The Wheel Of Time / Tropes M to R

M

• Made of Explodium: The Illuminators make fireworks that can, they claim, catch fire if exposed to air. Considered reliable by the Muggles of the book's world, but Mat Cauthon tried cutting one open to see how it was made and the powder inside did not ignite. Played straight in the second book when loose flame ignites an entire bunker full of Illuminator Guild inventory. It is assumed that the highly secretive Illuminators spread this rumour around to avoid other people figuring out of what they're made. Or that Mat is just that lucky.
• Made a Slave: A few different versions.
  • Several characters are made slaves by the Shaido Aiel in later books.
  • Among the Seanchan, failure can be punished by being made da'covale, which basically means slave. This happens to a few named characters.
  • The Seanchan also turn channelers into damane, which are slaves leashed with an a'dam. This happens to Egwene in the second book, and to various other Aes Sedai in the later books.
• Mad Scientist: Aginor, a famous biologist in the Age of Legends who turned to the Shadow to gain more freedom in his genetic experiments, having been banned by the Hall of Servants. He created all of the Shadowspawn.
• Mage Tower: The Aes Sedai have their White Tower, and the Asha'man later start building a Black Tower as an echo, though it is not finished before the end of the series.
• Magical Accessory: Several angreal or ter'angreal take the form of rings or other wearable accessories.
• Magical Sensory Effect: Zig-zagged:
  • Women who are actively channeling the One Power appear to be glowing to other women with the ability. Male channelers get a general sense of awe and menace when another man is channeling nearby, and a vague chill when women are channeling, but can't pinpoint it to an individual.
  • Channelers perceive the One Power itself as threads of coloured light that are woven into the spell. Ordinarily they emanate from the person casting the spell, but they can be "tied off" to persist without the channeler's concentration.
• Magic by Any Other Name: The One Power is never referred to as "magic" in-universe. Neither is the so-called True Power, which is the power of the Dark One.
• The Magic Comes Back: Although magic in terms of channeling has been constant, many Talents and weaves have been lost since the Age of Legends, as well as a number of other abilities not directly related to the Power, and the strength and number of Aes Sedai has been in decline for centuries. As of the time of the books, the White Tower enjoys a huge boom in membership, including some novices who are stronger than any woman currently raised to the shawl; old Talents, like ta'veren sight and foretelling, are reappearing; old weaves are rediscovered (mainly by forcing the information from the Forsaken), and a few new ones possibly invented; and people have appeared who have abilities previously unknown, such as aura seers, wolfbrothers, sniffers...
• Magic Is a Monster Magnet: Myrddraal can sense channelers. Also, Machin Shin, the sentient wind trapped inside the Ways, is attracted to any channeling like a moth to a flame.
• Magic Is Feminine: As a result of a curse on the male half of the magic-using population, men with a connection to magic inevitably become violently insane or die of a wasting sickness (in either order), whereas magical women have established some of the world's most powerful (and consequently, most distrusted) political organizations. As such, magic-using men are universally shunned as a highly dangerous aberration, while magic-using women are more widely tolerated, if mistrusted.
• Magic Knight: Several.
  • Rand is very much this, at least until he loses a hand. Despite being a VERY strong channeler, he still practices with the sword daily and uses that skill to good effect several times.
  • The Asha'man. Rand instructed that they all learn to use swords as well as learning to explode heads. Justified in that there are half a dozen ways to be rendered unable to channel (exhaustion, being shielded by someone more powerful, being shielded by someone less powerful who takes you by surprise, steddings, forkroot, and touching a weave-dissipating ter'angreal), but a sword is theoretically always useful to someone who knows how to use it.
    • The use of swords becomes a divisive trait among the Asha'man, where those who are loyal to Rand keep wearing them, while those who follow the M'Hael and turn to The Dark Side eschew them and mock those who keep them.
  • A few of the female channelers qualify. Aviendha, for instance.
