Live Blogs The Liveblog of Time: The Eye of the World

Eegah2012-02-29 17:32:57

Moiraine’s procedure on Tam takes a while, giving Lan a chance to play Mr. Exposition. Aes Sedai have control of the One Power, which I guess means they’re all women. I guess they really are the Bene Gesseritt. And not content with that, the rest steals more from Lord of the Rings. The Myrddraal, what Rand called a Fade before, are cross-breeds of Trollocs and humans, ie they’re Uruk Hai. Though I guess a creature that’s a takeoff of both them and the Nazgul has its own kind of originality. And their weapons have the same effect as Frodo’s Weathertop wound. You know, I’m usually not one to notice stuff like this as I’m reading, but this is really obvious. Also, Tam’s sword is a Warder’s weapon, though Lan is quite irritatingly vague on what the heron means.

Moiraine is able to get the poison out, and reveals that Rand has to leave town. The pattern of the damage in town shows that the Trollocs were only after Mat and Perrin, and also Rand at his own place. Moiraine’s gathered that all of them are almost exactly the same age as the thing that they have in common that somehow makes them targets, though in Rand’s case his age is based on a lie, so I suspect that will be important later. This means the three of them have to leave that very night to save the town from being attacked again, and Moiraine offers to escort them to Tar Valon, the city of the Aes Sedai. Ding ding ding, we have a main plot!

Things are starting to take off now, with a nice use of J. Michael Straczynski’s tenet that the mysteries and solutions in a story should have a 1:1 ratio, with one mystery beginning as another ends rather than a bunch of questions piling up until answering them all is impossible (the Lost writing method, as I like to call it). We know why the attacks happened, and now there’s the more intriguing question of why the Dark One is after these three. The story’s derivative nature is hard to overlook, but I still have hope that once they get on the road, Jordan will be able to do more than just remind us of other stories.

Comments

montagohalcyon Since: Dec, 1969

Feb 29th 2012 at 9:37:10 PM

I never thought of the Aes Sedai as Bene Gesserit, but now that you mention it...

Again, you'll probably keep noticing similarities to LOTR or other stories throughout the first book, but that's about it, after that things seemed pretty original to me. Of course, it's also been a while since I read the early novels.

Kzickas Since: Dec, 1969

Mar 1st 2012 at 12:33:04 AM

Myrdraal aren't cross breeds between human and trolloc. They're the offspring of trolloc that happen to end up with more human than the normal trollocs human/animal mix.

Sabbo Since: Dec, 1969

Mar 1st 2012 at 12:51:19 AM

I don't remember how much of the heron-mark blade thing was mentioned so far and what will be mentioned later, but it's not so important that I can't tell you now. I'll leave a gap before that though, just in case you'd rather wait until it's explained in more detail later.

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It is the mark of a swordsman who has attained the rank of 'blademaster'. This rank is most often achieved by beating another blademaster in single combat, although there are other ways. When Lan calls it a warder's sword, he is - I believe - referring to how it was long ago made with the One Power, and as such will never dull, as well as being particularly effective against shadowspawn (eg. Trollocs & Myrddraal). These Power-wraught heron-mark blades, in their rarity, are a mark of skill among swordsmen, and are generally only possessed by the most skilled even among blademasters.

That said, Aes Sedai of their time cannot make such weapons any more, as one of their Three Oaths makes them physically incapable of doing so. If you haven't yet learned of these "Three Oaths" yet, you will soon.