DRAGONMOUNT

Mat has always been my favorite character, from when I first joined the adventures of Rand/Mat/Perrin, and I've always imagined what his reaction would be if he existed in the 21st century; with a little bit of searching and scourging, I found some truly hilarious ones....   (Classic Mat)   (Mat and Tuon with a dash of Selucia makes a great time)   (Poor Loial....)   (Mat's Inbox...the last one cracked me up)

Hello there! Another week has gone by, Halloween is fast approaching, and it is time for another Weekly Roundup. I don't know about you, but I'm particularly excited to see what sort of goblins and ghouls come to my door this week looking for candy.    First up this week, a rare update from the Signature Request Forum: contests are back! The theme for this month's contest is to make a signature for the Band of the Red Hand. Check out the details for the contest in the Signature Request Forum!   The Black Tower Tainted Days festival continues. Check out the Mad Lib game, the Taintometer, Tainted News, and the OP Tournament. The festival runs through the end of October, so there’s plenty of time for you to get in and enjoy the festivities.   The Tuathan’an have started a new game, a Liar’s Competition! Check out the competition, or feel free to submit an entry of your own.   Also, with November coming, NaNoWriMo starts soon. Check out more within the Tuathan’an to talk about your own NaNoWriMo adventures.   Next, from the Dragon Reborn Roleplay community: the Yellow Aes Sedai are looking for people who need Healing. Check out the details and be ready for battle!   And Lastly, from the Dragonmount Twitter Feed:   Remember, you can always get up-to-date information about the Wheel of Time and Dragonmount from our Facebook and Twitter pages.  That does it for this week's Weekly Roundup! Have a careful and safe Halloween and I'll see you next month!

Everyone needs a good ice breaker, so I've compiled a list of them used by various individual and groups in the series.    Aiel: "I have caught you stealing my heart, you now have toh to me."        If you are ever going through an Aiel phase, this is prefect for you.   Rand: "I have real staying power, I am He Who Comes with the Dawn."      If you ever want to show how serious you are, just do what Rand does.   Cairhien: "Nothing is happening in my bedroom, no need to got there."    You might need to emphasize quite heavily and maybe a couple of winks, just try not to creep her out.   Tam: "The Dragon Reborn is the fruit of my loins."     Gross, ewww, and I can hear Rand groaning when he overhears his dad using that.   Domani: (Like they need a line.)     Fair enough....   Illuminator: "I want to light up your night."    To be honest, this is sweet.   Anyone: "I'm friends with Bela."    This is jackpot, it's been proven time and again that it's the most effective pick-up line, to be honest, that can be used in almost any situation....

Hello there! The Wheel Turns, and now it is time for a new edition of the Weekly Roundup!   First off, there is a very special event going on in the Black Tower for the rest of the month, a Tainted Days festival!  Events will include a new game called “Prisoners of the Black Tower” as well as Tainted Mad Libs. If you just want to watch the One Power Tournament, you can do that, or participate in any of the fantastic games going on with our Brothers in Black Jackets.   Do you have a burning question for Jennifer Liang? She has opened up a thread called “Ask me Anything!” in the General Board. So, go ahead! Ask her!   The Tuathan’an, our lovely rebranded Tinkers, have a fascinating October Challenge: Spooks and Spirits. Here is your chance to see what sort of spooky things our creative friends come up with or contribute your own haunted creation.   A new thread has popped up in the Ogier, a discussion on seasonal traditions.  No matter your country of origin or faith, you more than likely have some sort of seasonal traditions, holidays, or foods you enjoy eating during holiday times. Discuss them, your family traditions, or just learn what others do!   The Aiel also have a Halloween themed event: Aiel Hallows Eve! The Aiel have their own ways of celebrating the Spooky Season: Ghost Stories, a Witch’s Spell Game, Pumpkin Carving, and making Potions!   And, an update from the Roleplaying forums: The Children of the Light now have a new Roleplay Group Leader: WolfbrotherKronos!  Congratulate WolfbrotherKronos and the Children as they celebrate their new leader!   And now, from Dragonmount’s Facebook page:   Remember, you can get up-to-date information about Wheel of Time news from Dragonmount's Facebook and Twitter feeds!    That wraps this week's Weekly Roundup!

