an event, which for someone who isn’t aware that he is, in fact, telling the story as the player plays it, keeps them from getting lost.

At the same time, FFX utterly nails pacing. It takes advantage of the fact that the player-characters are on an epic quest that spans their entire world. The amount of information and plot isn’t drip fed through player exploration and having to puzzle everything out yourself, but at the same time there are very few exposition dumps. Everything that can possibly be communicated through gameplay is. And to top it all off, for a 15 year-old game, the cut-scenes are to this day, extraordinary. In short, if you’ve got 40-60 hours to throw into something and care to know how to write a good epic, almost any Final Fantasy game can give you that. This just happens to be my choice.

4: The Scott Pilgrim Series (2004-2010 Graphic Novels)

While the film is a fantastic adaptation of the novels, it’s really more of an entry point to the series than anything else. It introduces you to the everyday, yet completely bonkers world that these characters inhabit. It covers the visual spectacle and the struggle of young adults trying to find their way in the world. But if it’s context, depth, and pacing you’re after, then the graphic novels are for you. The character development is sublime, the pacing between everyday drama and high-spectacle action is a thing of wonder, and by the end you will have a complete understanding of everyone involved in this saga, for better and for worse. Like what I said about FFX above, the graphic novels take advantage of the length they are allowed to make the reader feel the length of the journey. Entire characters and backstories that aren’t included in the movie can be found in the novels. Here, the fights against the evil exes are not the main attraction, but rather the climaxes of each episode. The lie and share of the pages you’ll flip through are day to day life more in the vein of Honey and Clover than BLEACH.

Of note here, pay attention to the balancing act between providing flashbacks and context, and actually pushing the story forward. Exposition is something that doesn’t need to come right away. It only needs to be known to the audience by the time it will be relevant. The trick is making the exposition entertaining without a flashback sequence coming out of nowhere. O’Malley nails it here.

3: Star Wars (1977-Ongoing Films, Books, Video Games, TV Series, etc.)

The first movies I can remember watching as a kid were the original Star Wars movies on VHS. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve watched them. I love the prequels too and the expanded universe books. I’ve played my share of Star Wars video games, watched my share of TV series, and have pretty much loved all of it. The amount of depth that has been put into this universe is something that no single individual can do. It is the result of not only George Lucas’s original vision, not just the additions made by Disney, but combined the efforts of thousands of fans producing their own content to flush out an entire galaxy worth of history, and millions more adding their thoughts and interpretations as well.

At the end of the day, the original trilogy is a fairly straight forward “I Am the One” arc plot. If you were to remove the setting and philosophies of the series, you’d have something that’s actually quite stale. So that means that the setting and themes are A+ grade and are worth studying for all you storytellers out there. As expanded upon in the prequels, Star Wars is less about the battle between good versus evil and more about the rise and fall and redemption of its characters. It’s more interested in the drama between its protagonists and antagonists than it is about the galactic conflicts happening all around them. It’s an important lesson in the value of producing a high quality world, but also creating higher quality characters to inhabit it.

2: Spirited Away (2001 Film)

For anyone who has skimmed just the titles of the posts that I… uh… post here, you should get a sense of the fascination that I have for this type of arc-plot. While not the first instance in the history of story telling of a character getting zipped away to another world and forced to find their way back home through myriad adversities, it is in my opinion the defining one. Everything about the story, the characters, the pacing, the visuals, the themes, is perfect. As we’ve progressed through this list, I’ve spotted a common theme in a lot of these recommendations: the storyteller takes their time. There is no rush to get to the end, no concern that the reader will get bored, but at the same time there is very little in the way of extra fat added on to fill out the story. Everything that is presented to the audience is to the betterment of the audience’s understanding of the world, characters, and circumstances that they find themselves is.

Furthermore, this is a movie of pure imagination, and it allows the audience to immerse themselves in it. Visually, this may be the most stunning movie I’ve ever seen (of course, I’m biased towards animated films so take that with however much salt you need). While the characters are colorful and fantastically realized, this is a story with a distinct focus on the journey, and overcoming all the trials the spirit world can possibly throw at you.  And it passes those trials with flying colors.

1: The Wheel of Time (1990-2012)

And despite all of that, my favorite story, the one that has most certainly influenced my writing the most over the years, is Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. I’m not entirely sure where to begin, so I’ll start by pointing you to the handful of retrospectives (I’ll finish them someday, promise!) I’ve already posted here. This is a fantasy series that fuses everything about the high fantasy genre perfectly. From world-building, to character arcs, to political intrigue, explanation and exploration of everything other-worldly to the point where by the time you’re done it seems everyday. The Wheel of Time immersed me like no other book series ever has into its world. Phrases that out of context are little more than gibberish produced audible gasps, and to this day I’m convinced no one has mastered the art of the cliff-hanger to quite the extent of Robert Jordan. Furthermore, I have yet to find a story that uses prophecy to its advantage this much. Because of the story’s themes and nature of the world’s history, prophecy is able to be both completely accurate and completely surprising when it is fulfilled.

To compare to the flavor of the day, A Song of Ice and Fire: both Jordan and Martin produced incredibly detailed worlds, with deep history and varied cultures and characters. Suppose that the act of storytelling is like casting a net. The grander the story, the more characters, the bigger the net has to be to contain it all. The net is made of plot threads that must be navigated correctly or else you end up with a tangled net and muddled story. Martin has solved this problem by cutting the threads and killing characters, not to imply that this is wrong or an ineffective means of storytelling, but after a while you can’t help but wonder if such a grand net was needed in the first place. Jordan, with pretty much no exception, casts his net, flushes out his world, tells his story, and then pulls the net back in undamaged. Every single character has a complete arc, from the main character to a random palace guard you meet on one page in book 3.

Yeah. He comes back.

And it all makes perfect sense. That’s something I feel I can’t stop reemphasizing about The Wheel of Time. Every arc is natural. Yeah there are 14 books and some of them feel like not a whole lot is happening, but I can’t imagine the characters arriving at the endings they arrive at if even a single chapter were removed. And somehow, despite all the immersion, and all the prophecy, the ending is somehow a complete surprise while at the same time being completely in line with everything contained in those books.

So concludes this round of recommendations. Here’s to hoping I’ll have 10 more to provide 100 more posts down the line. Thanks again for reading. If you like what you find here, why not try and share it? Writing and storytelling tends to be a solitary act but you should never have to go it alone. I’ll see y’all next week for a return to business as usual.