• Magic Music: Ogier with a special gift can sing to enhance and influence the growth of trees. In the Age of Legends, humans did something similar, using special songs to make crops grow. These songs still work, and in the last book Rand sings softly to make it appear that he has Fertile Feet.
• Magic Nuke:
  • In most cases, someone who can channel will usually let a weave dissipate on its own, but that will often leave a residue that can be traced, especially with Gateways. To leave no trace, a weave can be "undone," but is incredibly risky and dangerous, as even a slight mistake can result in an accidental explosion of considerable size.
  • It is said that during the war at the end of the Age of Legends, balefire was used to wipe out entire cities.
• Magic Staff: Moiraine uses one in the first book. She claims it's an aid to concentration with no powers of its own, but does a number of uncommonly powerful things with it.
  • Nynaeve, who is the local healer and fortune-teller in her village, carries a staff but doesn't do magic with it. Mostly she just uses it for hitting people. She eventually loses it somewhere and it's never brought up again.
• Magic Wand: A number of ter'angreal have the shape of a wand or rod, ranging from the dangerously unreliable Balefire Rod to the more utilitarian (but also dangerous, in its own way) Oath Rod. There's also at least one rod-shaped angreal.
• Magitek: Some ter'angreal seem to be this. For example, one ter'angreal looked at in passing seems to be a portable library.
• The Magocracy:
  • Tar Valon is governed by the Aes Sedai. Also, the Aes Sedai (especially the Blue Ajah) tend to meddle in the political affairs of the rest of the world, and many rulers willingly keep the counsel of an Aes Sedai advisor.
  • Also there is a largely unseen land called Shara, which is only mentioned in passing. However, in The World of Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time, he mentions that it is secretly a Magocracy with puppet Muggle rulers. In seven year cycles, each is killed then replaced by another monarch (for unknown reasons).
  • Meanwhile, Seanchan on the other side of the world is a complete inversion, where all the magic-users are enslaved by the Muggle rulers. Though part of the reason they developed such a hatred of magic users and got to where they are is because when they first got there that half of the world was ruled by magic-users who fought among themselves for power. And perhaps a Double Subversion, since the Empire is explicitly founded on the power of chained magic-users that are always at the rulers' disposal. They just choose to ignore this, or don't understand the fact.
• The Maker: The Creator is the entity which created everything, and sealed the Dark One in its prison at Creation. It's stated the Creator made not only the world of the books (in fact a future Earth), but many more. Regardless, it does not intervene in events directly, but acts through the Dragon and ta'veren to stop the Dark One from destroying everything.
• The Man Behind the Man: Ishamael was the first of the Forsaken to escape being sealed in the Dark One's prison. He has been manipulating global events and engineering death and destruction for thousands of years.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • Aes Sedai are renowned for their manipulations. Much of it is because they Cannot Tell a Lie and so use other ways to twist the truth and manipulate people to their own ends.
  • Rand shows signs of this when he's playing the Game of Houses, at some times making controlled reactions that he purposefully knows will screw with his politically-savvy comrades' minds.
  • All of the Forsaken are both manipulative and bastards (figuratively, not literally). They each have their own favored methods of manipulation, such as Graendal's use of Compulsion and Demandred twisting prophecies to make himself the Dark Savior of Shara.
• The Man They Couldn't Hang: Mat survives a hanging, which leaves a scar around his neck that he carefully conceals thereafter.
• Marry Them All: After trying and largely failing at It's Not You, It's My Enemies and some considerable angst, Rand begins to resign himself to this with his three love interests in Book 9. However, Rand never actually officially marries any of them, at least before the end of the series.
• Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: This is hard-coded into the magic system, but even among non-channelers this is still a dominant character trait throughout the entire series.
• The Masochism Tango: Faile picks fights with Perrin because that's how all Saldaean relationships are expected to work, and she's insulted if he acts like a doormat. There are many other examples, but that is the most overt.