We're pleased to present our latest item in our Wheel of Time jewelry catalogue. Available immediately is a snake-wheel pendant available in Bronze, Silver, and 14k. Gold.     The bronze pendant starts at $19.99.   The Dragonmount jewelry store features over a hundred jewelry items for men and women, including Aes Sedai rings, Asha'man pins, Mat Cauthon foxhead medallions, and even cour'souvras.   If you're a Wheel of Time fan, or know somebody who would enjoy these items, please consider picking one up to support our website.  Each jewelry item is dramatically lower than retail price because we want to offer WoT fans the best possible deals.

[Editor's Note: This is an article Moon Sedai published on Landofnerds.com, on September 12th, 2013; she has several other articles that focus on strong female characters.  It's posted here with her permission.]   This will contain spoilers from the whole Mistborn series.  Read at your own risk!   Strong Females: Vin Venture, Mistborn   First, let me apologize for taking so long to write this blog. I had a rather busy month of August, plus I spent time reading the Mistborn series so I could do a proper showcase for the character of Vin, from Mistborn. I promise that soon, I’ll be getting back to a regular blogging schedule, and catch up on Space City Con.   Before I begin talking about Vin, let me describe the world of Mistborn.  Mistborn takes place in a world known as the “Final Empire.” For a thousand years, a tyrannical god-king known as the “Lord Ruler” has ruled the world. He is the center of the world’s only existing religion and the most powerful magician in the world. He can create, he can destroy, and he is seen as unstoppable.  He also has complete control of the economy.   A thousand years ago, the Lord Ruler did some amazing things, stopped the destruction of the world, and named himself the “Sliver of Infinity” and Lord Ruler. He stamped out all other religions. He worked to actively wipe out entire populations of some people, created monsters and allies to help him run the world, and led a society that was led by the religion he founded around himself. Society is highly stratified: there are nobles, who were the descendants of those who ‘helped’ the Lord Ruler a thousand years before. The nobles have rarely had to battle, breed very few children, and have a tall stature. There are also the skaa. Skaa are a race that has been relegated to little more than slaves. They are generally smaller, have a lot of children, and are raised to be superstitious and complacent. Interbreeding is forbidden, and noblemen who take skaa lovers are encouraged to kill them before they give birth to half-breed children.   The main form of magic in Mistborn is called “Allomancy.” Essentially, Allomancy is magic where the Allomancer “burns” metals in their body, either swallowed directly or ingested through foods. (To learn more about Allomancy, check out the Misborn Wiki entry on allomancy). Most Allomancers can only use one metal at a time, and their magical style is often named after the metal or what that metal does. Mistborn are different, because they can burn all metals. The Lord Ruler’s Steel Ministry seeks out skaa Allomancers to eliminate. They are an abomination.   The planet is not a beautiful world. There are Ash Mountains that spew volcanic ash at irregular periods, covering everything with a dirty grey pallor. Plants no longer produce color. The Sun is a deep red. Every night, the air is filled with Mist: a seemingly powerful source of spooky power that “eats people.”   To those fans of Mistborn, I am going to focus primarily on the first book of the series to avoid spoiling the ending. There are going to be mild spoilers for the series.   1. Who is the Character? Vin is the primary character of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. She is a half-skaa (slave race) half-noble born girl, raised on the streets of Luthadel, the capital of the “Final Empire.” Her father never knew of her existence, her mother was insane. Her brother raised her, teaching her to be constantly paranoid, and raising her to a life of crime.  In the beginning, she has joined up with a thieving crew that depends on her extraordinary “Luck” to help them pull off their heists.   After a botched heist, Vin’s crew is approached by a man named “Kelsier,” who is known as “the Survivor of the Pits.” Kelsier is a legend: He is the only skaa who has ever broken out of the Lord Ruler’s prison.  He hates noblemen with all his being. He is brave, he is strong, he is powerful. He is also openly Mistborn. Kelsier introduces Vin to the idea of Allomancy, lets her know that she is a Mistborn, and trains her to help him pull off the greatest heist known to the Final Empire: The overthrowing of the Lord Ruler.   2. What is her role/career in the world she belongs to?  In the first Book, Vin is training to use her Mistborn powers. She takes a place on Kelsier’s crew as a spy: She masquerades as a ‘country noblewoman in the big city for the first time” to help spread false rumors and make the noble houses mistrustful of one another. She is also supposed to report what she learns of the various noble houses back to her crew.   As a Mistborn, she becomes one of the most powerful fighters and magicians in the world. She might be from a place of poverty, fear, and paranoia, but Vin becomes one of the most fearsome forces within the Empire.   3. What is the source of her power? Does she have [magic] power because she was born with it? If she was not “born to power,” how did she get the power? (i.e “Chosen” by a mysterious council, win via election, did she take the power or have it forced upon her?) Did she have to put up a fight to obtain her power? Allomancers are born with something in their genes that allow them to use magic. At some point in their life, after experiencing near-death trauma, they “Snap” and start using their power. They are either an Allomancer, a Mistborn, or a normal person, without abilities. Noble houses often beat their young children to a point to where they either Snap, die, or just take a really strong beating. Skaa Allomancers often don’t need that kind of encouragement. The life of poverty led by most skaa forces their Snapping, and sometimes, they don’t know what it is they can do. Very lucky is the skaa that Snaps and manages to evade the Steel Ministry.   