“Twice and twice shall he be marked, twice to live and
twice to die. Once the heron to set his
path. Twice the heron, to name him true. Once the Dragon, for remembrance lost. Twice the Dragon, for the price he must pay.”
– The Great Hunt, p. 387.
This section of The Great Hunt is the first
time where this particular prophecy is uttered, and could be seen as the real
moment where Rand al’Thor has to begin to accept the idea that he is the Dragon
Reborn. It is not the point where he
takes up the mantle, but it is the sowing of the seeds to build to the point
where he must accept his destiny. This is
a sequence where he doesn’t have to channel, he doesn’t have as much of the
fear of encroaching madness, but there is still that undercurrent of being told
he is the dragon. The heron from his
sword embedded its mark into his hand, and as the prophecy says this is the
start of the path, the second will only confirm what the audience, Rand, and
Moiraine already know. “For the first
time since Selene’s salve had done it’s work, he could feel it. Not hurting, but he knew it was there.” – The
Great Hunt, p. 387. That single
train of thought from Rand is something which is doing all the work to make the
audience realize just what his destiny is.
This is important because the actual hunt of the title is essentially
over, Rand has the Horn of Valere and he’s arrived in Cairhien, essentially is
waiting for the rest of the party to catch up.
This three chapter section is essentially a lull in the action which
allows for a reintroduction of one Thom Merrilin, a character who everyone but
Moiraine and an innkeeper believed was in fact dead.
This sequence introduces an interesting bit of worldbuilding,
that there are no female gleemen which is a very odd thing. The Wheel of Time’s world has already
shown itself to be mostly matriarchal with the White Tower and the Queen of
Andor as the only real seats of power in this world, at least as of this
point. There are certainly places in the
world where there are kings, but the idea that a woman couldn’t be a performer
like that is an interesting little piece of old fashioned worldbuilding. The character introduced here, Dena is one
who is working underneath Thom as his apprentice and lover. She’s a spunky character who is setup as if
she is going to be some importance to the plot, but in these chapters she doesn’t
end up doing anything. She mainly remains
in the background while there is quite a bit of worldbuilding of Cairhien,
again implying the political games with Rand being thought of as a Lord and
building up the idea that he is going to be treated as a Lord. This section is essentially all foreshadowing
to things that are yet to come, in this and subsequent books.
Thom’s reintroduction is important as there is the
confirmation that he was helping the boys due to the guilt about letting his nephew
Owyn, and apparently suspecting that one of the three boys could channel. There’s also a message from Selene and Trollocs
which attack to keep the characters on their toes, but this is one section
where there simply isn’t a whole lot of things going on. It’s interesting to note that it’s just Rand
who has the reunion with Thom, as Mat and Perrin have remained mainly off-page
as The Great Hunt, while expanding beyond just being Rand’s story. We have had points of view from Nynaeve,
Egwene, and Perrin, but this is something that isn’t actually expanding the
world as much, as Perrin and Moiraine have each had one chapter, while Egwene
and Nynaeve are only there to give us an idea of what’s going on in The White
Tower. This is still Rand’s story, but
it’s on the cusp of becoming more than just Rand’s story.
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