In the meantime, I’ve got a few dozen… thousand… more words to write for NaNo. Happy writing!

The Dragon Reborn Retrospective

And his paths shall be many, and who shall know his name, for he shall be born among us many times, in many guises, as he has been and ever will be, time without end. His coming shall be like the sharp edge of the plow, turning our lives in furrows from out of the places where we lie in our silence. The breaker of bonds; the forger of chains. The maker of futures; the unshaper of destiny.

Given how long these have been running, I’m going to jump straight into The Dragon Reborn, book 3 of The Wheel of Time. If you’re not sure how we got here, look back over the last couple months and you’ll find the prior two retrospectives. Anywho…

Spoilers, and whatnot.

Our prologue this time around takes place in the Fortress of the Light, effective capital of The Children of Light. Word has reached them of the disaster at Falme and the destruction of their legion there at the hands of apparent Aes Sedai and a male channeler who is likely being propped up as a False Dragon. Of course, we the readers know the reality of the situation: the Damane that destroyed the Children’s legion were not Aes Sedai and Rand is pretty much the Dragon Reborn. Of note in this prologue is the presence of the Shadow within the Fortress of the Light and it’s relative ease at twisting the motivations and goals of the Children to carry out its own tasks. This is not to say the Children are really part of the Shadow, but it demonstrates how easily manipulated their strict ideologies can be to carry out very different ends.

We rejoin our main characters wintering in the Mountains of Mist, just to the east of the Almoth Plain, having gone there immediately after the events of Falme. Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve, and Verrin already left to return to Tar Valon with Mat in tow for healing the curse of the Shadar Logoth dagger and to store the Horn of Valere for the time when it will be needed again in the Last Battle. Hurin, the thief-taker is also with them, serving as temporary escort on his way back home to the north. Rand, Perrin, Moiraine, Loial and Min are all in the mountains, waiting. What for isn’t entirely made clear at first and is interrupted by outside forces before whatever is supposed to happen… happens. In the interim, there are a few discussions between Perrin and the other members of camp, including Rand himself. The conversations are almost exclusively about Rand, his destiny, his power, his encroaching madness. And we arrive at a fun question: is the madness promised to all men who can wield the One Power the result of the taint or social stigma? I mean, if everyone I knew kept hinting that I was going to go insane, I’d probably crack eventually. Never mind the lifetime of stories about madmen wielding incredible power and killing everyone close to them. Turns out, it’s really the taint. And Rand’s gradual decent over the next however many books is fascinating to watch.

But if this is anyone’s story, it’s Perrin’s. The majority of the opening is from his point of view, and following this section, very little is seen of Rand until the end. He’s the one constantly arguing with Moiraine about their current predicament, in many regards he takes up for Rand after the party breaks camp. What forces them to break camp you ask? Trollocs, what else? As the forces of Shadow catch the slumbering camp by surprise, Perrin gets the help of the wolves. He doesn’t so much call them as they’re in the area and sense his battle. Naturally, all the Shienar soldiers still with them from The Great Hunt take it as a sign of favor, that wolves fight for the Dragon. One particular Shienaran is more enthralled by Rand’s destiny than the others: Masema. He’s hardly mentioned throughout the last couple books but when he is, it’s to feature an odd dynamic between him and Rand. Masema throughout Hunt thinks very little of Rand, often blaming him for the misfortunes of the Shienar hunters, particularly after he goes astray with Hurin and Loial. In Dragon, he’s essentially a fervently religious person regarding Rand as the Dragon.

In all the chaos, Rand flees the camp and begins making his way south, towards Tear and one of the most famous parts of the Prophecies of the Dragon. In the mighty fortress of the Stone of Tear lies one of the most powerful sa’angreal (tools for greatly increasing the amount of the Power one can channel) ever created: Callandor, the sword that is not a sword. It is foretold that the Dragon will be the only one who can wield the weapon, but that the Stone will not fall until Callandor is in the Dragon’s possession. A seeming impossibility to the people of Tear, and the world at large. How does one take the sword while the fort still stands? And how can the place fall if the tool to it’s demise is safely locked away at its heart? Easily enough as we will see. Still, it’s basically a suicide mission for Rand.

Moiraine and the gang head off in hot pursuit. Min is sent back to Tar Valon and the Shienarans are left to their own devices. But before she parts company with them, Min tells Perrin to beware a beautiful woman (in reference to Lanfear who she encountered at the end of Hunt). Perrin is also told of what she saw when she first met him back in Eye (the falcon and the hawk, the Aeilman in a cage, and the Tinker with a sword). Along the road, the group sees repeated signs of Rand’s presence in the villages they come to. While Perrin, Mat, and Rand are all ta’veren (people so important to the world that the Pattern weaves around them), as the Dragon Reborn, Rand is more ta’veren than the other two. They pass through villages struck by fire, all the women in a village finding their soulmates and getting married on the same day, children falling off buildings and jumping up with nary a scratch. But in Jarra, Perrin finds something more important. A fellow who also could speak with wolves, who didn’t have guidance, and who lost his humanity and turned feral. It’s a stark reinforcement of the fear already deep within Perrin.

Cut to Tar Valon with Verrin and crew, or more specifically the outskirts of Tar Valon. There’s a brief encounter with Dain Bornhald, the son of the Bornhald who was killed at Falme. Naturally he believes the Aes Sedai are responsible and confronts Verrin and her party about it. Egwene doesn’t help the matter when she scares him off with some of the tricks she learned from the Seanchan. If anything, she steels the man’s belief regarding Aes Sedai, much to Verrin’s dismay. Elayne’s departure from the Tower has not sat well with her mother back in Andor and the relations between the Tower and the Queen, which have been historically strong, have frayed. But there’s no time for that! Mat needs to be healed, Egwene and Elayne are to be raised to the Accepted (the same as Nynaeve), and all three women are to be punished for leaving the Tower (being tricked by one of the Black Ajah is the only thing saving them from harsher penance).