This being said, Vin owes her Mistborn powers to her good genetics. She did not have to fight to get power, she had to fight to survive, and that fight is what allowed her to live.   4. Who are the important men in her life? Can we, in any way, attribute her position, power, or authority in thanks to the men in her life (father, brother, boyfriend/husband/lover)? (Did Daddy give her the power, is she only cool because she’s the Chosen One’s girlfriend?) Reen: Reen is her brother, who rescued her from their crazy mother after their mother killed their little sister. Reen taught Vin to be paranoid and suspicious, traits that might have helped keep her alive. Ultimately, he abandoned her, confirming to her that “everyone will betray you.”   Kelsier: Kelsier is her mentor. He brings her into the Crew, teaches her how to use her Allomancy. He is a father-type figure, not her actual father, but he cares for her, looks at her like the daughter he never had. Through Kelsier and his Crew, Vin learns what it is like to really trust and work with others.   Sazed: Sazed is a Terris Steward, a man who is of a race that the Lord Ruler subjected to strong breeding programs to eliminate the Terris style of magic (because of this, Sazed is a eunuch.) Sazed teaches Vin about how to act like a ‘proper noblewoman’ and about the different religions squashed by the Lord Ruler. Sazed is a uses Fereuchemy, a power that stores magic within metals worn outside the body.   Elend Venture: Elend, Vin’s ultimate husband, is important because he tells Vin that not all noblemen are bad. He is the only man Vin every really “loves” and is brokenhearted when ordered to end the relationship and when he tries to end it to protect her. Vin goes to great lengths to protect and care for her husband.   5. Is she ever used as a “Damsel in Distress?” If so, how does she handle her capture/stress? Does she rescue herself or did she put herself into the stress to begin with? Vin only rarely is in distress. Once, when she pushed herself too far with Allomancy, and a second time when she is *almost* killed in a battle. After pushing herself, she was bedridden for a time, and then was ‘forbidden’ from using Allomancy until she was fully healed. Vin did not enjoy this, and she used her powers anyway. The only time she is directly a “Damsel in Distress” is when she is caught by the Steel Ministry. Sazed uses his Feruchemical powers to rescue her, which ultimately allows Vin to  …{Left out so to avoid a SPOILER}.   6. Sex. Is sex and sexuality important to the character? Does she spend much of her time trying to impress the men around her? Is she the maiden/mother/crone?  Vin is a weird mix of maiden and mother. In the first novel, Vin must act as an immature, unknowledgeable noble girl, trying to make her place in Court.  At first, she is annoyed with Elend. He’s a nobleman who would rather read than dance. But she falls in love with him, perhaps because he was genuinely concerned with the state of the Empire, and openly displeased with his father’s actions and how the Lord Ruler ran society.   Vin does not specifically dress up and go to Balls to court Elend. She does not "pursue” him, directly, and once the “jig is up” about her heritage and identity, she actively avoids dressing the part of the flighty noblewoman. If Elend is going to love Vin, he was going to love who she was, not who she pretended to be.   Vin and Elend have a fascinating relationship. They work well together, support one another, and seem to be a true partnership. She is not in power because she’s his girlfriend/wife. She is the one with the power. He takes authority because of her. She is often used as a tool to support his authority, but it is because of her choice. In later books, she acts as an unofficial mother to the various peoples. To the religion that spawns as a result of the first book, to some of creatures that the Lord Ruler created to help run the empire.   7. How ‘manly’ is the character? Is she a tomboy, or androgynous? Is she really just a male character in a female body? Vin does not initially enjoy the dresses and make-up of the noble courts. She prefers male clothes, pants, short hair.   Girls who look like boys on the streets are not raped.   She does eventually come to relish the dresses and female clothing, but she prefers to wear the comfortable pants and boots to dresses and corsets.   8. What are her weaknesses? Vin is paranoid, almost to a fault. She is constantly convinced that her friends and lovers are going to betray her. She constantly hears the whisper of her brother in her ear, telling her that her friends are just waiting to stab her in the back, to turn her in to the Steel Ministry, that they will abandon her, leave her alone, betray her. Her strongest struggle is not with the Lord Ruler, but with fighting this paranoia within herself.   9. How Interesting would she be if she were a male character? If Vin were a male, it would have removed the relationship with Elend Venture, that is ultimately critical to the resolution of the first book.  Elend ultimately takes place in the rebellion out of his love of Vin, not out of his high ideals and morals.   The thieving crews where Vin got her start might not have considered a male Vin innocuous, might not have mistreated her as badly. She would not have been as useful. Or maybe a male Vin in the thieving crews would have been used as a bodyguard, and given away his Allomantic powers earlier.

