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Sunday, August 14, 2022

The Dragon Reborn by: Robert Jordan: Solving the Mat Problem Part 3 (Chapters 30 to 32)

 

“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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