Mat is permanently separated from the dagger and healed. Yay! Egwene goes through the raising trials, facing numerous instances of abandoning Rand as he loses his sanity to the taint. The final of the three tasks (facing fears regarding the future) is an intriguing one. Egwene is Amyrilin, leader of the Aes Sedai and is deposed when Rand is captured and brought in as a False Dragon. She escapes the birching and stilling process, and tries to rescue him, only to have it revealed that the Aes Sedai who deposed her are in league with the Shadow and have summoned thirteen Sisters and Myrdraal, not to still Rand, but to turn him forcibly to the Shadow. Yeah. They can do that. We don’t see Elayne’s raising, though that would’ve been fascinating…

During the raising, we’re also reintroduced to Elaida, whose harshness puts her under immediate suspicion for being one of the Black Ajah, but then again, so far as we’ve seen, almost all of the Red Ajah are coarse and difficult to get along with. We’re also introduced briefly to Alanna, of the Green Ajah, and honestly it’s difficult regarding what exactly we’re supposed to make of her. She’s eccentric, but there’s a reason I’m mentioning her now. She comes back into play later down the line in the series, and Elaida has a major role to play before all is said and done.

The three women are tasked by the Amyrlin herself to assist her in purging the Tower of any remain Black Ajah. Wait. What? Turns out Siuan (the Amyrlin) trusts their experience in the matter, and their loyalty above the other sitting Sisters. Plus, despite their limited training, they are three of the most naturally talented Aes Sedai in recent history. In their investigation, they encounter a grey man (spy/assassin of the Dark One) in the Tower and begin to explore Tel’aran’rhiod (the world of dreams) with the aid of a ter’angreal (tools that allow for specialized things. Some require the Power, others don’t). Turns out Perrin can also access this dream world (known to him as the Wolf Dream), but Egwene determines through her visions that whatever is getting ready to happen, it’s getting ready to happen in Tear. Naturally, the Amyrilin sends them on their way to spring the trap, and root out the Black Ajah in Tear. The Amyrlin’s logic is barely passable here, but historically speaking, it’s hard to argue with the results her logic has gotten her.

Mat also has some fun in Tar Valon, encountering Lanfear (in disguise of course). She’s all about the same things she was trying to put in Rand’s head throughout Hunt and it’s just as ineffective here. In his wanderings around the Tower grounds, he comes across the Warder recruits training, including Galad and Gawyn. He challenges the two of them to a duel, looking to earn some coin to start financing his escape. At the moment, he’s barred from leaving the city, until he recovers. Whatever that means right? He’s also the one bound to the Horn of Valere so he has reason to believe he’ll be kept here indefinitely until he’s needed to sound the Horn at the Last Battle. With a quarter staff, he’s able to defeat the two Warders in training simultaneously. Martial skill has never been something associated with Mat in the earlier books. But Perrin’s basically half-wolf, Rand’s the Dragon Reborn, what could Mat be? He’s clearly not ordinary, but his exact purpose is yet to be revealed.

It will be, don’t worry. Just not in this book.

Conveniently enough, Egwene and the other women have a way to get him out of the Tower. A note from the Amyrlin allowing the bearer to go where they please. It’s their own ticket out of the Tower and to Tear. In Mat’s case, it just means getting out of the city. The catch? Elayne needs Mat to deliver a letter to her mother in Caemlyn explaining the situation, and hopefully restoring order between Andor and Tar Valon. Mat begrudgingly, and gratefully at the same time, accepts. In a wild night of gambling to earn enough coin for his travels, his luck comes back in waves. It’s basically a fever dream of dice and earning an obscene amount of coin. His travels end at an inn with a familiar voice singing in the common room. Thom’s back baby!

The two beat a quick retreat out of the city and aboard a ship taking them down river, towards Andor.

Meanwhile, on the road to Tear, Perrin and company stop in the small town of Remen. And boy, do some big things go down. As hinted in Hunt, Aiel scouting parties have been slowly, but steadily, making their way over the Spine of the World and into the realms of our protagonists. In Remen, the group comes across an Aielman in a cage, captured by some Hunters for the Horn. They boast that they killed at least 20 of the Aiel after being ambushed. The town is also home to a group of Whitecloaks (Children of the Light) and all is set to burst. Perrin makes the executive decision to help free the Aielman (Gaul), who reveals that it was only him and one other Aiel and they were themselves ambushed by the Hunters. Given that he and Perrin then successfully fend off the Whitecloaks in the town, I’m inclined to believe the Aiel’s side of the story. Given the dozen or so dead people in the streets, the gang has to flee. But not before being followed by one woman aboard the ship set to take them to Tear. A woman by the name of Faile. Falcon. Granted Faile is just the name she gave herself as a Hunter for the Horn. Her true identity is Zarine, daughter of the lord of Saldaea, and Perrin insists on calling her by her real name (much to her displeasure) given what Min told him earlier.

Final item of note here is the dream Perrin has where he spies on Ba’alzamon and Lanfear chiding their subjects over their failures regarding keeping him, Rand, and Mat where they were. Naturally, these plans have not progressed and the Forsaken aren’t happy. It is in this passage the reality of the danger one can face in the dream world is established as Perrin wakes up to find a burn on his chest from the night’s ordeal.

Picking up speed now, Nynaeve and the others have made it Cairhien which is in utter turmoil since we last saw it in Hunt. The king is dead, Andor is both looking to provide aid and make good on Morgase’s own claim to the Sun Throne. Plus there are Aiel roaming the countryside. The women are caught off guard by a group of Aiel who request healing for one of their warriors. Fun fact, they are Maidens of the Spear, a warrior sect made entirely of women wed to the spear. Nynaeve is able to heal the mortally wounded Maiden, revealing her talent for healing. There’s another misadventure in which the Accepted are captured and have to be rescued by the Aiel, but all we really get out of this is that everyone, even the Aiel, are on their way to Tear.

In Andor, Mat delivers the letter to Morgase, and all looks to be well with the throne and the Tower once more. We’re introduced to two new characters in Caemlyn: Gaebril and Tallanvor. The former is Morgase’s apparent lover, advisor, and has led her to make a few questionable decisions (like getting mad at the Tower and sending her former advisor Gareth Bryne away). Oh, he’s also in deep with the Shadow, and fairly high up as well. Mat spies him directing orders to someone regarding the trap laid in Tear for Elayne and the others. Tallanvor, makes a brief appearance and expresses his loyalty to Morgase and his suspicion of Gaebril, seeing as how he just sort of showed up one day. Like Alanna, he doesn’t do much here but there’s a reason I’m mentioning his introduction. Speaking of recurring characters: Aludra makes a brief appearance. If you don’t remember her, she has an even briefer appearance in Hunt in Cairhien where Rand accidentally ruins an Illuminator performance which Aludra gets blamed for. In short, she’s being hunted down by the rest of her order to keep her from selling trade secrets and Mat and Thom just happen to assist her one night. She gives Mat a bundle of her fireworks she’s been selling as a reward, and departs. Again, we’ll see her later…

During their brief stop in Illian, Perrin and squad find themselves fleeing darkhounds sent after them by Sammael, who would seem to be impersonating the king of Illian. And we can only suspect Gaebril has something similar going on in Andor, whichever Forsaken he happens to be.