I still love them; something about them just makes me laugh.  So here are a couple of my favorite Wheel of Time light bulb jokes.   1.) How many Tinkers does it take to change a light bulb?      They don't. Tinkers wait for the sun to rise.   2.) How many Aiel does it take to change a light bulb?      Aiel don't know how to change light bulbs. 3.) How many Forsaken does it take to change a light bulb?      None, Forsaken like it in the dark.   4.) How many Two Rivers folks does it take to change a light bulb?      About 20. Everyone on the Village Council will insist that he should take part of the responsibility, so it will take them a long time to find the right person to do it. Meanwhile, the Women's Council will be debating which brand of light bulb they should install, comparing unit prices and MTBF ratings. The plans of the two groups will ultimately conflict, leading to much use of names like "stubborn" and "woolhead".   And my personal favorite:   5.) How many Aiel does it take to change a light bulb?      There's more ji in finding ones way in the the dark.

Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan's widow and the editor of The Wheel of Time series, recently told Dragonmount that she expects the WoT Encyclopedia to be handed into Tor Books for publication later than originally expected.   While attending the first annual JordanCon In 2009, Harriet said that she was under contract with Tor to create an Encyclopedia which described the world, its characters, and its history in greater detail (!). Also likely to be included are things like ranking lists of channelers, and rosters of Aes Sedai Ajahs.  Harriet also said that the Encyclopedia was due to be handed into Tor "one year after A Memory of Light was completed".  If that were true, then the Encyclopedia would be handed into Tor by January, 2014, and likely published a few months later.    But Harriet is now saying that she currently estimates the Encyclopedia will be handed into Tor around June of 2014, for a later summer or Fall 2014 release. This timeframe is by no means set in stone, but that's currently where things are at.   We'll have more news as it comes in.

Welcome back to another edition of "WoT If?", Dragonmount's weekly theory blog.  We are going to continue our reread of The Eye of the World, chapters 1 - 4.    Before we start, I do want to say that there will still be SPOILERS!  With the ending in sight, much of what I point out could allude to things that happen in A Memory of Light, so keep that in mind as you read.  Don't continue if you don't want to be spoiled.   Synopsis: Chapter 1: "An Empty Road"   Rand al'Thor and his father Tam are walking down the Quarry Road, delivering cider and brandy to the Winespring Inn for Bel Tine.  As they walk, Rand has the sensation that someone is watching him.  He turns around and sees a rider, dressed all in black, atop a black horse.  Rand tells his father, but when Tam looks the stranger is gone.  Rand felt hatred from the strangers gaze and he is scared.  He also realizes that the man's cloak did not move in the wind.   When they arrive in the Two Rivers, the town is getting ready for the festival, and the arrival of spring, even if winter weather is still hanging on.  Wit Conger stops them to complain about Nynaeve al'Meara.  Tam says the Wisdom is "women's business," and pushes on towards the inn.   Outside, they run into Bran al'Vere, the Mayor and owner of the inn.  As Bran and Tam talk, Cenn Buie—another member of the Village Council— joins them.  They talk of ill omens and bad weather.  Cenn thinks Nynaeve's ability to listen to the wind tells her that winter will never end.   Rand pays attention to the adult's conversation until his friend Mat Cauthon shows up.  Mat says they have strangers in town, and Rand immediately thinks of the black rider on the road.  Mat has seen the man as well.  They think about telling someone, but decide against it.   They learn that a gleeman has arrived for the festival, and the Council has ordered fireworks—if the first peddler of the season ever arrives.  Mat and Rand help Tam unload the casks of cider.   Chapter 2: "Strangers"   As Mat and Rand unload the cart, the Village Council is assembling in the inn's common room.  Once finished with the task, Ewin Finngar appears to tell Rand and Mat about the strangers who arrived in town.  They are the people—a man and a woman—Mat meant to tell Rand about: Lady Moiraine and Lan.  Ewin says Lan is "in her service" and he wears a sword.   Outside, the boys continue to talk about all the happenings of town, when they see a raven staring at them from the roof of the inn.  Mat and Rand both throw rocks at it, but it dodges them and continues to stare.  