The Eye of the World by: Robert Jordan: Early Installment Weirdness AKA What The Eye of the World Means (Chapters 50 to 53)

 

“In Agelmar’s private garden, under a thick bower dotted with white blossoms, Moiraine shifted on her bedchair.  The fragments of the seal lay on her lap, and the small gem she sometimes wore in her hair spun and glittered on its gold chain from the ends of her fingers. The faint blue glow faded from the stone, and a smile touched her lips. It had no power in itself, the stone, but the first use she had ever learned of the One Power, as a girl, in the Royal Palace in Cairhien, was using the stone to listen to people when they thought they were too far off to be overheard.  “The Prophecies will be fulfilled,” the Aes Sedai whispered. “The Dragon is Reborn.”” – The Eye of the World, p. 782.

 

In deciding to tackle the ending of The Eye of the World, my thought process went through several possible titles.  While I eventually went with the one that you see, “Early Installment Weirdness AKA What The Eye of the World Means”, the other big contenders were “It Was The Ending” and “Setting Up a Sequel”.  This is important because the climax of The Eye of the World is an outlier.  One phrase which recurs in The Wheel of Time is that there are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time, often followed by it was a beginning.  The Eye of the World is a book which ends with what could easily be, the ending.  The two last minute villains are defeated, an off-screen battle is won, Rand nearly dies saving the world, and a piece of myth is found (the Dragon Banner flown by Lews Therin in the Age of Legends and the Horn of Valere).  The story could easily be over, but it isn’t.  Robert Jordan started writing this book in 1984, before getting a publishing deal with Tor Books and publishing in 1990, getting the second book out within the same year, but initially he couldn’t know that he would have a multi-book deal.  He was attempting to get one book published, and needed a point where if he couldn’t continue the series past the first book it would be the ending.  This means that this entire book ends with a hastily written final chapter which sets up the second book.  The quote headlining this essay is the closing of the book, with this image of Moiraine revealing what the reader has probably guessed by this point, Rand al’Thor is the Dragon Reborn, destined to break the world again in one last battle against the Dark One.

 

But this is all epilogue, the ending is not actually Chapter 53, it’s Chapter 52.  Chapter 52, “Their is Neither Beginning Nor End”, is our bookend with the prologue.  The first piece of dialogue in the Prologue is this: “Ilyena! My love, where are you?...Where are you, my wife? Where is everybody hiding?” – The Eye of the World, p. ix.  Chapter 52 opens with Rand in searing pain, equally as confused coming to an idea of self, followed by one of Egwene: “That name meant something important…Egwene.  He broke into a shambling run.  Leaves and flower petals showered around him as he blundered through the underbrush.  Have to find her.  Who is she?” – The Eye of the World, p. 763.  As the ending gives the concrete that Rand is Lews Therin reincarnated, coming to that and the aftermath of what is Rand actively channeling for the first time.  Rand is stumbling just after channeling something from the Age of Legends: The Eye of the World itself was made to be the representation of saidin, taint and all.  The Eye itself is destroyed along with the Green Man in the battle against the two members of the Foresaken.  Everyone, except Moiraine and Egwene, are immediately repulsed, isolating Rand for the ticking time bomb that he is.  He is going to go mad due to the power.  He suggests not channeling ever again and living his life, or even submitting to be gentled in that immediate repulsion as to what he is (yet he doesn’t know he’s the Dragon Reborn yet).  He even suggests Moiraine could possibly help him control it, which she rebukes, saying “Can a cat teach a dog to climb trees, Rand? Can a fish teach a bird to swim?  I know saidar, but I can teach you nothing of saidin.  Those who could are three thousand years dead.  Perhaps you are stubborn enough, though.  Perhaps your will is strong enough.” – The Eye of the World, p. 768.  Rand’s own turmoil is now beginning.  He demands that Tam al’Thor is his father, in both a biological and familial sense, turmoil which has been in the background throughout the novel, now brought to the forefront at this climax.

 

The actual climax and battle between Rand and the two Foresaken, Aginor and Balthalamel, and later Ba’alzamon in a dreamscape where he is tormented with visions of his mother and rebukes the Dark One, is one that on second read does not fit with the rest of the series.  The rest of the series have climactic climaxes, often using the One Power and with a Battle, but here there really isn’t much of an explanation.  Instead, this climax is almost entirely allusion to other works.  Both Foresaken and Ba’alzamon are both clearly taken inspiration from descriptions of demons (or at least men corrupted by evil, aging over one thousand years, one being permanently disfigured while the other is essentially a hag like trickster), and Rand rebuking Ba’alzamaon in particular is a sequence which calls upon the Chapter 4 of the Gospel According to Matthew in the Christian Bible, where Jesus Christ is tempted by Satan in a desert three times.  It is a climax which calls upon ideas of an oasis as refuge, and ties the book into themes of rebirth and the coming of spring.  The Green Man, the guardian of the Eye of the World, is named directly for a mythological trope which directly ties into spring coming, paired with the festival in the Two Rivers at the beginning of the book being Beltine, which at a glance brings to mind Beltane, a pagan festival celebrating the dawn of spring on the first of May every year.  This version of the Green Man also calls to mind Arthurian Legend, specifically Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight is a creature of the fey who tests Sir Gawain’s honor.  It’s death also implies that this turning of the wheel may be the final turning, this may be the ending, even if the narration says there are no endings on the Wheel of Time.  It is the pain of losing Moiraine which triggers Rand’s channeling abilities (although the sickness on the road was an effect of using the One Power as well as why Bela was not tired on their flight from the Two Rivers).  The Eye of the World is a book which symbolizes death and rebirth, opening with the death of the Dragon and the Breaking of the World while it ends with a symbolic rebirth and awakening of Rand al’Thor being revealed as the Dragon Reborn.