• Masquerading As the Unseen: The Forsaken typically wear a cloak of darkness or similar effect while dealing with their minions, partly for intimidation but also to hide the fact that the minion might recognise whatever prominent figure they're pretending to be. Elayne takes advantage of this in the penultimate book to get information out of one of her captives by pretending to be a displeased mistress. However, her lack of knowledge about certain imminent plans allows the captive to catch on pretty quickly.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": In Lord of Chaos, when Perrin tells all of the wolves in his communicative range that Rand was captured, the wolves have this reaction before unanimously pledging to come to his aid.
• Matriarchy: Several, running the full spectrum of the trope.
• Meaningful Name: Everyone. Yes, really.
• Medieval Stasis: Much of the series seems to be in a Renaissance Stasis, rather than Medieval Stasis. Clocks are common, the clothing and societies are more akin to the Renaissance era than the medieval era, literacy is high, and books are abundant. It can be more medieval in rural areas, but still feels like a more advanced world than most fantasy settings.
  • Justified Trope, because Ishamael was the first Forsaken to escape from the Dark One's prison and he has been maintaining a campaign of periodic trolloc rampages every time humanity gets some peace and unity that might allow them to progress.
  • Because time is cyclical in the series ("an Age yet to come, an Age long past"), the stasis would have to end eventually. By the later books in the series there are many indications that the end of the stasis has already come:
    • Rand's academies have made versions of the steam engine and other advancements.
    • When Mat becomes a general and starts raising new armies, he revives a number of strategies and practices that hadn't been seen in centuries. This includes using gunpowder and cannons.
    • Aviendha's vision of the bad future seems to resemble the Wild West.
• Medieval Universal Literacy: Literacy is very high, because (per Word of God) the printing press managed to survive the cataclysm that bumped the world down into Medieval Stasis, so practically everyone is well-read. However, literacy is still low enough that shopkeepers take care to put a picture of what they sell on their signs.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Rand spends an inordinate amount of time angsting over the women who die in his service, and very little time angsting over the men who die in his service, even though the number of men lost is much greater than the number of women lost.
• Merlin and Nimue: Moiraine has this relationship early in the series with Rand. In the later books, Cadsuane takes up the older mentor role in Moiraine's place.
• Messianic Archetype: Rand.
  • His injuries: he has two heron brands on his palms (which look very much like red wounds), he had a spike through his foot, and he was stabbed (twice) in his ribs.
  • He wears a "crown of swords" which looks very much like thorns.
  • His "blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul" will be the only thing that can buy mankind's salvation from the Dark One.
  • Later in the series, he didn't become "whole" until he climbed a mountain, while doubting himself, and in extreme pain.
  • The prophecies of his birth specifically predicted that he would be "born of a maiden." In Rand's case, it's not literal— his mother was a Maiden of the Spear, not a "maid" IE virgin, and was known to have sex with his biological father^note Indeed, Rand wasn't even her first child, though he was her last — but is still very suggestive. He was also raised by someone who isn't his biological father.
• Metaphorically True: Aes Sedai are notorious for this, leading to people never trusting them.
• Metaphorical Marriage: Aes Sedai often magically bond a warder — a big strong swordsman to watch their back. Officially, the relationship is supposed to stay professional, but in practice, the empathic link created by the bond tends to lead to emotional intimacy, and they are expected to stay together until death do they part. Becoming sexually intimate or flat-out marrying for real is officially frowned upon, but not exactly uncommon. It's not a real marriage, but many end up acting like husband and wife, and young Aes Sedai have lots of romantic notions about it. Some of them do get legally married, although they tend to keep it on the down low since strictly-speaking it's against the White Tower's rules.
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Rand makes some initial attempts to leave the world a better place after he's gone, but as the world (and his own state of mind) increasingly goes to hell, he gives up on his side-goals and determines to just make it to the Last Battle and defeat the Dark One before his foretold death. After his epiphany on Dragonmount, he again realizes it is right to do all he can to help.
• Military Mage:
  • The first notable instance is the Second Battle of Cairhien in the fifth book, in which Rand uses himself, Egwene, and Aviendha as artillery, raining down destruction on the battlefield from an observation tower, while an army of Aiel warriors handle the ground combat.