The Lady Moiraine shows up and the bird screams and flies away.  She talks to Rand, Mat, and Ewin, giving each a coin in exchange for any work she might have of them while she is in town.  Ewin is given a silver penny, but Mat and Rand are given larger silver coins.   Moiraine says she is a collector of stories, and she will talk to them in more detail later.  When she leaves, they see Lan—who has a cloak that changes colors—following her.  Commotion on the street shows that the peddler has finally arrived.   Chapter 3: "The Peddler"   As Padan Fain, the peddler, pulls onto the village green, many of the townsfolk assemble to hear news from the outside.  Perrin Aybara, Rand's other friend, shows up.  Together, they listen to Padan Fain tell a story about a man proclaiming himself to be the Dragon Reborn in Ghealdan.  This causes an uproar from the crowd, so the Village Council calls Padan Fain into the inn so they can question him further.    Rand, Mat, and Perrin talk about the possibility of war, Aes Sedai, and false Dragons when Nynaeve, with Egwene al'Vere in tow, comes up and scolds them.  They tell her why they were talking about such topics and she storms off to the inn to question the peddler herself.    After she goes inside, Egwene and Rand talk a bit.  Egwene has her hair braided, which means she is of an age to be married; Rand is also at the marriageable age.  Egwene says she is learning the arts of a Wisdom from Nynaeve, and that she might leave the Two Rivers to be a Wisdom to another town.  Rand thinks the only way to get her to stay is to marry her, but he's not willing to take that step at the moment.    Perrin tells Mat and Rand that he's seen the black rider, and that Moiraine also gave him a fat silver coin.  Egwene begins to argue about the stranger not being a monster from a gleeman's tale, when the gleeman comes out of the inn.   Chapter 4: "The Gleeman"   The gleeman—feeling huffy for being kicked out of the inn by the Council—comes to talk to Rand and the others.  He is Thom Merrilin, and when he notices a crowd gathering around him, he juggles and tells them what kind of stories he will share.  Moraine appears in the crowd and Thom stops abruptly.  He tells her she won't object to any of the stories he will tell.   At that moment, the inn door's open and the Council and Nynaeve exit.  Thom rushes off to get a brandy.  The Mayor and Nynaeve argue about the strangers—Moraine and Lan—and she storms off again.   Tam tells Rand and the other boys that the town will start a watch, with riders traveling the roads to Deven Ride and Watch Hill.  The boys want to volunteer.  Tam says they are going home, and though Rand argues, he winds up doing as his father says.  Back on the Quarry Road, Tam tells Rand that two other boys saw the black rider, and that he might be a refuge from the war in Ghealdan.  The watch will either find him or scare him away.  Knowing that they have a plan makes Rand feel safer about the whole thing.     My take:   A couple of thoughts on Chapter 1:   First, I love the opening paragraph: "The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass...".  And I love even more how Robert Jordan started every book in the series in the same format.  The repetition is beautiful and—though simple—helps form a connection through all the books.   Moving on, what is the nature of the long winter?  None of the seals of the Dark One's prison should be broken at this point.  Is the weakening of the seals responsible?  Because he can touch the world quite a bit to be able to manipulate the weather.  Also, later when they use the Eye, green things begin to grow, but then summer lasts until the Bowl of the Winds is used.  So perhaps even the switching from eternal winter to eternal summer was the Dark One's plan all along.  Or was it just him making the best of a bad situation?   Rand thinks to himself that there are more wolves around than usual.  If there are so many of them, what are the chances of Perrin coming into contact with one, and discovering—like Noal—that he has wolfbrother abilities?  I think he would have found out even if he hadn't left and met Elyas.  Remember in The Great Hunt when they travel by Portal Stone and they all see visions?  Perrin said, “We don't have many choices really, do we, Rand? Whatever happens, whatever we do, some things are almost always the same.”   While Tam and Rand are walking down the Quarry Road, I really like how Tam's solidness makes Rand go back on task.  This is the Rand we fell in love with—the innocent farm boy who needs that reassurance of his father.  I think this is also echoed in The Gathering Storm when Rand sees Tam again.  Tam's presence makes Rand relax.  