But finally, people start trickling into Tear. First the Accepted. They find a wise woman who’s willing to shelter them as they continue to try and parse out what exactly the Black Ajah has in mind in Tear. They acquire the services of one Juilin Sandar (who basically fills Hurin’s role from Hunt, though there are significant cultural difference between Shienar and Tear that we’re able to see a bit of through the small differences in their roles) and begin their hunt. Unfortunately, the Black Ajah find them first, capture them, and imprison them deep in the Stone of Tear. Dark One 1, Protagonists 0.

Perrin and Moiraine aren’t far behind in their arrival in Tear, though in a different part of the city. Perrin finds a blacksmith and spends his idle time helping with work there. Faile often goes to watch him, if only to tease him now and then. The relationship between the two is handled in an interesting manner in this book. Upon first reading, it felt too choppy and didn’t quite make sense when their arc settled at the end. But on second reading, like Lan and Nynaeve in Eye, knowing what to look for made it a much more interesting dynamic to read. Beneath the agitation the two go out of their way to cause one another, throughout the back half of the book there are more and more romantic expressions slipping through. Since we only get things from Perrin’s perspective, we can’t say how Faile ever felt about him, but we can only assume the two are equally puzzled and fascinated by each other. Plus, he assumes that she’s the beautiful woman Min warned him about, so there’s that as well. Perrin receives the hammer he had been using in the smith as payment for his work, and there’s a sense of solidness that comes to his identity that had been lacking through the first couple books.

Oh, and another of the Forsaken has taken up residence as a High Lord of Tear. Be’lal this time. It’s clear he’s laid a trap for Rand regarding Callandor and Moiraine has decided to take matters into her own hands and put a stop to it. As she and Lan depart, Faile accidentally stumbles upon a trap laid for Moiraine and is forcibly sent into Tel’aran’rhiod. Having no time to help, and not even sure how, Moiraine and Lan depart, leaving Perrin and Loial to save the girl.

Mat and Thom booked it from Andor after learning of the trap laid for Elayne, Egwene, and Nynaeve. Sure enough, on the same night Moiraine is heading into the Stone, Mat is looking for a way in himself. He uses the fireworks Aludra gave him to blast his way in. But not before coming across a small army of Aiel also making use of the city’s rooftops this night. Utter chaos ensues.

Egwene discovers she can subdue members of the Black Ajah from the dream world (provided they’re sleeping, or in one instance, nodding off). Granted, she’s got no way to get herself or the others out of their cell, but that’s what Mat’s for. He shows up to pluck the key off the now captive prison warden and lets them out. Aiel are doing what they do, and Perrin is dashing through the dreamscape of Tear, searching for Faile. Rand meanwhile is set to claim Callandor only to be confronted by Be’lal, who naturally wants the sword for himself. After Rand’s dead of course. Enter Moiraine, who blasts the Forsaken with Balefire and permits Rand to take the sa’angreal. Sure enough, Ba’alzamon returns and once again he and Rand are locked in battle.

But this time, Rand himself uses Balefire to defeat Ba’alzamon once and for all. Perrin is able to rescue Faile after quite the ordeal and finally takes to calling her Faile as she tends to his wounds suffered during the hunt through the world of dreams. Ba’alzamon is revealed to have been Ishamael, the leader of the Forsaken, as opposed to the Dark One himself. The Aiel are suggested to be the People of the Dragon, and Rand is finally confirmed by prophecy fulfillment to be the Dragon Reborn (didn’t see that one coming did ya?). Good guys 2. Bad guys 1. Final.

Last items of note: The whole gang is back together, or at least in the same city. We can expect reunions aplenty through the next installment, but there’s still a ways to go in this series. Where will things go from here? Secondly, more speculation! Enter Berelain, the First of the city-state of Mayene. Described as incredibly beautiful, and not one for humility, who else do we know described this way? I would say Lanfear, except it would seem she gave Berelain a message to deliver to Moiraine and Rand…

End book 3.

The Dragon Reborn is one of the most high octane (relatively) entries in the whole series. From very early on, we know where we’re going and it becomes clearer and clearer that everyone is on a collision course for Tear. This differs from the first 2 books. In The Eye of the World, Moiraine’s need for secrecy kept us in the dark regarding the mission. In The Great Hunt, everyone seems to arrive at Falme by coincidence and for the sake of a big, set-piece climax. But here, from the midway point on, it’s very clear that everyone is going to make it to Tear by their own volition and each has explicit goals in mind when they reach it. Does the energy carry over to book 4? Stay tuned, and find out!

For further reading:
Robert Jordan’s The Dragon Reborn (1991)

Missing You: Character Edition

 

Oh what fun it is to introduce a fun character. A perfectly likeable figure who plays an important role in the lives of the main characters of your story. They might even be a major character themselves. They bring something unique, a voice no one else can quite match, an attitude that demands a spotlight, and a personality readers or viewers have to ask themselves: how could I live without this character in my life?

And then you take them away.

This doesn’t necessarily mean kill them. I mean, you could, but death has a sort of permanence to it and this is a really good character you’ve created. You take them away, but with every intention of bringing them back. This brings us to the subject of today’s post, after a fitting hiatus of one week, time in relation to how long a reader goes through your work before you bring back this awesome character of yours. This has surprisingly little to do with how much time passes in a book and everything to do with how much time is felt to have passed. Well, that sounds easy enough: to maximize the feels for when the character reemerges, just maximize the time that they’re gone. Done. See you next week.

Not so fast. We have a very delicate balance and dilemma to deal with in this scenario. You want your character to be missed, you want their reappearance to be heralded by cheers and a standing ovation. But, you don’t want their return to feel like a cop-out. A deus ex machina solution to a problem you created to try and induce a little bit of shock into your audience.

