“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass,
leaving memories that become legend.
Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that
gave it birth comes again. In one Age,
called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose
on the great plain called the Caralain Grass.
The wind was not the beginning.
There are no beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of
Time. But it was a beginning.” – The
Shadow Rising, p. 13.
It has been a year since I last took a look analyzing
Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, largely due to not wishing to
overstep on while the second season of the Amazon adaptation was airing, but now
that the second season has come and gone to considerably better reception than
the first, and the third is confirmed to be adapting The Shadow Rising,
it feels the opportune time for entering that fourth novel. The Dragon Reborn as a novel ended the
shift of structuring these entries by having the Emond’s Field Five largely
together at the beginning of the novel, going their separate ways, and coming
back together by the climax of events, The Shadow Rising having the
mission statement of breaking the world once again, though metaphorically, with
the trajectory of the characters changing once and for all. Jordan as an author is quite fond of being
reactive when writing, Crossroads of Twilight is a novel that is
entirely reactive to the final moments of Winter’s Heart, and the seeds
of that are in how The Shadow Rising opens. The Dragon Reborn sees Rand al’Thor naming
himself the Dragon, but Jordan decides to move the timeline back slightly in the
opening chapter of The Shadow Rising, setting up the novel from three different
perspectives. This is also specifically
labeled to be Chapter 1 instead of a prologue, one of only two installments to
do so, a specific distinction is fascinating as the prologues of The Wheel
of Time begin to denote plotlines that may not progress in a particular installment,
something not the case for the massive first chapter of The Shadow Rising. “Seeds of Shadow” is split between four points
of view and three distinct locations, all integral for The Shadow Rising.
It is easier to begin at the end of the chapter,
mainly because the final point of view is from High Lady Suroth of the Seanchan. The last time the Seanchan were properly seen
was The Great Hunt, Suroth having found herself on top after the defeat
of her people in Falme, the importance of this section being Suroth’s specific
goal of finding the man who has claimed himself the Dragon Reborn. Suroth, as with the Seanchan as a culture,
are increasingly sadistic and tortuous, having already established herself as sul’dam
over a damane Aes Sedai, and the Seanchan’s current clash are not with Andor
but the Sea Folk, the Atha’an Miere.
Suroth’s specific motivation is being set on her own away from the Empire,
being afraid of returning without having conquered the Westlands. This allows the character to have a chance to
explore her own agency with her final thoughts on the situation being “when I
take him, do I give him to the Empress? That is the question.” – The Shadow Rising,
p. 50.
The theme of this chapter overall is preparation, working
backwards a group of Children of the Light from the perspective of Dain Bornhald
in Taren Ferry, one of the early towns the Emond’s Field Five passed through in
The Eye of the World. A character
called Ordeith, described as a man whose accent is constantly slipping and
going on about how “We will scour the Two Rivers…We will flog them, and flay
them, and sear their souls! I promised
him! He’ll come to me, now! He will come!”
– The Shadow Rising, p. 43. Bornhald
is dealing with the death of his father Geofram Bornhald who also died in The
Great Hunt, these consequences labeling the people of the Two Rivers as
entirely Darkfriends. Ordeith is
believed to be a madman, but is bound to this group of Whitecloaks by the Lord
Captain Commander, this idea being that the Two Rivers and surrounding villages
due to their isolation from the taxes of Queen Morgase in Caemlyn has led to
the fall to the Shadow. It is also clear
that Ordeith has no scruples about killing, three Tinkers are found to be
missing, setting up this murderous intent and ability while contrasting with the
moral dilemma of Dain Bornhald. Bornhald
as a character is able to look past Ordeith’s obvious insanity because he fully
blames Perrin Aybara for the death of his father, and he will have his revenge.
The other two points of view are equally setting up
pots being ready to boil over, though both involving the White Tower. First, Min Farshaw has been sent to the Tower
with a message from Moiraine for Amyrlin Seat Siuan Sanche. Min’s entry into the Tower is fascinating as
Jordan explicitly sets up a tragedy that is about to occur. This is the first time where Min’s viewings
are seen from her perspective, her point of view chapters in The Great Hunt
are generally with characters whom she had already had viewings of, and the
viewings here are all of tragedy, from three Aes Sedai who will die on the same
day, to several of Gawyn Trakand in a bloody mask with images of weapons around
him, and several of the major Aes Sedai characters. Jordan specifically makes these visions to be
off-putting and wrong, Sheriam is shown to be battered and bruised, Leane
having a screaming mask, and one for Siuan especially. “Not that she wanted to be disrespectful—that
did not even occur to one facing a woman like Siuan Sanche—but the bow she
usually would have made seemed foolish in a dress, and she had only a rough
idea of how to curtsy. Halfway down,
with her skirts already spread, she froze like a crouching toad. Siuan Sanche was standing there as regal as
any queen, and for a moment she was also lying on the floor naked.” – The Shadow
Rising, p. 28. The use of “regal as
any queen” is in line with the particular characterization of Siuan, who
responds to the information with a serene calm and taking actions to keep Min
in the tower, something that will force her to stay in the dress she is wearing
as a disguise. Min’s gender presentation
is one of those interesting aspects of The Wheel of Time that sadly
never gets explored to its fullest extent partially due to Robert Jordan being
a straight white man writing in the 90s and early 2000s, and partially because
as the series grows Min often gets sidelined.
Siuan specifically uses femininity as a disguise for Min, something that
she revolts against, demanding the disguise being taken further with the use of
makeup, curls, and the use of the full name she despises, Elmindreda. The text explicitly refers to it as a trap,
one shackling Min to something that she is not and giving the very manipulative
Siuan Sanche what she wants, immediately paralleled with the revelation to the
reader that Elaida discussing with Alviarin, a White Sistetr who has been
vaguely important to this point, of dealing with Siuan. This first chapter are the literal rising shadows
of the title while the literal Shadow and its forces will be continued as the novel
continues.
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