“She stood among rolling hills quilted with
wildflowers and dotted with small thickets of leafy trees in the hollows and on
the crests. Butterflies floated above
the blossoms, wings flashing yellow and blue and green, and two larks sang o
each other nearby. Just enough fluffy
white clouds drifted in a soft blue sky, and the breeze held that delicate balance
between cool and warm that came only a few special days in spring. It was a day too perfect to be anything but a
dream” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 311
The Wheel of Time
has been hinting Egwene’s ability to enter the World of Dreams, Tel’aran’rhiod,
for some time now and finally it is time to enter the world of dreams. Now this is something that Egwene will
continually do, early on in the chapter Anaiya
checking in on the three girls mentions her being a dreamer as well as
an attempt to get one of them to choose the Ajah since as Accepted all three girls
must study. Jordan’s imagery, as quoted
above, maintains this dreamlike quality through the entire chapter. This is the most interesting to note since
previously dream in the previous books, especially The Eye of the World,
have been almost exclusively nightmares.
This isn’t a dream that turns into a nightmare or goes to really dark
places. It is mainly used as a way for
Egwene to gather information and only ends when grabbed by another figure in
the Stone of Tear. This figure is
clearly Lanfear in another guise, named Silvie here which is very close to
silver, the color being most associated with the moon and by extension Lanfear
herself. It’s a goading sequence already
playing on a vision of Rand rejecting her earlier in the chapter, something
that might actually be a real vision as with the vision of Perrin and a wolf contentedly
sleeping, being the first moment that the two magic systems really have a
chance to cross over. This is something
that must be done with the rest of the series going forward as the separation
needs to be overcome and both sides need to work in harmony. This also is the first real indication that
the dreaming as a concept is separate as Perrin can access it and it is not
corrupted.
The scenes in Tear in the World of Dreams are also fascinating
for how easily Egwene is goaded, once she awakens it is immediately apparent
that they have to get a message to Morgase and this is where Mat can actually
come in. Mat has been eating quite a bit
during his stay at Tar Valon, gaining weight and growing stronger, and it is
here where some of the power dynamics between the girls has changed, Nynaeve
especially describing her as “Nynaeve pressed a hand to his forehead. He flinched before he recalled that she had
done much the same for at least five years, back home. She was just the Wisdom then, he
thought. She wasn’t wearing that
ring.” – The Dragon Reborn, 323.
Yet, he is still willing to use them as an out to get away from the
Tower which is where the book is finally going, as this plotline has been stagnating
slightly with recap of previous books however the actual tower testing sequence
with Egwene has worked as well as Mat but it is one sequence that before going
back to Mat escaping with the Amyrlin sending the girls out. It’s at this point where the pieces can
actually move and we can head towards Tear and the actual climax and as such
after this point the analysis will begin to take up the pace in the amount of
chapters it covers.
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