Mordeth fleeing! Why?

[Caelan Arendor]

The two River boys enter Shadar Logoth. Here they were lured by the prospect of treasure and followed a man who called himself Mordeth into a hidden chamber.

Rand notices that Mordeth casts no shadow and makes a remark about it. Mordeth swells to enormous size and is about to kill the boys, when he suddenly turns to smoke and evaporates fleeing.

What caused Mordeth to cease his actions, when all the trumps where in his hand? Any ideas?

 

[Tenobia si bashere kazadi]

Some ta'veren thing, maybe? 

[Mailman]

5 hours ago, Caelan Arendor said:

The two River boys enter Shadar Logoth. Here they were lured by the prospect of treasure and followed a man who called himself Mordeth into a hidden chamber.

Rand notices that Mordeth casts no shadow and makes a remark about it. Mordeth swells to enormous size and is about to kill the boys, when he suddenly turns to smoke and evaporates fleeing.

What caused Mordeth to cease his actions, when all the trumps where in his hand? Any ideas?

 

Didn't Mat stab or cut the bloated form with the dagger.

[Andra]

8 hours ago, Caelan Arendor said:

The two River boys enter Shadar Logoth. Here they were lured by the prospect of treasure and followed a man who called himself Mordeth into a hidden chamber.

Rand notices that Mordeth casts no shadow and makes a remark about it. Mordeth swells to enormous size and is about to kill the boys, when he suddenly turns to smoke and evaporates fleeing.

What caused Mordeth to cease his actions, when all the trumps where in his hand? Any ideas?

 

I always interpreted that as his reaction to sensing the coins Moiraine had given the boys.

He recognized what that meant, and wanted nothing to do with an Aes Sedai.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

The mention of fire welling up inside his amorphous form suggests that Rand channels to drive him off.  Rand then has a reaction to the channeling while on Bayle Domon's boat (reckless action of balancing on the masthead) in line with the process for unguided channeling described by Moiraine to Egwene earlier (the information seemed extraneous at the time...).   This was his second channeling (first was strengthening Bela and the reaction was his reckless action of goading the whitecloaks in Baerlon).  

[Caelan Arendor]

23 minutes ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

The mention of fire welling up inside his amorphous form suggests that Rand channels to drive him off.  Rand then has a reaction to the channeling while on Bayle Domon's boat (reckless action of balancing on the masthead) in line with the process for unguided channeling described by Moiraine to Egwene earlier (the information seemed extraneous at the time...).   This was his second channeling (first was strengthening Bela and the reaction was his reckless action of goading the whitecloaks in Baerlon).  

But we don't really know of channeling, do we? At least there were no outwars sign of it whatsoever (fire, storm, mental control??) I always thought, that the occurrence on the boat was his second supernatural action, but of course, your point also merits consideration.

[Caelan Arendor]

If the mints had any significance or power to protect our heroes, Shouldn’t Moiraine have warned the boys never to part with those coins? As far as I can remember, they were handed out without any specific comment.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Because she didn't want to tell them she had given them a tracking device without telling them. 

 

But certainly it would have been useful to tell them later, but this could be seen as another example of Aes Sedai scheming bites them - she is so used to hiding her motivations and manipulations that hurts her own mission. 

[teekay]

On 12/2/2025 at 7:25 AM, Caelan Arendor said:

If the mints had any significance or power to protect our heroes, Shouldn’t Moiraine have warned the boys never to part with those coins? As far as I can remember, they were handed out without any specific comment.

She used the one power while handing them out in the first place to compel them, the use of the one power should have been enough, with normal people those coins would have become family heirlooms passed down for a hundred years.

 

It would have been a thousand times weirder for an AES SEDAI to actually bother explaining ANYTHING to a bunch of village kids, if that happened there would just be a post instead of this one called "Why does Moiraine TELL the boys that they should keep the coins and thus tip them off that something is strange with them? Why would an Aes Sedai bother explaining themselves when they ddin't have to? Isn't this passage in the book weird? it doesn't make sense!!!"

[Caelan Arendor]

Moiraine, like most of her order, once again embodies the great silent ones—mysterious, aloof, and seemingly too exalted to convey even the simplest matters to “ordinary” mortals. I know my criticism is severe, yet with many of our heroines I find myself missing the touch of normal human behavior, and my sympathy for them remains rather limited.

[Caelan Arendor]

On 12/2/2025 at 1:00 AM, Mailman said:

Didn't Mat stab or cut the bloated form with the dagger.

I don't remember him stabbing him at all, Mordeth simply disappeared like smoke through a crack in the wall; or did I forget some details here? It's quite a time since I read Volume 1 (tEotW), so forgive if I err...

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

There is the point that his swelling form was an illusion. The details are slightly hazy to me at the moment, but I think the boys slash at him but hit nothing. 

 

He though is trapped there, losing his temper and killing them (even if that form can do so) does not help him at all. 

 

Mat escaping with the dagger was a way out, and even if Mat had for example dropped it, them surviving to tell tales of a crazy guy offering roomfulls of gold to travellers could easily entice more greedy less clever people there to infect. 

 

So it would be actually in his interest to protect them from Mashadar, not feed them to it. Though... How did the stupid and greedy Trollocs not free him? Why did he not trick them? I guess Mashadar could not resist attacking the evil it was created to combat. Or something... 

Edited December 7 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[Mailman]

17 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

There is the point that his swelling form was an illusion. The details are slightly hazy to me at the moment, but I think the boys slash at him but hit nothing. 

 

He though is trapped there, losing his temper and killing them (even if that form can do so) does not help him at all. 

 

Mat escaping with the dagger was a way out, and even if Mat had for example dropped it, them surviving to tell tales of a crazy guy offering roomfulls of gold to travellers could easily entice more greedy less clever people there to infect. 

 

So it would be actually in his interest to protect them from Mashadar, not feed them to it. Though... How did the stupid and greedy Trollocs not free him? Why did he not trick them? I guess Mashadar could not resist attacking the evil it was created to combat. Or something... 

He escaped with Fain who was with the trollocs I believe.

 

Also would a trolloc be a suitable host, do shadowspawn have souls to be consumed allowing his escape.

Edited December 8 by Mailman

[Figs and Mice]

Had a look back at the relevant chapter....  It really isn't clearly explained ; but Mordeth completely changes when Rand notices  - and says aloud  - that he doesn't have a shadow. He looms up in what seems to have been a bit of an illusion - and then suddenly retreats at the same time as Mat picks up the Dagger  - so I presume it is something to do with that ?

 

Is it that his scheme is achieved by having Mat take that implement ? Or does he somehow fear it himself ?

 

As I say : never really explained.  But it gets Mat's tale another feature so imagine we are not supposed to worry too much about the details ...