Binge Project: ‘The Wheel of Time,’ Book 12

Welcome to the Binge Project series! These Binge Projects will feature me reading or watching an entire run of comics, books, TV shows, or other media in rapid order, then writing expansively about the experience. This installment will be a slower process, as I work my way through the lengthy “The Wheel of Time” book series. 

Previously: Book 1 (The Eye of the World), Book 2 (The Great Hunt), Book 3 (The Dragon Reborn), Book 4 (The Shadow Rising), Book 5 (The Fires of Heaven), Book 6 (Lord of Chaos), Book 7 (A Crown of Swords), Book 8 (The Path of Daggers), Book 9 (Winter’s Heart), Book 10 (Crossroads of Twilight), Book 11 (Knife of Dreams).

And now, The Wheel of Time Book 12: The Gathering Storm.

We’ve entered the home stretch of The Wheel of Time, reaching the first of the three books written by Brandon Sanderson to conclude the series. From Sanderson’s forward to The Gathering Storm, I know some of the material was already written by Robert Jordan before his death, with other plot points based off Jordan’s notes but written by Sanderson. I haven’t researched the breakdown of just how much Jordan was able to write himself (because I was weary of accidental spoilers), so for now, I’ll just credit all the writing to Sanderson within the rest of these posts, while acknowledging upfront that Jordan wrote some of it and had some role in the rest from beyond the grave.

The Gathering Storm is a legitimately great book. Much of what it does is ostensibly table-setting for the eventual finale, but it plays that role so well that it easily rises to among my two or three favorite entries in the series. Even from the prologue, Book 12 starts to raise the tension for the Last Battle. The books opens with random farmers sensing the, ahem, gathering storm, and feeling pulled to head north to do their parts. We’ll probably never see these new characters again, but that’s the beauty of it; it’s not just ta’veren and Aes Sedai and the like getting caught up in the inevitable march to Tarmon Gai’don. It’s everyone. I’m getting so damn excited to see how it will all end.

Our two weak links from Book 11 take most of Book 12 off. I don’t think Elayne appeared at all, and Perrin was only there sparingly. We do see the end of Masema, finished off by Faile and company so that Perrin wouldn’t have to kill the self-styled Prophet himself. I liked that move; it showed the strong Saldaean marriage partnership that we’ve seen glimpses of from Bashere and his wife, now embodied in Perrin and Faile. Still, a part of me thinks the whole Prophet storyline never did reach its potential. I would have been fascinated to see Masema actually stand before Rand and have to confront that almost everything he’d been preaching/living had been wrong. But I suppose it was probably better to just wrap it up.

Some more quick hits: Demandred references his rule being secure, which leaves another unsolved mystery. Who is he posing as? The obvious choice to me seems to be Mazrim Taim, though I’m not sure the timeline allows for that. Perhaps he’s one of the Borderlands rulers; I still have no clue what the fuck that whole group is up to, as their meeting with Rand gets put off here for another book. Heading up to fill their void is Rodel Ituralde, who opened the book with another cool victory over the Seanchan before teaming up with Rand. I’m still liking Ituralde a lot, and am happy to see that he should be on the frontlines of the upcoming war. Aviendha gets a larger role in this book, but spends most of it being punished, until realizing that refusing the punishment itself was her final test to become a Wise One. It seems a fitting test, but it still tried my patience, as I’m more than ready for Aviendha to kick some ass. She did defeat a Bubble of Evil in this book, but despite all the praise she received for it, it still sounded like basically throwing water on a fire. Sanderson tries to make us feel the difficulty as being more than that, probably in an effort to let her shine, but it didn’t land for me.

Mat also has a somewhat reduced role in Book 12. The bulk of his scenes come in investigating and surviving a mysterious village that’s been warped into a Murderville by the Dark One’s touch. That didn’t do much for me, but we’re promised his arrival in Caemlyn for the next book, which should be an improvement for both him and for Elayne. Mat’s wife, meanwhile, bends the new King Beslan to her will, resists Rand’s ta’veren pull, and orders an attack on the White Tower. Tuon becomes Empress Fortuona in The Gathering Storm, and is still a difficult character for me. You could say the same about the Seanchan generally. She’s a capable ruler, and even Rand realizes at the end of the book that people are happier and more prosperous under Seanchan rule. But again, there’s a cap to how sympathetic Sanderson can make characters whose way of life revolves largely around forced slavery. Additionally, by refusing Rand’s alliance, Tuon/Fortuona has inadvertently put the world on likely weaker footing for the Last Battle.