  • The Green Ajah of the White Tower, known as the Battle Ajah, is ostensibly an order of military mages, as they prioritize combat magic and are focused on preparing for the prophesied Last Battle. Their order's head is even called the Captain-General. In practice, they're Mildly Military at best, although as the only order which allows members to bond multiple Warders (magically-enhanced bodyguards), those who do can count as officers and support mages in addition to artillery.
  • The Seanchan have this baked into their entire military. They systematically test all citizens for magical potential and conscript mages to fight as slave soldiers, bound by a magical leash that compels them to obey. They are mostly used as artillery.
  • This is built into the structure of the Black Tower, which Rand founds to train male mages to help fight the Last Battle. Combat training, both with the One Power and swords, is prioritized, and the first rank of initiates are called Soldiers.
  • After merging with the memories of his previous life, Rand, already the de facto supreme commander of several militaries and a living artillery piece, becomes a full-on One-Man Army. The only reason he can't win the Last Battle all by himself is that it's the sort of fight that requires several armies.
  • Taken to its logical extreme in the Last Battle itself, which has just about every known magic-user in existence fighting on one side or the other. While many mages are used as artillery, the fact that Traveling has become widespread means they're at least as useful for logistics. Among other flashier uses, a portal with one end high above the battlefield and the other in a general's tent makes for easy intelligence-gathering. Another very handy use is a portal with one end wherever-that-general-wants-it and the other right in front of an artillery battery.
• Mindlink Mates: Not every Warder Bond is between romantic partners, but some are. By the end of the series we have: Rand and his harem, Nynaeve and Lan, Gareth Bryne and Siuan, and Egwene and Gawyn. More generally, some of the Green Aes Sedai who only have one Warder will marry said Warder, and most of the married Asha'man will bond their wives. The One Power does have its benefits.
  • And its drawbacks, as Min, Aviendha, and Birgitte find out shortly after Rand's bonding while he and Elayne were enjoying themselves. If someone you're bonded to is nearby and having sex with someone else, it feels, as Min says, "like peeking through bedcurtains."
  • Special mention goes to Androl and Pevara, who have a double bond that allows them to transmit concrete thoughts as well as feelings and sensations. There is no documentation on whether this is a normal side effect of a double bonding because, so far as anyone knows, it's never been done before.
• Mind Manipulation: Many different sorts.
  • Compulsion can be used subtly or like a hammer.
  • Warder Bonding comes with varying amounts of mind control, though it depends on the user and the situation: Aes Sedai bonding enables a weave that approaches mind control and the Asha'man's "extra bit" bonding permanently compels absolute obedience.
• Mind Rape:
  • Padan Fain is fond of this tactic, and he doesn't even use the One Power for it.
  • Semirhage and Graendal are both very fond of Compulsion. The latter uses it to keep hundreds of slaves, and they are so messed up in the head that any attempt to reverse it would cause death or insanity.
  • The test to become an Aes Sedai is an interesting case, as it involves going through 100 different Battles in the Center of the Mind while the other Aes Sedai in the room subtly manipulate things to make it harder for the testee to complete her 100 assigned tasks. Almost every woman comes out crying about how she hates all Aes Sedai.
  • The cour'souvra, or mindtrap, becomes this whenever the owner of it uses it to punish the prisoner.
  • Rahvin could be considered to do a more literal form of this trope, using Compulsion to create a harem of women. It's mentioned in one chapter that he has at least seven in addition to Morgase.
• Mirror Match: More or less literally, when a "bubble of evil" spontaneously causes Rand's reflections to jump out of mirrors and fight him to the death. Eventually he starts wising up to the situation and extinguishes his Flaming Sword, causing his reflections to do the same (to their confusion) and making the fight slightly easier.
• Mirror Morality Machine: Anybody that can channel the One Power can be Turned by a circle of thirteen Dreadlords and thirteen Myrddraal. Notably, though, this doesn't directly force them to serve the Shadow. People that were extremely loyal to the Light will be extremely loyal to the Shadow, but the Only in It for the Money types still be just as lukewarm in their new allegiance.
