“He won again, and it was as if a fever gripped
him. He won every throw. From tavern to inn to tavern he went, never
staying long enough to anger anyone with the amount of his winnings. And he still won every toss. He exchanged silver for gold with a money
changer. He played at crowns, and fives,
and maiden’s ruin. He played games with
five dice, and four, and three, and even only two. He played games he did not know before he squatted
in the circle, or took a place at the table.
And he won. Somewhere during the night,
the dark sailor—Raab, he had said his name was—staggered away, exhausted, but
with a full purse, he had decided to put his wagers on Mat. Mat visited another money changer—or perhaps
two; the fever seemed to cloud his brain as badly as his memories of the past
were clouded—and made his way to another game. Winning.” – The Dragon Reborn, p.
343-344.
There have already been two essays focusing on the change
in character for Mat Cauthorn throughout The Dragon Reborn, discussing
how much he has changed throughout the book once he is healed. He spends a chapter showing the audience his
fighting prowess, another showing his distrust of how his friends have changed over
the past two books, and now we reach the point where he is allowed to be the
headliner of his own subplot. Okay, the
subplot is essentially a fetch quest where he is being sent to deliver a letter
on behalf of Elayne, but that is only an excuse to get him moving and it’s important
to make Mat an interesting character and integral part of the narrative. Mat is also the one character of the Emond’s
Field Five who was still relatively normal, Perrin has being a Wolfbrother and Rand
is the Dragon Reborn while Egwene and Nynaeve both can channel the One
Power. But Mat begins to discover here
his own power, luck. This is a development
which easily could have become a deus ex machina, an author making a character
lucky could just lead to moments where the character gets out of trouble far
too easily, but the way Robert Jordan establishes it here is what makes it
work. Mat goes to gamble, something already
established as part of his character, and slowly realizes after the fact that
he is winning. The quote above
specifically revels how slowly he realizes that he is winning, and then the
doubt starts creeping in. He wins too
much. He lashes out when someone curses their
own bad luck, not even thinking that he is evil and he flips ““Don’t you say
that!” he snarled. “Don’t you ever say that!”…Mat released his grip on the scar-faced
man’s coat and backed away “I…I…I don’t like anybody saying things like that about
me. I’m no Darkfriend!” Burn me, not
the Dark One’s luck. Not that! Oh,
Light, did that bloody dagger really do something to me?” – The Dragon
Reborn, p. 345.
What is especially interesting is there are already
Darkfriends looking for Mat, a Gray Man is in Tar Valon and attempts to kill
him, but fails, being impaled by its own dagger after falling thirty feet off a
bridge. “When he could breathe again—and
see—he realized he was lying on top of the man who had attacked him, his fall
cushioned by the other’s body…He expected the other man to be dead…but what he
had not expected was to see the fellow’s dagger driven to the hilt into his own
heart. Mat did not think he would have
noticed him in a crowded room. “You had
bad luck, fellow”” – The Dragon Reborn, p. 349-350. It’s more than just luck, it’s the Pattern
itself keeping Mat safe and getting him the money he needs to get out of Tar Valon. It is also incredibly lucky that the inn he
falls outside of is an inn where an emotionally broken Thom Merrilin is playing,
whom Mat recruits to come to Caemlyn and they charter a ship. Mat actually gets to show some of his
diplomatic skills, knowing to give the captain of the ship they are going to
travel on, the Gray Gull, four extra gold marks coaching it in language of
helping those in cabins eh will displace.
Again, there are two men on this voyage whom Mat has to kill leaving him
with the question of what insanity he has gotten into, fully putting him in the
fish out of water status that becomes integral to his motivation going forward.
This section also ends with one of the rare point of
view sequences from Rand’s point of view, still running towards Tear, but this
is a very small piece of the puzzle. It
is a parallel to Mat’s inner turmoil, Rand seeing everyone he loves hurt in
dreams and the only piece of the dream which is real is Egwene, a reflection of
what happened in the last section of the book where she entered Tel’aran’rhiod
and found him. There is a slight moment
of serenity when the point of view initially switches to Rand, simply because he
is playing something on the flute which is very nice, but this is essentially
the quick Rand is still going towards Callandor and Tear but not really
developing his plot in any meaningful way.
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