Binge Project: ‘The Wheel of Time,’ Book 9

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).

And now, The Wheel of Time Book 9: Winter’s Heart.

Hello there! It’s been a while. A hectic work schedule recently has had me doing little blog posting, and my downtime for reading has fared even worse. So after hitting a pretty quick pace for a couple books, it took me a full month to get through Book 9. I wasn’t crazy about the constant delays and interruptions this past month. The point of this series is to binge, and when you have to spread a single book out over a full month, you don’t get nearly the same experience. You’re less immersed, and you have to work your way back into being fully invested each time you pick up the book (or e-reader, as the case may be), sometimes for only short spurts before putting it back down. The timing was particularly unfortunate here, as I had been told Winter’s Heart was among the best highlights of this long series. For most of the book, I don’t think it had that level of full impact on me. But when I finally got to sit down and finish the final 100 pages in one sitting yesterday, the book still vaulted near the top by ending with arguably the single best chapter of the series thus far.

To be honest, most of the book contained less movement than I had hoped for — something that’s become practically a way of life with The Wheel of Time. Until the end, the book was almost more notable to me for what didn’t happen in it. Rand didn’t have a reckoning with Mazrim Taim. Egwene’s war with Tar Valon didn’t start in earnest, or at the very least, we get no significant looks at the beginning of the siege. Perrin’s chase after Faile and her captors barely gets going at all. Elayne doesn’t take her throne, or really even make too much progress. It’s amazing how many pages Jordan can fill up with relatively little in the way of major developments, but it’s certainly no mystery how this series made it to 14 books; the dude took his time.

But Jordan’s best skill is that he can usually manage to make that not a problem. He’s methodical, but still entertaining. His slower pace allows you to just live in the characters for large chunks of time. It’s not always about plot advancement at all, but about showing characters’ hearts and minds, showing people grow bit by bit. It’s made for some really fascinating character arcs already. It’s hard to even imagine Rand from Book 1, given how different he is by late in Book 9, but Jordan earned every step of that change. No major character has been untouched by some form of fairly radical transformation, but the character arcs are all the better for their gradual progress; nothing is rushed, so we feel each step of the journey more, and changes feel more earned.

But three major developments still drop in Winter’s Heart, all fairly long-awaited. The first was the resolution to Rand’s love square, as he finally meets up with all three women he loves, together for the first time. Honestly, as Rand’s arc takes him to colder and darker places, it feels a little ridiculous that all three of these women would still be in love with him, much less willing to share him the way they do, but Jordan somehow makes it work. He writes affections in such a sincere way that as silly as the situation might be, it doesn’t feel silly in the moment. Which is how we end up with Rand bonded as warder to all three women, with two excusing themselves so he can finally fuck the third.  Like I said, Jordan somehow makes this kinda work, even reveling in the absurdity as Min, Aviendha, and Birgitte are overwhelmed by the fiery feedback they get through their respective bonds in an amusing scene.

I have only a couple disappointments from that surprisingly fun plotline. One is the way that Rand’s increasing darkness gets kind of swept under the rug when each of the women is thinking about their love for him. Two is that Aviendha seems somewhat the odd woman out right now, as we’ve gotten to see far less of her connecting with Rand than Min or Elayne for a while now. But the third was the biggest to me: I really don’t care for the impending Elayne pregnancy angle. Elayne’s biggest character strength is that she’s a literal ruler, trying (slowly) to put her grasp on being queen. Making her pregnant with Rand’s child(ren) feels already like it’s reducing her to being an extension of Rand — much the way that in the first few books, Egwene seemed to be around largely so she could have thoughts about Rand. I would have been perfectly happy to see the whole series play out without any pregnancies.

The second big development was Mat finally meeting his prophesied wife. All Ebou Dari storyline have moved slowly, from the initial finding the Bowl of the Winds, to using it, to now, with Mat recuperating and finally leaving the city behind. After a book without Mat, I hoped we’d see him a little more active in his return; his escape was an almost agonizingly slow build at times. But it was fairly worth it to see the introduction of Tuon and her entourage. Tuon was immediately intriguing, capable but with a stubborn streak that may be overplayed in future books but isn’t yet here. Best of all, and most surprising, was Mat’s reaction upon realizing her true identity. He’d been so stubborn himself about avoiding his marital destiny that it was shocking to see him so immediately resigned, perhaps even accepting, on realizing who was in front of him. It’s an interesting sign of growth from the formerly flaky rogue, though I’m sure that side of him isn’t fully gone yet.