The Seanchan are related to another problem: how happily can The Wheel of Time really end? I say “problem” loosely; it’s good to have these shades of difficulty, but I just find myself wondering how much suffering will outlast even the Last Battle. It’s still possible that the Dark One could win and destroy all creation, but I’m assuming based on the available evidence that Jordan was too much of a fantasy traditionalist to let the bad guy win. But even if Rand wins, how happy can things be after Tarmon Gai’don? Unless the Seanchan are conveniently killed off in the Last Battle, there seems little chance that they won’t still be a threat to conquer much of the world, and they look unlikely to be persuaded from their channeler-enslaving ways.

What’s more, the world is starving. Food has been spoiling from the Dark One’s touch for a couple books now, but Book 12 is the first one where we really see the full extent of the resulting famine. Even Rand seems helpless to reverse that, abandoning Arad Doman to starvation near the end of this book. Sure, defeating the Dark One at Tarmon Gai’don should end the spoilage going forward, but would it really change already-spoiled food to unspoiled? If not, a lot of people will still die before another harvest cycle.

Finally, to round out the how-can-this-end-happily files, there was the insane dream scene with Rand and Moridin. We learn at last that Moridin himself is the third man in Rand’s visions, the one who saved him at Shadar Logoth. I have to say, I did not see that coming at all. Rand’s confrontation with him was all the more poignant for both parties’ eerie calmness about the situation, and I gained new appreciation for Moridin/Ishamael as he laid out Rand’s true dilemma: Rand can win this time, but the Wheel will keep spinning eternally, and only one version of the battle has to end with the Dark One winning to end it all. (The solution, I imagine, is that Rand can’t just seal the Dark One again, but must actually kill him.) Moridin’s honesty in this encounter really elevated him as a villain to me. He alone among the Forsaken realizes the pointlessness of it all; the only prize to be had is a brief rule before the end of everything. I loved that scene.

Rand and Egwene play the biggest roles in Book 12, and both give us stunningly good payoff. For Egwene, it’s her final victory in the White Tower, reunifying the Aes Sedai and being raised again as Amyrlin. Her journey to that victory was exhilarating. Her early chapters continued her laying the base for support, skillfully working people to her side. One such group was the Black Ajah hunters, whom Egwene both shames and puts to good use. But chief among her successes was Silviana, with whom she has a particularly interesting relationship. Even as Silviana beats her, they’re becoming friends, or at least fostering a growing mutual respect that leads Silviana to stand up to Elaida for Egwene, and Egwene to later raise Silviana as her Keeper. I thought that relationship was particularly well-written.

But the list of Egwene’s badass scenes is so damn long in this book. There’s her dinner showdown with Elaida, which might be her most impressive moment. Egwene is so calm and collected in that scene, even as she’s throwing impeccable logic and irrefutable arguments that knock Elaida down, peg after peg after peg, until she can only resort to the last resort of most bullies: brute force, beating Egwene in front of witnesses and only gaining her more converts. Egwene is so in control of herself and what she needs to do; she’s become easily the best leader in this series.

There’s the Seanchan invasion, her coolest moment, where Egwene gets to be an action hero. I loved watching her rally the sisters and novices, wielding a powerful sa’angreal to become a one-woman army. Of course, the fact that some sisters, including Elaida, got captured means that the Seanchan will have Traveling soon, making them all the more formidable and tying back into my “how can this end happily?” question. I was a little disappointed that the rebel Aes Sedai didn’t rally to help defend the White Tower, as I think that could have been a stronger lead-in to the reunification than the awkward shuffling in that ultimately did occur.

