“…the
Amyrlin drew an unsteady breath. “A
nasty business that. Nasty.” Her face was smooth, but she rubbed her hands
together as if she wanted to wash them. “But
quite interesting,” Verin said. She had
been the fourth Aes Sedai the Amyrlin had chosen for the work. “It is too bad we do not have the dagger so
the Healing can be complete. For all we
did tonight, he will not live long.
Months, perhaps, at best.”…“But he will have those months,” Moiraine
said sharply, “And if it can be retrieved, the link can still be broken.” If it can be retrieved. Yes, of course.” – The Great Hunt,
p. 103.
There is the classic
fantasy tradition of the hero being a paragon of justice, doing what they must
because it is the right thing to do.
Frodo in The Lord of the Rings offers to take the ring to be
destroyed because it is the correct thing to do, Superman saves the day because
that is how he was raised, and the Doctor travels time and space righting
wrongs because it’s right. Rand al’Thor’s
motivation in The Great Hunt, in comparison, while compassionate is also
equally selfish. The entire point is
that he is going to be running away: the Amyrlin poses a threat to still him
and he is going to go insane. While Rand
has not even begun to show any signs of madness yet, the paranoia is thick as
he knows he has to get away from everyone else.
He is going to leave as soon as possible, and after a nightmare his
paranoia becomes coupled with suspicion after he names the Dark One and Fain
escapes with the Horn of Valere and the ruby hilted dagger. The Aes Sedai try to heal Mat, but can only
buy him months, and it is not the Horn which has a sequence of prophecies about
what happens when it is blown. Rand
believes it is entirely his fault that Fades make their way inside Fal Dara all
because he named the Dark One, which is further compounded by the guards being
slaughtered and Fain specifically calling him out, saying “We will meet again
on Toman Head. It is never over, al’Thor.”
– The Great Hunt, p. 92. Yet,
Rand is going to run away, it is only the fact that Mat has months to live that
he even considers staying with him, and it’s Mat’s death that by the end of
this section when Rand is told he is free to go, is where he is going to be going. He again pushes away Perrin later in this
section when he implies that Perrin is somehow ignorant and not in a similar
situation, which allows Perrin a moment to actually come to anger, not a loud
anger, but a quiet, seething anger.
This is also a section
where Aes Sedai politics continue to show their complexities and intrigue with Verin
Mathwin, a sister of the Brown, being both a source of exposition and changes of
plan for Moiraine and Siuan. Verin goes
over the Prophecy which was written by a Fade when Fain was freed, which has a
few important elements: the Daughter of the Night has been freed, interpreted
to mean Lanfear (one of the Forsaken), a historical figure called Luc was once
here with someone called Isam and both are, and that the man who can channel
stands alone. Verin immediately shows
her skills to observe and quickly scheme by revealing “And of course…the man who
channels must be one of the three young men travelling with you Moiraine…Yes, I
thought it must be so. Moiraine could
not do this alone, and who better to help than her girlhood friend who used to
sneak down with her to snitch sweetcakes.” – The Great Hunt, p. 109-110. In the span of one look, Verin has already deduced
at the very least what Moiraine and Siuan have been planning, that one of the
boys is the Dragon Reborn, and reveals that she has secretly been scheming for
twenty years. Verin is awesome and the
reader never actually gets all the answers to exactly what she knows, but from
this alone it’s clear she knows more than she’s letting on. It also will take ten more books to get any
concrete answers to just what Verin is doing and looking back on this in
hindsight is also very important.
Finally, this is the
point in the series where Rand first is told he is the Dragon Reborn, by Siuan
herself, calling him to an audience. “No,
Mother. I can channel, the Light help
me, but I am not Raolin Darksbane, nor Guaire Amalasan, nor Yurian
Stonebow. You can gentle me, or kill me,
or let me go, but I will not be a tame false Dragon on a Tar Valon leash.” – The
Great Hunt, p. 127. This is the
first act which actually surprised the Aes Sedai, Verin audibly gasps and
Siuan. This is the actual state the Rand
leaves this meeting in, with another declaration that Tam al’Thor is his
father, even if there is a grain telling him that he knows this isn’t true, at
least biologically. The Prophecies state
that the Dragon will be reborn on the slopes of Dragonmount, and a foretelling
Moiraine and Siuan were present for by a previous Aes Sedai that the Dragon has
been reborn are essentially things that Rand intentionally ignores. And when Rand leaves, there is one very small
section, from Moiraine’s point of view, who has been the audiences eyes into
the Aes Sedai at this point where this is said: “The silence stretched on in
the room after Rand left until it was broken by a long breath from the
Amyrlin. “I cannot make myself like what
we just did…It was necessary….Did it work, Daughters” Moiraine shook her head,
jus the slightest movement. “ do not
know. But it was necessary, and
is.”” – The Great Hunt, p. 131.
Finally, as a small note there is one very small event of Lan giving
Nynaeve a ring and calls her something that means lost love, essentially as a
goodbye as several parties are gathering to actually begin the great hunt for
the Horn of Valere, and more importantly the ruby dagger, but that is for
another day.
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