“[Mat] drew his sword, raised it high. “Forward the Heart Guard!” He dug his heels
in, and his mount leaped down the slope.
Behind him, hooves thundered in the charge. “Forward!” He was the first to strike into
the Trollocs, his sword rising and falling, his bannerman close behind. “For the honor of the Red Eagle!” The Heart Guard pounded into the gas between
the spearmen, smashing the tide, hurling it back. “The Red Eagle!” Half-human faces snarled at him, oddly curved
swords sought him, but he cut his way ever deeper. Win or die.
“Manetheren!” Mat’s hand
trembled as he raised it to his forehead.
“Los Valdor Cuebiyari,” he muttered. He was almost sure he knew what it
meant—“Forward the Heart Guard,” or maybe “The Heart Guard will advance” –-but
that could not be. Moiraine had told him
a few words of the Old Tongue, nd those were all he knew of it. The rest might as well be magpie chatter.” – The
Dragon Reborn, p. 216-217.
Sometimes when writing The Wheel of Time,
Robert Jordan would switch perspectives far too quickly once the point of view
characters expanded. This is one of
those times, as The Dragon Reborn has finally gotten to the point where
Mat Cauthon can enter the narrative, but only covering two short chapters
before going back to the girls. There
easily could have been a third chapter from Mat’s perspective here to even
things out, but that chapter will come later and won’t be discussed until later
with two other Egwene chapters. These
chapters may be brief, but there is a lot done here to make Mat work as a
character and begin his ascent to actually being a functional character. It cannot be understated that the fact that
he hasn’t yet had a point of view chapter in The Eye of the World or The
Great Hunt meant that we only got perspective from how others view him, and
while he had character, it was static and brought down because of the curse of
the dagger. Now the dagger’s curse may
not fully be gone, it is revealed that Siuan intends to keep him in the Tower
as he still might need more Healing, but now that it is effectively gone and we
get something in his head we know what he can think. He works through his surroundings and comes
to the proper conclusion that he is in the White Tower, the lair of the Aes
Sedai, and while eating food left for him.
They talk circles around him when Siuan visits as he already has it in
his head that they want to use him, planted by Lanfear who finds her way to his
room first, describing him as being pulled by the Aes Sedai and herself as not
one of the pitiful Darkfriends, only loyal to one, heavily implied to be Rand.
It is interesting that Lanfear has her own agenda,
giving the reader the first real glimpse that the Forsaken do not have cohesion
between them. Lanfear is a rogue element
trying to push another rogue element to her own ends. Mat has essentially become a rogue element,
being motivated by not being manipulated by others and carving a path for
himself. He immediately tries to leave,
and while he is stopped he is still determined to find a way out, somehow. This drive and independence creates the start
of a character enhanced by what the Healing has done to him. While it is not explained here, the quote at
the beginning of this essay comes from the vision Mat has as he is waking, all
in the Old Tongue translated into English, visions of fighting in the Trolloc
Wars, something that he remembers fighting in despite not being alive when
those wars happened. He has a keener
sense of things and immediately goes to the idea that this is all madness and
he will have nothing to do with Aes Sedai, learning that his father and Tam
al’Thor came to the Tower after them. He
is pushing himself away to his own ends, those ends just getting out of the
Tower as fast as possible, possibly just heading home. Now the Pattern will not have it, he has
already blown the Horn of Valere and even he knows that it shouldn’t fall into
the hands of the Dark One, but he has a purpose and a goal. The Mat Problem stemmed from being passive,
and now he can no longer be passive.
It’s not solved, but it is being worked on.
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