It’s hard to bring up concrete examples of stories that do this well versus stories that drop the ball, because these types of events are deep within the realm of spoiler territory. Bad enough to know that a particular character dies or disappears tragically, worse to have it spoiled that they’ll be back. So instead, just check the “for further reading/viewing/playing” section at the end and I’ll try to leave a myriad of works that feature this particular wrinkle, both for better and worse. Cool?

Cool.

So in general, how ought this literary maneuver best be executed? It requires (generally, with exceptions of course) an establishment of what is final in your world, foreshadowing, time, and time. Yes, time is listed twice on purpose.

Kicking off our list: an establishment of finality. Particularly within the worlds of fantasy (where my particular, self-proclaimed expertise in writing is rooted), the rules of finality for a character are flexible. You can have ghosts, reincarnations, portals to other dimensions, carbon freezing chambers, etc. In worlds where even death isn’t necessarily final, a reader needs to be acutely aware of your world’s rules. Well if death isn’t final, what is? That one’s up to you. I personally try to stay away from having characters literally come back to life, because having that type of power exist within a world introduces a myriad of problems. Who can come back to life? Who can’t? Why can’t they? Careful how you answer each of these as literal revival tends to drift well into our cop-out field.

So what’s a writer to do? Use your imagination. Toy with ideas of memory erasure, use the environment to your advantage, imply death without showing it. Send someone over a waterfall in a barrel, leave someone stranded, wounded, captured, send someone through a door to nothingness. Leave the audience 95% sure that the character is dead. Go all the way to 100, and you’ve got an incredulous audience when they come back. Anything less and your gambit will leave an audience saying: “I knew they weren’t dead.”

And this is why the establishment of finality is important. We have to see true death and the false death you present must mimic true death almost perfectly.

This brings us to foreshadowing, in the form of this mimicry. The sliver of doubt must be allowed to flourish in the back of the reader’s mind. The false death should leave characters and readers hoping for a chance at redemption. Let the question linger, let it fully permeate the minds of everyone involved, and then let it starve. This brings us to our third and fourth tools: time and time.

The first time refers to time as it passes from the characters’ point of view in your story. The doubt of death must starve for your characters first, because so long as there is a voice for an audience to listen to, reinforcing their own hopes and beliefs, they won’t believe in the death. How can you expect a reader to believe what your hand-crafted characters don’t? Also keep in mind that by this point, we’re talking about literal and figurative death. A disappearance can do just as well and save you the trouble of having to come up with contrivances as to how a character survives a mortal encounter.

So how much time should pass for your characters? That is entirely dependent on how much time your story covers and the circumstances of the false death. This particular question of time isn’t quite as tricky to navigate as the second. Speaking of which…

The second instance of time refers to time as it passes from the audience’s point of view. You could very well leave everyone thinking you’ve killed a character, cut five years into the future, and say: we found out they’re still alive, it’s time to go save them! But if the audience doesn’t feel this gap in some way, then you’ve failed if your goal was to make the reader miss a character and yearn for their return. You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone, but it’s got to be gone a while before the true weight of the loss can be felt. Throw in chapters, books, seasons, between the character’s false death and the moment it’s confirmed to indeed be false.

Solution: I’ll just end a book with a character’s death, and let that fester for a year while I write the next book and when I bring that character back, everyone will be relieved and happy. Initially, yes. When that book first comes out, your devoted readers who were with you from the start will be ecstatic. New readers, who come to your work years after the fact, who are free to go straight from the last chapter where a character dies, to their shelf, and to the first chapter of the next book where they come back? For those readers, you will have failed. This is exactly the same as pulling the “five years later” trick with the added illusion of wait created by the creative process.  A process that will only ever be experienced once in the history of the world, and if you missed it, then you missed it.

Solution: I’ll throw in five books then between the false death and the reveal that they’re alive. That’s a bit more like it. Commit yourself to the illusion that the character is dead. Make you, the writer, wait for the character to come back. And remember, however long you wait, most of your readers will only ever experience a fraction of it. So be patient. Establish your rules, foreshadow the mere possibility they might not be gone forever, and wait. Wait until you can’t stand it anymore.

And then wait.

But remember to leave enough story left to tell for that character to hit their stride again. Deus ex machina was a fun storytelling technique 2500 years ago. I think we can push ourselves to do better today.

Also, note that this technique is not limited to instances of death regarding characters. You want two lovers to spend some time apart? Make sure the audience feels the anxiety of absence. Two characters that have relied on each other get separated for a while? Make sure there are plenty of misadventures while they try and link back up.

For further reading/playing/viewing (keep in mind these are my opinions, and should be taken as blind fact by nobody):

Stories that execute the technique well:

1. The Wheel of Time (Books)
2. The Lord of the Rings (Books/Films)
3. Teen Titans (Comic series/TV series)
4. Scott Pilgrim (Graphic Novel series) (Film doesn’t do it)
5. Final Fantasy X (Game)

Stories that leave a little something to be desired on this front:

1. Nier (Game)
2. Star Wars (Films)
3. The Mirrodin Cycle (Books)

Honorable Mentions (kinda do it, kinda don’t)

1. Harry Potter (Books/Films)
2. A Song of Ice and Fire (?) (Books/TV series)

The Eye of the World Retrospective

I’ve been mentally preparing for my Wheel of Time retrospective for several months now and struggling with the best method in which to execute it. No, this is not going to be 14 consecutive weeks of Robert Jordan’s series; that would be overwhelming to both you and me. A few sample problems for that method include: (1) I think this series is nothing short of a work of fantasy genius and encourage any fan of any fantasy series ever to read it. (2) This series is LONG and intimidating: 14 massive books (roughly 700+ pages each) and if I’m going to give everyone time to reread the series or give it a look for the first time, these posts are going to need to be spread out. (3) I need time to reread them. At present I’m starting book 4 but am waiting until I get this particular retrospective out so I can accurately talk about this book and not any of the others in the series.

That said, this retrospective will contain heavy spoilers for this book. Not necessarily the series as a whole, as the retrospective is for this book and this book alone. I will make allusion to future events in the series, but I’ll try and keep tight lipped about it.

But first, I’m gonna try to sell you on the series. In short, if you take the epic adventure and scope of Lord of the Rings and combine it with the political intrigue of A Song of Ice and Fire you’re in the ballpark. This series also features possibly the best use of dreams and prophecy in any fantasy series ever. And while 14 books may seem daunting and while the pace slows down midway through the series, I can’t point to a singular event that could be cut from the series because the ending ties everything together so well. And whatever drag there is through books 7-10, you can bet by the end of book 11 and the start of the events leading immediately up to the climax, everything is set to spring and it’s just satisfying moment after satisfying moment as the pieces all come together. It also helps that Jordan is the master of cliffhangers and I personally found that once I got past the first 100 pages of the first book, I was hooked through to the end of the series. Just when you thinks things are about to settle down, something even bigger happens.

