“He will not speak of it, yet the story is well known
along the Border. He is a king, or
should have been, al’Lan Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers, Lord of the
Lakes, crownless king of the Malkieri.” – The Eye of the World, p. 708.
As The Eye of the World moves towards its climax,
Robert Jordan includes one final sequence of a calm before the storm in the Borderland
city of Fal Dara, part of the kingdom of Sheinar, where Moiraine and Lan are
welcomed as heroes. Lan is asked at
several points if he is going to raise the Golden Crane, and the sequence of
exposition which the opening quote this time around is from the backstory
revealing Lan’s royal lineage. His own
backstory outlines an entire chapter here, as well as the reveal that peddler
Padan Fain is a Darkfriend and has been pursuing them. Lan is not actively looking away from his
royal heritage in some The Lord of the Rings-esque Aragorn uncertainty
in royalty, but a shame for what has happened to his land. Lan believes that he is not fit to rule nor
wishing to lead men to their deaths which would happen if the Golden Crane is
raised, it is a call to war against the Dark One. This is something which is going to be looming
over Lan for the foreseeable future, something he is going to have to do before
the series ends, clearly getting things towards what will be an ending. Lan as a Warder is something which actually
makes the story inspire Rand and Egwene both.
Egwene is the first to vocalize it, but Rand finds being a Warder as a
possibility to continue the life outside of being a farmboy, making this the
first point where the folk from the Two Rivers show that they are changing mentally
as well as physically out of their humble beginnings. There is still the idea of going back, but
not necessarily permanently as Rand, while being told by Min that he is not for
Egwene, doesn’t find the idea of being her Warder a bad thing.
Padan Fain, on the other hand, spends this section
captured and has a chance to speak to Moiraine, giving an explanation that he
had been in the service of the Dark One for nearly forty years as well as being
sent for three years to find Rand, Mat, and Perrin. The first of the three there is a mention that
he was tortured, implying that he resisted the Dark One’s Power. The implication of course, is that Fain is an
unreliable narrator. Moiraine does not
believe him or his story, and intends to follow up and even heal him when they
get back from their search for the Green Man and the Eye of the World. Fain brings out something darker in Moiraine:
she essentially is willing to use the tactic of imprisonment and implied
torture to get information from Fain, something that doesn’t help with Rand who
already is not entirely trusting Moiraine and Lan, even if there are plans
here. He is physically corrupted which is
something reflected in the world around him.
The Blight is traversed here as the chapters lead to the finding of the
Eye of the World (or perhaps being allowed access and an audience with the
Green Man as the place is not somewhere people find). The Blight is an entire area which has been
destroyed and corrupted by the Dark One.
It was once verdant, as it is where the Green Man (who represents nature
and good) resides, but since the Breaking of the World it has fallen into
disrepair. Traversing it is like
traversing a desert while always being unprepared, though with the grey
landscape of certain descriptions of Kansas.
It is a setting which is meant to instill despair and on the map of the
world looks as if it is encroaching on everyone else’s lives. This is also an area at least partially
inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune as there are Shadowspawn in the sands which
can appear out of nowhere, and the party only is rescued at the last minute as
a matter of the pattern. With this the
climax of The Eye of the World can in fact occur as the end of the book
is nigh.
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