And that relaxation makes him have a sort of panic attack—an attack where he realizes he can't relax, so he lashes out.  Funny how this is what actually led to Rand's epiphany on Dragonmount.  It was always Tam's job to get Rand on track.   Rand thinks of his mother, Kari, who died when he was only five.  Isn't it strange that we don't know the cause of death?  I'm racking my brains, trying to think of any reference to what killed her, and right now, I can't think of a single one.     We've had multiple discussions about whether Kari was a Darkfriend, and whether it was really her soul at the end of The Eye of the World, but I haven't seen any theories about why, or how, she died.   Rand's ta'veren-ness waxes and wanes as the Pattern weaves.  However, was the Pattern aware of him as a child?  Did it realize he was the Dragon early on and twist and turn events around him?  Something had to have pulled Tam to Dragonmount after the Blood Snows.  It was only chance that led him to finding the baby at all.  And we know, in The Wheel of Time, there are no coincidences.     Another note on this same topic: how are Rand, Mat, and Perrin the closest friends?  Growing up in the village, there are several other children around their same age.  And we know—since we were once children—that sometimes your best friend is even a year ahead or behind you.  So why were these three boys drawn to one another?  Again, their ta'veren-ness isn't supposed to come into play until Moiraine takes them away from the Two Rivers, but something made the be friends.   If you look at it, Rand lives far from town, and Perrin becomes an apprentice (with a job), so when would they ever have time to spend together?    Mat and Perrin, I could see them becoming ta'veren later.  But to me, it makes sense that Rand has been ta'veren all his life.   Which brings me back to Kari.  Why wouldn't the Pattern want Rand to grow up with his adopted mother?  What sort of things did he gain by her absence?  Did he need to have a strong male figure only?  Would a mother have pampered him more than he needed—making him softer, unable to do the harsh things he needed to do?  There had to be a reason for her to be taken.   When we read "Ravens" a few weeks ago, there was one part where Egwene thinks of the litany they say about the Forsaken.  Rand brings it up in this chapter:     Egwene, when she thinks of it, leaves off the bit about them being bound at the moment of Creation.  Which is funny, because Tam tells the story of how the Forsaken were imprisoned in Shayol Ghul by the Dragon not the Creator.  And if the Forsaken are bound since Creation, bound till the end of time, why do older people frighten children with tales of the Forsaken?  Mat says, "My mother always said the Forsaken would come for me if I didn't mend my ways."   I think people would argue it's the same as how we tell children about Santa Claus, or how we scare them with stories of ghosts.  But the adults don't believe in Santa or ghosts—usually.  In Randland, that prayer is what they all believe.  So it's very contradictory when their threat goes against the natural order of the world, or so they see it.   And finally, for Chapter 1, we have the line by Bran al'Vere: "Sometimes I think Nynaeve is right about…".  This bit of a rant is in regards to Cenn Buie.  We know Nynaeve isn't the best judge of character—but sometimes she knows what she's talking about.  What could she have possibly said about Cenn that Bran thinks she may be right about? Remember, in her testing for Accepted, Nynaeve sees the Two Rivers where Cenn is the Mayor, and letting the evil new Wisdom rule over the citizens with fear.  Does this image come from Nynaeve's own mind—and whatever she really thought of Cenn Buie—or does it come from the Pattern, by some sort of dream ter'angreal?   I've also heard speculation that this line means Cenn Buie can learn to channel saidin.  That Nynaeve senses the ability in him, or something.  It seems unlikely, I think.  But I do think that if Perrin hadn't come back to the Two Rivers in The Shadow Rising, Cenn could have turned out to be more evil.  When Perrin became their Lord, all the Two Rivers folk—Cenn included—lost a bit of their stubbornness and found someone they could all follow.   One quick word on Chapter 2:   Like in "Ravens," in this chapter we see more ravens acting odd.  When Rand and Mat throw the rock at the bird, it calmly sidesteps their assault.  When Moiraine comes along, the bird screams and flies off, implying that she channeled at it.  But what if that action is what caused the Myrddraal to attack that night?   We've talked about how it's possible that Myrddraal can channel the True Power—and we've seen in the Towers of Midnight prologue that the birds need to be controlled by the True Power in order to report what they saw.  