Instead, Siuan leads Bryne and Gawyn to rescue Egwene against her express wishes. Siuan and Bryne finally get together, which was welcome and overdue, but god do I fucking hate Gawyn. He’s my very least favorite character right now. Jordan did a good job of developing most of the romances in the series, even when they were objectively illogical (like Rand’s foursome), but I never thought he connected the dots for why Egwene fell in love with Gawyn. Even at the time, it felt unearned, like she was just suddenly really into him for no reason. And what reason could there be? Gawyn sucks. So far in this series, he’s been the deciding factor in Siuan being deposed, sworn himself to try to kill Rand (which he knows would cause the fucking world to end!), and now, almost ruins the reunification of the White Tower. He’s arguably done more damage to the forces of Light than any member of the Forsaken! What’s more, he has no actual respect for Egwene whatsoever, since he not only doesn’t trust her to lead the Aes Sedai, but doesn’t believe her (or his sister, for that matter) when explicitly told that Rand didn’t murder his mother. I also hate that he’s become an over-powerful fighter, after previously being the lesser swordsman of Elayne’s brothers; in this book, he defeats two warders at once, one of whom we’re told is nearly on Lan’s level. Come on, that’s like a player-created character that I would have made playing video games as a child. If I could pick one character to die a horrible death in the last two books, it would be Gawyn. But I’m sure he’ll instead make up with Egwene and become her warder/husband. Sigh.

Finally for Egwene, there was one of the best chapters of the series thus far (to me, at least), in which she wasn’t even the star. I’d been eagerly wondering since Book 2 what Verin’s story is, where her true loyalties lie, and what her endgame would be. All of that was answered at last in an incredible chapter that reveals her as Black Ajah by oath but not by heart. Verin poisoning herself to exploit the loophole in her oaths, all to reveal the Black’s members and weaknesses with her dying words, was one of the most hardcore things any character has done all series. I loved everything about that. I was a little disappointed that Mesaana’s identity still wasn’t revealed, but that’s surely coming soon, with other Black Ajah members also escaping.

Finally, there’s Rand, whose massive series-long character arc reaches its darkest point before finally finding some balance. There were large segments of Rand’s Book 12 that were hard to read (in a good way), and I was wondering how the hell Sanderson would be able to keep it going for two more books. That was answered by the book’s final chapter, but getting there was a helluva ride.

We got some major hints at how Rand can win the Last Battle, from the implication that he needs female Aes Sedai to rectify one of Lews Therin’s problems, to needing to destroy the remaining seals on the Bore. But we mostly see Rand losing bits of himself. Even before Semirhage gets loose, he’s a jackass to the Aiel, to Cadsuane and Nynaeve, to basically everyone; he’s not outright hostile to Min, but even she gets the cold shoulder.

Then Shaidar Haran, who’s still perfectly creepy, frees Semirhage and gives her the Domination Band to leash Rand. Even though this was a variation on the already overdone “captive main character” plot point, it was a great scene. Rand had been so numb and cold, it was weirdly refreshing to see him so despondent and desperate as Semirhage made him try to kill Min. His discovery of the True Power was an exciting resolution, and it was like a good trainwreck to watch him go even colder and darker afterward. It was the best fight Rand has had with one of the Forsaken since Rahvin.

Rand finally kills Graendal, but only by also wiping out an entire fortress of innocents with baelfire. He banishes Cadsuane on penalty of death, but she continues working to teach him, as Min’s viewing said she would, using the character I’ve been longing to see Rand reunite with: Tam.

I’d been eager to see Rand and Tam together again since Book 2, and really thought it might happen in Book 3 when Rand was in the Mountains of Mist early on in that book. So much has transpired since, so many things that they needed to catch up on. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see Tam being a badass fighter when fighting alongside Perrin, since he was a blademaster, but at least we get some reference to how he earned that heron-marked blade. But then the whole exchange turned south, nearly resulting in Rand killing his father, with baelfire no less. It was painful, in a good way, to see all that longing and emotion turn in on itself to become its own dark inverse. It was also the truest way to show how far gone Rand was.

But in a rather literal example of it always being darkest before the dawn, Rand survives his toughest test yet — himself. The final chapter at Dragonmount was beautifully written by Sanderson. Throughout The Gathering Storm, he took us inside Rand’s darkness, especially in regards to the corrupting influence of the absolute power afforded him by the Choedran Kal. Atop Dragonmount, he nears the destruction of all creation, but instead, finds a reason to keep fighting. Lews Therin being the voice of sanity is hopefully a sign at resolution between the two as a single, unified and sane whole. But regardless, it was a gorgeous moment of storytelling, with Rand learning a reason to continue on despite seeming hopelessness: the ability to love again, to right wrongs. It’s so simple yet was so perfect.

Now we can enter a fully actualized era for Rand. Now the stage is mostly set, with more pieces in place than ever. The final picture is becoming clearer, and only two books remain.

NEXT TIME: Towers of Midnight, Book 13 of The Wheel of Time.