Enough gushing for now. Let’s jump in with a mood-setting quote.

The moon was as blood and the sun was as ashes. The seas boiled and the living envied the dead. All was shattered and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World. And him they named Dragon.

The story begins not with this quote, but with a very brief prologue (relative to other prologues we see in the series at least). And I’m still to this day debating whether it’s a good prologue or not. It introduces us to two people: Lews Therin and Betrayer of Hope who we eventually come to know as Ishamael (he has another name but it isn’t used for the rest of the series). The reason the prologue is difficult is that it’s the first thing we see of this incredibly long series, it takes place in the aftermath of some cataclysmic event, using phrases and language that make little sense to the audience, and it’s relevance isn’t made clear until much later. In fact, when it is made clear what the prologue scene is in reference to, it turns out it took place thousands of years ago. In short, is the prologue effective? I would argue no. But that’s only the first 5 pages and there’s so much more to discuss.

So what comes after the prologue? A pair of quotes including a slightly longer version of the one above. And those quotes are all you need to take away from the past. For now.

How about Chapter 1 and getting into everything in full?

We begin in the Two Rivers, a peaceful backwater that postures itself as a more human version of Tolkien’s Shire. It’s right before the springtime festival of Bel Tine after a long, lingering winter and everyone’s just looking to brighten the mood and get back on the right track after a rough year for crops, storms, and wolves. Enter the main characters of the series (at least the ones we continue with the entire way. Don’t worry, there are PLENTY more): Rand (lead protagonist), Mat (best friend #1 and prankster), Perrin (best friend #2, soft-spoken big guy), Egwene (love interest for Rand), and Nynaeve (fiery, young, talented village wise one). But this Bel Tine is a big one and features strangers from out of town coming in. A peddler by the name of Padan Fain and a gleeman by the name of Thom. These two were expected as they were hired, but two more strangers who weren’t expected are also here: Moiraine and Lan.

All in all, the introduction to village life is lengthier, but more organic than Tolkien’s exposition dump on the Shire. Instead of being told how things are in this village, we are shown how they are. It gives the audience a tremendous feel for where the characters are starting off and my goodness are they adorable (especially knowing how much they change over 14 books). Coming back to the series after a a couple years reminded me how incredibly massive a journey these characters embark on. And the beginnings are truly humble. And because the pacing of the character development of the series is so spot on, and because your experience with each of the main characters is so intimate, it’s a feeling I can’t quite put into words going all the way back to the beginning to see how everything was before the world turns upside-down.

A few notes on minor characters and themes from the opening section: Rand spends most of this section in the presence of his father, Tam. While at first appearing a simple shepherd, Tam rapidly evolves into an enigma. He possesses a sword (and not just any sword), it’s implied he’s not Rand’s biological father, and knows an awful lot about the outside world for a shepherd. By extension it throws everything we think we know about Rand into question. Rand himself is left to question who he really is. Was he even born in the Two Rivers?

These feelings are compounded when we think that Rand’s character is given the anime trait of possessing strange colored hair (used in anime to highlight a character destined to be set apart from others. Think Naruto from the anime of the same name or Ichigo from Bleach. While we might not think much of blonde protagonists, it is not a common hair color in Japan. Food for thought.) and also possessing unusual height and build for most Two Rivers folk.

Finally, last bit of stage setting: Moiraine speaks to Rand and gives him a coin after making him promise he’d help her in any way he could. It’s eventually revealed she does the same thing with Mat and Perrin.

Enter the Trollocs, vile mutations of men and animals created by the Dark One to serve as his foot soldiers in the war against humanity. Feel free to translate to ‘Orcs’ and ‘Sauron’ respectively. That’s not entirely fair, but it’s close enough for our purposes today. They ransack the village and shatter our peaceful status quo. This is the moment where Tam’s sword is revealed and when he’s wounded and babbling about the past while Rand’s trying to carry him to the village for healing. Final notes on the sword: it’s a heron-marked blade, naming whoever wields it a swordmaster. Why is a back-country shepherd wielding a heron blade? Just the question you should be asking.

Luckily (or unluckily depending on your point of view), Moiraine is an Aes Sedai, a powerful wielder of the One Power (she’s a witch for simplicity’s sake) and Lan is her bodyguard, imbued with nearly superhuman qualities and intense training that make them essentially a two person army. So how could this be construed as unlucky? A couple of reasons: (1) Aes Sedai are (depending in who you are) blamed for the Breaking of the World, thought of as servants of the Dark One, or are at best thought of as manipulators and schemers and (2) she’s the one about to take our protagonists out into the wide world and start them on a path from which there is no turning back.

Hold up. Strangers from the outside? Life altering journey? Destruction of identity? I’d wager the story even advances in an episodic nature… This is a ‘Spirited Away’ plot isn’t it?

No. It contains elements of it yes, but as we’ve discussed in the past, many ‘I am the One’ stories begin with similar structure to ‘Spirited Away’ stories, particularly when they include a reluctant protagonist. Just as someone in a ‘Spirited Away’ story must be drawn into the other world against their will, a reluctant hero must be forcefully put on the path to their destiny. And while through the first couple books, the characters’ goals are to complete their tasks and go home, this goal rapidly degenerates and fades away. So for now, we find ourselves in a ‘Spirited Away’ story, but trust me, it doesn’t last beyond this singular title.

Final note before we depart the Two Rivers: the role of Manatheren and the role of links to the past (no, not the Zelda game). This series has a dense, palpable lore  that proves incredibly important to its central theme: that the history of this world goes in circles. What was must come again. In ancient times, Manatheren sat where the villages of the Two Rivers stand now. Rather than simple farmers, Manatheren was a great nation and opponent of the Dark One. And while the memory of this nation has faded, the old blood still sings. Mat particularly comes to shout battle cries in the Old Tongue and will generally embody our link to the old blood. Everything has a history, and because history in this world is cyclical, any communication of lore is also foreshadowing for events in the future.