If a Myrddraal was controlling this raven, felt it be hit by an invisible string of Air, it would know that there was an Aes Sedai in the village—if it wasn't close enough to feel her channeling to begin with.  And if it knew an Aes Sedai was there, it probably wanted to act as soon as possible, hence the quick and poorly formed attack parties.   On Padan Fain in Chapter 3:   At the end of the book, we learn about the process used on Padan Fain… that he was distilled.  This made him able to track down Rand, Mat, and Perrin.  However, do you think he was the only Darkfriend to be used in this manner?  Surely the Dark One had dozens of other people, paying close attention to every village in the world.  He would have distilled all of them.  But why is Fain the only one out for revenge?  He wants to kill the Dark One for what was done to him.     One possibility I see is that the process killed all the others.  Fain only survived because his distilled memories had found the one.  Because of that connection, Fain wasn't killed by the horrible process, and instead it made him a hound.  Just a thought.   And finally, Chapter 4:   Just one thing I want to point out about chapter 4: how bad Thom looks.  He is considered to be arrogant, the Mayor is offended by his attitude, he makes fun of how "travelled" the boys are, the list goes on and on.  Bran himself says, "That man may be fore trouble than he's worth."  And later (in Chapter 8), Lan voices his doubts about the gleeman: "I do not like that man. There is something about him I don't trust."   It seems to me, looking back, that Thom was meant to be a red herring.  If we think of someone leading the Trollocs into the Two Rivers, we don't think of Moiraine, who helped fight, we don't think of Fain, who is familiar to all in the town, we think of the weaselly gleeman who looked down his nose at everyone from the start.   I can't remember if I thought that during my first read—probably not, since my sister read the series first and spoiled a lot of things for me.  But if I had, it would have made his sacrifice at Whitebridge that much more surprising and wonderful.   Okay, we'll wrap things up there.  Sorry for the length; I doubt all will be this long.  That first chapter, in particular, made my brain really think about connections!  Join us next week for more of The Eye of the World, and everyone's favorite Trolloc, Narg!

Ah! The Wheel turns, and another week of activity has gone by. This has been a particularly active week for Dragonmount, so I do apologize for the length of this week’s Weekly Roundup. There is just so much going on this week!   The Debates and Discussion forum has a few interesting topics up for discussion at the moment: the America Shutdown, European Politics, and Propaganda. If you want to talk about the situations, learn something new, or just want to get into a good debate over any of the topics, head over to this forum to share your thoughts.   Walking Dead fans! The Entertainment, TV Show, & Sports Discussion forum has opened a discussion on Season Four! Join this discussion to compare notes, predict character deaths and plot twists, and to find other, like-minded Zombie fans on Dragonmount!   The amazing re-imagined Tuathan’an forum has announced its ranking system, the Way of the Leaf! If you are already a member of the former ACW Guild or looking to become a member, check the thread out to find information about this exciting process.   Meanwhile, in the Aiel, there are still spaces available for their Halloween Mafia game! The Aiel usually don’t have mafia games, so those of you looking for a new mafia game, or wanting to try it out for the first time, can play in this exciting holiday game.   The Kin are celebrating Halloween by sharing creepy images! (Warning… there might be spiders!)   Do you have tattoos? Share them in the Shayol Ghul Tatto Expo! This is your chance to talk about your ink, the artist, and plans for future tattoos.   The White Tower and Warders group has been the host of the Red Ajah Autumn Festival this week. The festival, music themed, has a discussion on folk music, dancing music, a signature contest, corrupt a song, a discussion of favorite music or bands, and a “let’s write a song” thread. What an amazing event!   In the Role-playing forum, a Warder Initiate has asked for help after being wounded by brigands. Will an Accepted or a Sister be able to get to him in time?   Finally for the weekly Dragonmount Facebook update:   :   Remember, you can get up-to-date information about Wheel of Time news from Dragonmount's Facebook and Twitter feeds!  And that wraps it up for this week's Weekly Roundup. Remember to sign in to your Social Groups!