Before discussing the third major development, let’s hit on a few smaller ones. Rand succeeded in tracking down and eliminating a few of the rogue Asha’man, with one of the ringleaders (Dashiva) revealed to be a Forsaken in disguise, just before Osan’gar (/Aginor) gets killed in the final melee. That really just leaves Taim himself, so hopefully that showdown is coming soon.

We’ve seen a massive expansion in the number of people who can channel in recent books, something I haven’t discussed enough. For a bit, we had only Rand and the Aes Sedai, followed by the Aiel Wise Ones. But since the creation of the Asha’man, the influx of the Kin and Atha’an Miere, plus now freed Seanchan, we have a ton of people using the Power. What’s more, there’s been an uptick in strength: whereas once Nynaeve was the strongest of all the women, we’ve now been told of at least three women surpassing her: Alivia, Talaan, and the old woman novice (who’s name I forget). While an expansion of the worldview is necessary in a long series like this, there’s a part of me that regrets all these new sources of power, and strength in power; the result has been that some of our more established characters feel a lot less special now, especially Nynaeve.

Another big subplot in Book 9 is the further expansion of influence for Cadsuane, who is increasingly one of Jordan’s most intriguing characters. Cadsuane is a brilliant and very experienced manipulator, and we see her using all of her considerable skills to maneuver various chess pieces into place. She certainly seems to be squarely on the side of good, but I can’t help feeling there’s a dark undertone to her promise to teach Rand to laugh and cry. In any event, she’s really turned the Angry Women Trope on its head; between her and Egwene (who’s sadly mostly absent from this book), Jordan has finally gotten into a rhythm of showing tough, powerful women who demand their way, but without seeming like bitchy shrews. Kudos to him for the immense improvement; the Angry Women are mostly confined to the Atha’an Miere in this book, and their role is small enough to make it only a minor issue.

Rand got to have another showdown with Padan Fain, though yet again, it ended without finality. It’s actually been a while since we got to see Rand kill a major boss-level villain. Far Madding was a fun setting, and I enjoyed the complications of a city without the One Power. Elsewhere, while I enjoyed Elayne’s skillful handling of the four Borderlands rulers and their armies, I’m a little impatient to find out what their endgame is. There are so many moving parts in this series; it’s going to be a blast when they all come to their head.

And finally, let’s get to the third major plot advancement and the final chapter. “Epic” has become a horribly overused word, but damn if it doesn’t fit here. The Choedan Kal have been teased to us for most of the series, a Chekhov’s Gun waiting to fire. Likewise, the escalation of madness from saidin has been building to a point where a resolution felt necessary sooner rather than later. In the final chapter of Winter’s Heart, all of that comes to a head with Rand and Nynaeve linking to use the world’s powerful weapons to cleanse the Dark One’s taint.

As they do so, all hell breaks loose around them, with nearly every member of the Forsaken (I think only Moridin and Mesaana weren’t mentioned) joining in a melee, met by an alliance of Aes Sedai, Asha’man, and Atha’an Miere, with powerful links and even Callandor thrust into the battle. A couple of big revelations hit in the midst of the chaos, with Osan’gar/Aginor revealed as Dashiva, and Cyndane as Lanfear reborn. Cadsuane’s cool factor was upped yet again with our first look at her in battle, marshaling her forces to defend Rand and Nynaeve at all costs. Jordan has excelled a few times already with massive battles as disparate forces meet up at once — the fall of the Stone of Tear and Dumai’s Wells being the most notable. But everything previously falters by comparison to the battles around Shadar Logoth and the Choedan Kal in Winter’s Heart. There are surely some big battles left to come, including Tarmon Gai’don of course, but this was the fight so far by which all future fights will be measured.

So here we are: nine books down, five to go. Two remain from Jordan himself before Brandon Sanderson steps in, and by most accounts I’ve been told, they’re probably the two lowest points of the whole series. So this might be a rough slog ahead, but I’m going to go ahead and try to get through them both before taking a break before Sanderson begins. It will be disappointing if Jordan ends on too much of a down note after delivering such highs previously, including this one.

–

NEXT TIME: Crossroads of Twilight, Book 10 of The Wheel of Time.