On with the tale! Moiraine believes the Trollocs came to the Two Rivers for either Mat, Perrin, or Rand. Why them? Don’t know yet, but they have to leave. Thom elects to travel with them, Egwene stows away with them, and eventually Nynaeve follows them and joins the party. Rather than send these people away, the Aes Sedai simply calls them “part of the Pattern now” and they press on. From here, we find ourselves in the city of Baerlon and meet Min who foretells our characters’ futures. In vague imagery of course.

For Perrin she sees a wolf, a broken crown, and flowering trees. For Mat she sees a red eagle, a horn, a laughing face, a dagger with a ruby, and an eye on a balancing scale. For Rand she sees a sword that isn’t a sword, a golden crown of laurels, a beggar’s staff, pouring water on sand, a hot iron, a bloody hand, and three women around a funeral bier.

What do these mean? Who can say at the moment? But know that this is hardly the most important role Min will play throughout the series. When I first read The Eye of the World, I had assumed it was written in such a way that it could be a stand alone piece, but also left enough room to be turned into a series if it was believed it could be successful enough or if Jordan felt there was more story to be told. This encounter with Min confirms that everything from the beginning of book 1 to the end of book 14 was planned. Meticulously. Thus why I point to this series being so brilliant. Everything that is said, every event that occurs, has a purpose even if it isn’t clear at the time, or even for several books down the line.

After Baerlon, the group finds themselves taking refuge from pursuing Trollocs in the ruins of Shadar Logoth. This place features a wicked spin on the typical ‘light vs. dark’ dichotomy we all know from epic fantasy. That there are varying shades of light, and here in particular, there are varying shades of dark. The evil in Shadar Logoth is independent of the Dark One, opposed to it, but by no means less menacing. What evil is independent the Dark One you ask? Look no further than Moridin, the spirit of greed and hate that inhabits the ruins and all that resides therein. His sole purpose in life is to break free of the ruins by getting someone to take some piece of Shadar Logoth with them out into the world. And of course, Mat the troublemaker, complies unknowingly. He takes with him a dagger with a large ruby in its hilt (one of Min’s images). The group is also splintered in Shadar Logoth. Mat, Rand, and Thom make their way down a river, Perrin and Egwene end up lost in the wilderland, and Moiraine, Lan and Nynaeve start off after them, using the coins given to the boys early on to track them. Because magic.

The most eventful of these three separate journeys is Perrin’s and Egwene’s. In short order, they encounter the wildman Elyas who can communicate with wolves and informs Perrin he also has this talent (reference to one of Min’s viewings). Naturally, he is resistant to the thought of having this unnatural ability. Wolves in this world are often considered servants of the Dark One. This isn’t true in the slightest as wolves hate the Dark One more than humans do, but in this world pretty much everything inhuman is considered associated with the Dark One through superstition.

They also run across the Tuantha’an (also called Tinkers) a group of nonviolent people who believe everything that is wrong with the world is caused by violence. They don’t believe in violent self-defense, even against Trollocs. While they don’t serve a major role in this book, they are an incredibly important group of people, particularly for their relations to other groups of people later in the series. Anyway, back to wolves and superstition…

Speaking of superstition, enter the Children of the Light, a private organization postured similar to the Templar and other militant monk orders that cropped up in Medieval Europe. They posture themselves as defenders of the Light and staunch opponents of the Dark One. Problem: they view almost everyone who doesn’t support them as Darkfriends in addition to believing ANY unnatural talent (channeling the one power, talking with wolves, etc.) is a mark of the Dark One. When they stumble across Perrin and Egwene’s camp, they find Elyas’s wolves there and a small skirmish breaks out. Unable to resist the connection to the wolves, Perrin becomes enraged when a wolf dies and kills one of the Children. In short order they are captured and are forced into marching with the Children.

MEANWHILE Mat, Rand, and Thom make their way towards the major city of Caemlyn where they plan to rendezvous with Moiraine and the others. They lose Thom to a Myrddraal (basically a ring-wraith but less invincible and somehow more terrifying, probably because there are a lot of them and they show up in all the worst places) and begin a strange journey of going from village to village along the road, doing odd jobs and performing music at inns for food. They run into A LOT of Darkfriends along the way. They are relentlessly hunted and it’s still unclear why. The stress of the journey is compounded on Mat because of the dagger he took from Shadar Logoth which is slowly poisoning his mind and his body with Moridin’s evil. The two arrive in Caemlyn, exhausted, but we’ll get back to them in a bit.

MEANWHILE Nynaeve, Moiraine, and Lan are hot on the trail of Perrin after Rand and Mat pass out of Moiraine’s range of detection. In short, they find Egwene and Perrin, rescue them from the Children of the Light and head after Rand and Mat. Of note in this section is something I missed in my first read: Nynaeve and Lan’s relationship. After all this time, why does Moiraine even care about the girls with her as they are clearly not as critical to her plan (whatever it is) as the boys? Turns out Egwene and Nynaeve both possess the ability to Channel the One Power. And she believes they have the potential to become two of the strongest Aes Sedai in generations. Egwene is eager to learn, and Nynaeve really only cares so she can get revenge on Moiraine for ruining their lives (even though she herself admits occasionally this is a somewhat misplaced blame). Her real issue with Moiraine is that she finds herself falling in love with Lan and even more shocking, he seems to reciprocate those feelings. Naturally, because he is bonded to Moiraine as her warder, he can’t return Nyaneve’s feelings…

On to Caemlyn, where Rand meets the Ogier (basically a large, long-lived stock of people) named Loial who becomes captivated by Rand’s story and wishes to travel with them when the party arrives. Spoiler, he joins them. But before Moiraine and the rest of the party arrives, Rand takes a day to see the city. It’s a big day as the False Dragon (one who has declared himself as the reincarnation of Lews Therin to gather power and followers) Logain has been captured. Rand goes to see Logain, but there’s someone in the crowd who’s been following him. Padan Fain, the peddler from the very beginning. What’s he about? We don’t know yet, but it’s suspected and implied that he’s a servant of the Dark One, a hunter with one task: find Rand, Perrin, and Mat and pursue them with the Dark One’s forces. Why? Still unclear and Fain’s true nature has yet to be revealed. Believe it or not, he’s got a bit of character to him that really gets explored in book 2.

