TSR - Allegorical Bubbles of Evil

[SilentRoamer]

Hello fellow WoT lovers,

 

Just a little preface:

So I am continuing my first re-read of WoT. I have read the series before, along with New Spring and the companion books, mostly before I had access to the internet. I am really enjoying this re-read and rediscovering why I fell in love with WoT in the first place and why I regarded it as my favourite Epic Fantasy series.  The writing is just sublime, the PoV unreliable narration really works for me, sometimes we know more than the PoV characters and sometimes less and it allows events to unfold. There are criticisms, don't get me wrong: "Lan, Moiraines Warder" - I don't need reminding of this after 4 books, however I suppiose it allows the books to stand individually but I still see it as a fault, however the good far far outweighs the bad. The Dragon Reborn was a great 3rd entry.

Onto the point: I am early on in The Shadow Rising and I completely forgot about this bubble of evil which appears to the Tav'eren: I think Jordan really wanted to play into each of the boys themes here with the allegorical bubbles, let me explain why:

Rand: So Rand is attacked by mirror copies of himself, I think this is a reflection of Rands inner turmoil and the conflict between the warring aspects of himself. We know how difficult Rand is finding accepting that he is the Dragon Reborn, he is full of duty, but also longing for the simple life of a Shepherd. The mirror versions represent the aspects of himself he must do battle with (internally) in order to do what needs to be done. 

Perrin: Perrin/Faile are attacked by an Axe with a life of its own, Perrin has to wrestle with the Axe and prevent it from killing him and Faile. However Perrin can only fight with all his strength once Faile is removed from the situation. This shows Perrins fear for those he loves and shows his inner battle with violence as the solution - the battle between the axe and the hammer. Interestingly here, once buried into the door, Perrin seems to be able to sense that the life has gone out of the axe, I wonder if this is some showing of Wolfbrother ability.

Mat: Poor Mat was about to make some serious gold at cards, until the cards came alive and tried to kill him, with a heavy focus on the Amrylin card. This for me shows two things: it shows Mats distrust and fear of Aes Sedai plans, and more importantly it shows Mats danger with regard to luck. Just prior to the cards coming alive Mat was certain he was going to win and win big, it shows an unreliability with Luck and a danger he faces when trusting this blindd instinct. 

I think overall this section of the book is fantastic. The allegories are clear and strong but worked into the story structure with bubbles of evil very naturally. Really enjoying TSR at the moment - each book I have read I have liked more than the previous book, I know this won't continue and I will have to face the Slog books, but I can't wait to see what else I can learn and the little things I never noticed before (such as the Black Ajah talking about Mazrim Taim this early on - I wondr, did they know this False Dragon was a Darkfriend?)

 

Any thoughts? Did you enjoy this scene? Do you think there was anything else I missed with what Jordan was communicating through the Bubbles of Evil?

[DojoToad]

Yes, I enjoyed these scenes very much.  Still irks me that Mat didn't get his gold.

[Jsbrads2]

No reason to believe the Black Ajah suspected Taim was evil… there isn’t even irrefutable proof that Taim was a DF yet, he could have been turned by a Forsaken after he started the Black Tower. 

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

1 hour ago, Jsbrads2 said:

No reason to believe the Black Ajah suspected Taim was evil… there isn’t even irrefutable proof that Taim was a DF yet, he could have been turned by a Forsaken after he started the Black Tower. 

On the other hand he did last a long time without suffering from the taint - should we suspect he had received the dark ones protection?

[Jsbrads2]

Even had Taim become a dark friend prior to learning to channel, access to the Black Wires to protect him from going mad would still not have been available until the seals start breaking, namely at the end of book one.

If the Dark One was able to grant protection to men while all the seals were in place, we would have heard of stories, Baalzamon would have trained them…

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

There were dreadlords serving the shadow during the trolloc wars - if they did not have protection then they would have been equally dangerous to both sides.  From one of the forsaken's point of view he thinks of the taint as being repelled by the protection of his oaths to the dark one - not necessarily given in the bore.

 

[Kalessin]

I thought of the Taint more as the Dark One's essence projected onto the surface of Saidin, which meant an ordinary male One Power user had to reach through it to gain control of it. Whereas for the Forsaken, they had let the Dark One embed itself in them, or connect itself to them, so they didn't have to reach through that essence to gain control of it - they were already within it and so the negative effects couldn't touch them. (Or, they were in tune with it, so they didn't feel any discord about it being there.) FWIW.

[wotfan4472]

The Black Cables were there from the very beginning of the Forsaken swearing to the Dark One. It is this connection that does quite a vast amount.

 

It is this connection that allowed such weird things as the air turning to fire in Rhuidean while Rand was fighting Asmodean in the real world.

 

It is also this connection that encourages the dreams of the Forsaken on to entire localised populations, like how Tear was while Be'lal was alive, and how the Illianers were under Sammael, and how Loial reacted both times. 

 

The protection from the taint is only one benefit. Another is that the Forsaken had a vast upgrade in power after the Black Cables were in place.