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Where was Lanfear in Perrin's dream?


MikeRiley

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During all these dream world scenes with the Forsaken involved, the Forsaken choose areas that we see later in the books. There's one setting early in The Dragon Reborn that I don't believe we've seen yet. Perrin walks in on Lanfear and she seems shaken that he could be there.

 

In the chapter Wolf Dreams in The Dragon Reborn,

 

He was in a long hallway, its high stone ceiling and walls glistening with

damp and streaked by odd shadows. They lay in contorted strips, stopping

as abruptly as they began, too dark for the light between them. He had

no idea where the light came from.

 

The light suggests he is in an actual location in TAR, too. He starts shouting that he wants to wake up and Hopper sends a message to him to run. So he starts running. Then we see a bit more of his area,

 

    Other hallways crossed the one he ran along, at odd angles, sometimes

descending, sometimes climbing. None looked any different from the

passage he was in, though. Damp stone walls unbroken by doors, and

strips of darkness.

 

He comes on a nobleman who seemed to have dreamed himself there. The strips of shadow writh and one reaches out and drags the man's skin intact up to the ceiling. Perrin starts running again and either he wills himself into a new area or the area he was in just changes, but here's how it looks:

 

    Colorful tapestries hung along the walls between tall golden stands

holding dozens of candles that illuminated white floor tiles and a ceiling

painted with fluffy clouds and fanciful birds in flight. Nothing moved

but the flickering candle flames along the length of that hall, stretching

as far as he could see, or in the pointed arches of white stone that

occasionally broke the walls.

    Danger. The sending was even fainter than before. And more urgent,

if that were possible.

    Axe in hand, Perrin started warily down the hall, muttering to himself.

"Wake up. Wake up, Perrin. If you know it's a dream, it changes or

you wake up. Wake up, burn you!"  The hallway stayed as solid as any

he had ever walked.

    He came abreast of the first of the pointed white archways. It let into

a huge room, apparently windowless, but furnished as ornately as any

palace, the furniture all carved and gilded and inlaid with ivory. A woman

stood in the middle of the room, frowning at a tattered manuscript lying

open on a table. A black-haired, black-eyed, beautiful woman clothed in

white and silver.

    Even as he recognized her, she lifted her head and looked straight at

him. Her eyes widened, in shock, in anger. "You! What are you doing

here? How did you--? You'll ruin things you could not begin to imagine!"

    Abruptly the space seemed to flatten, as if he were suddenly staring at

a picture of the room. The flat image appeared to turn sideways, become

only a bright vertical line down the middle of blackness. The line flashed

white, and was gone, leaving only the dark, blacker than black.

    Just in front of Perrin's boots, the floor tiles came to an abrupt end.

As he watched, the white edges dissolved into the black like sand washed

away by water. He stepped back hastily.

 

It ends with Hopper telling Perrin to run, then appearing and lunging at him to make him wake up. I believe we haven't seen this area yet and that makes it a bit unique since we've seen all the others.

 

Any ideas where this place is? Or what Lanfear did to flatten the image? It looked like a gateway closing at the end. My thought is that the area was flattened in the process because she was in another world that he managed to access. Verin or Moiraine mentions that there are worlds that criss-cross the pattern and are harder to get to and even stranger (like those strips of shadows maybe) than the regular worlds accessed by the portal stones. I don't know why Lanfear would be in such a place though, so it could just be a place close to or in Shayol Ghul. The lack of windows might have been to prevent a giveaway on its location. If it was Shayol Ghul, I could see Perrin warning Rand about the shadows when they enter those halls, saving his life there.

 

Given the shadows it doesn't seem like the White Tower is being described. The tapestries and painted ceiling might make the area obvious, but I can't remember if another area was specifically described that way.

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It is obviously the love mansion she has set up for the Dragon and was probably thinking of the surprises she would have in store for him, when Perrin stumbled in. Up there a great banner saying, Happy 3000th! On the stand only the best wine from the Gardens, for I remember how he loved that wine. Down there on the silk bed the petals of white roses to symbolize my ever blossoming lov--what is he doing here? He will ruin the surprise, men gossip!

 

For a better answer - I have no idea, might be important, might not. There are already some thousands of plot points which could turn into something more, or for the sake of "nothing gets solved perfectly" stay as they are.

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