But for now, we’re still in book 1. Fleeing Padan Fain, but still wanting to see Logain, Rand finds himself sitting atop a wall outside the palace. The place has a pretty nice view, but he’s interrupted from below by Elayne, the daughter-heir of Andor (the largest country in this part of the world of which Caemlyn is the capital). She has a brother Gawyn, a half brother Galad, her mother is Queen Morgase who is advised by an Aes Sedai named Elaida, and a general named Gareth Bryne. All of these characters are minor in this book and our first impressions are that Elayne and Morgase are both beautiful, Gawyn is alright, Galad is a stick in the mud, Elaida may have nefarious motives (but she’s a Red sister and hates men so…), and Gareth Bryne is supposedly a legendary general.

And all of these characters, which appear for 1-2 chapters in The Eye of the World go on to experience tremendous character growth and play major roles before the end of the series. All of them have long arcs and complicated interactions with our primary protagonists. It’s actually incredible, looking back, how tightly woven Robert Jordan’s storytelling thread is. Everything and everyone has a purpose.

Moiraine, Perrin, et al arrive and regroup with Rand and Mat. The Aes Sedai immediately recognizes Shadar Logoth’s curse on Mat and does her best to pacify it, but makes it clear he won’t survive it long without receiving aid in Tar Valon (the seat of the Aes Sedai). But there’s no time for that. Destiny awaits! In Shienar… far to the north, at the edge of the Blight (realm of the Dark One. Mordor if you will)…

How do we get there? By the Ways of course!

The Ways are a sort of subspace passage linking different cities and Ogier groves together. It allows for rapid travel across the world. Useful since most of the Aes Sedai traveling talents were lost during the Breaking of the World. Naturally though, the Ways are tainted by the Dark One for surprisingly logical reasons, but those aren’t important here. They make it out the other side, after much drama, but unscathed.

In Shienar we begin the rapid buildup to the climax of this book. First, we are given a window into Lan’s past. Before he was a Warder, he was the child prince of Malkier, a kingdom bordering the Blight (a Borderland if you will) before it was gradually overrun by the Dark One. Lan is the crown prince of a kingdom that is no more, so he trained to be a warder so that he could battle the Blight and one day strike back at the Dark One in vengeance for his home. He believes his destiny is to lead a final charge against the Dark One, and die fighting in the Blight. Nynaeve isn’t a fan of that and in these final chapters her feelings are made clear to Lan and the audience. But they all have their duty, and none of them have time for romance at this point in their lives.

The Eye of the World features our best view of the Blight, possibly in the whole series. We see how everything is made to be deadly. Even the tress have it out for our characters. The monsters are vaguely horrific enough to inspire our imagination to fill in the gaps with personal dreads and the march through the Blight is well portrayed as a very literal march into hell.

Why are we in the Blight? To find the Eye of the World of course. Where can we find it? Only the Greenman knows. The Greenman is a popular motif in religious architecture, particularly Christian churches. In this book, he is simply a figure who resides in the middle of the Blight, found only by those in the most dire need, as a caretaker of life in the midst of death and rot.

So what is the Eye of the World? It is a physical manifestation of the One Power. The male half of the One Power. There are two halves of the Power, split between men and women, and while they can do similar things with it, the means of use are completely different and alien so that no woman could teach a man to channel or vice-versa. Problem: when Lew Therin, the Dragon, sealed the Dark One away all those years ago, the Dark One’s counter-stroke was to taint the male half of the Source. Any man who can channel is doomed to go insane and eventually destroy everything around him including himself, save for those who have pledged themselves to the Dark One. It was the male Aes Sedai who broke the world and it is why the Dragon is so reviled. Ironically, it is the Dragon Reborn who is destined to save the world from the Dark One, but that’s for another day and another volume.

Why does Moiraine seek the Eye of the World? She can’t use it!

But Rand can. And the Dark One desires the power of the Eye for himself. Moiraine brought them here to provide resistance. In short order, we meet the first two of the Forsaken (13 of the most powerful Aes Sedai from Lews Therin’s time who turned to the dark): Aginor and Balthamel who come to claim the eye for themselves. Moiraine attempts to fight them, but is quickly overwhelmed. Balthamel is struck down by the Greenman who is in turn defeated by Aginor who knocks everyone else out of commission one by one.

Finding himself alone against the Forsaken, Rand, without knowing what he’s doing, taps into the One Power. With the power of the Eye he defeats Aginor, destroys the Trolloc army attacking Shienar, and defeats the Dark One (or who he believes is the Dark One). Throughout the book, the One Power has been seen through other characters eyes, usually as Moiraine is using it. The actual wielding of the power is unknown to the reader and because its effects are so unnatural and incredible, its often unclear what is happening. Using the Power as a weapon is devastating and its often only seen through its results: lightning suddenly striking Trollocs down, balls of fire getting shot at Forsaken, Moiraine making herself appear 20 feet tall. It’s all presented in an ‘avert your eyes’ format that makes it clear the main characters don’t know what they’re looking at. And because they don’t really know what they’re looking at, neither do we.

This changes when Rand grabs the One Power. Finally, we see what it’s like. But the phrase “One Power” is never used in Rand’s fight. Rather, it’s a series of images that are presented to the reader that portray this almost tug of war struggle over the Eye. We know that what Rand is drawing upon gives him power and his opponent is attempting to draw on the same source. So he draws more of it and overwhelms his foe with pure, unfocused power. It’s a very strange, but very well crafted scene. We suspect what Rand’s doing, he suspects what he’s doing, but it isn’t made clear until the aftermath.

What aftermath? No one died save for the Greenman and the Forsaken. So we get Moiraine to confirm for us that Rand was indeed channeling. What does that mean? It’s not clear to Rand yet, but when a banner of the Dragon is found in what used to be the Eye of the World it’s made clear to us that our lead protagonist might just be the person destined to both save the world, and Break it anew. There’s also a handful of the seals to the Dark One’s prison. And they are failing. And the Dark One is stirring. Also found in the Eye is the Horn of Valere. What’s the Horn if Valere? A magical tool that when blown summons the dead heroes from throughout history to fight in the final battle. The Last Battle if you will…

Finally, after this victory, Rand and the others find themselves free of Moiraine telling them where they need to go. Mat still needs to go to Tar Valon to be healed from the Shadar Logoth dagger, but Perrin and Rand find themselves not knowing quite what to do. Rand does come to the conclusion though that as a man who can channel, it might be best to strike out on his own to avoid harming those close to him should he ever go mad. So does our fellowship break? Not just yet. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in book 2…

For further reading: Do you even need to ask?

Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World (1990)