• Misery Builds Character: Aes Sedai novices are forbidden from using their powers to do chores, first as a safety measure, but secondly out of a belief that menial labor builds character.
• The Mole: "Eyes-and-ears" are a major recurring political element, and Darkfriends are everywhere. Spectacularly turned on its head with a double agent in the twelfth book.
  • A more specific example would be Egwene's "ferrets:" Aes Sedai from the rebel faction who were sent back to the White Tower to gather information and further Elaida's downfall.
• A Molten Date with Death: In the Final Battle, one expert in Thinking Up Portals draws on all his allies' power and opens a massive Gateway into the heart of a nearby volcano, devastating the enemy army with a deluge of lava.
• Moment Killer: Hurin inadvertently interrupts a moment between Selene and Rand in the second book. Since "Selene" is actually Lanfear, this is almost certainly for the best.
• Morality Pet: Cadsuane attempts to use Tam al'Thor as one to make Rand remember his humanity. After some tense confrontations, it eventually works.
• Mordor: The Blight in general is like this, but it gets nastier the closer you get to Shayol Ghul, especially in the dead and barren Blasted Lands, the center of which is the valley of Thakan'dar directly below Shayol Ghul.
• More Dakka: Arrows of Fire one of the weaves Rand learns from Lews Therin.
• More Powered Protégé: Moiraine mentors Rand al'Thor in his role as The Chosen One, which includes lessons in statecraft and in the One Power. The latter don't go well — not only is he so much more powerful than her that he can set off earthquakes by accident and is prone to intuitively using amazingly advanced powers thanks to Past-Life Memories, but the Mars and Venus Gender Contrast in the One Power means many of her lessons aren't applicable to him.
• More Senior Subordinate: The rebel Aes Sedai faction select Egwene, a teenaged apprentice, to become their leader, even though some of them are centuries-old political veterans. It's ostensibly because she's powerful and wasn't involved in the original schism, but Egwene soon realizes they want a puppet who'll take the fall if their rebellion fails. She becomes an Apparently Powerless Puppetmaster instead.
• Mouth of Sauron: Shaidar Haran often serves as the mouthpiece of the Dark One.
• Mrs. Robinson: Queen Tylin. See Black Comedy Rape.
• Muggle Foster Parents: Rand was found by Tam al'Thor on a battlefield, and Tam decided to take him home to his wife Kari to raise as their son. It turns out that Tam isn't completely a muggle. He is a bladesmaster, and teaches Rand a few techniques that help him survive the first couple of books (but never teaches him how to use a sword).
• Multi-Melee Master. Juilin Sandar. As a professional thief-catcher (think private investigator/bounty hunter for hire) he usually needs to take armed opponents alive, so his usual weapons are a sword-breaker and cudgel. However, he still carries a sword which comes out in situations when bringing home the bacon becomes less urgent than surviving the fight ahead.
• Multiple-Choice Future: Min has the gift of seeing cryptic visions of the future around people. Most of the ambiguous ones are Prophecy Twists that come true in unexpected ways, but on two occasions, she gets viewings with two possible outcomes depending on whether one person is present for another at a crucial time. Perrin takes the warning to heart and saves Rand's life, while Siuan and Gareth do not and are killed soon after they separate.
• Multistage Battle: Except for "Lord of Chaos", the first nine books all end with one of these.
  • "The Eye of the World": Rand more-or-less accidentally Travels from one fight to another.
  • "The Great Hunt": The manysided battle of Falme rages back and forth all over the town.
  • "The Dragon Reborn": Rand chases Ishamael through the Stone of Tear.
  • "The Shadow Rising": Rand chases Asmodean through Rhuidean.
  • "The Fires of Heaven": Rand chases Rahvin through the Royal Palace in Caemlyn.
  • "Lord of Chaos": Aversion. The Battle of Dumai's Wells starts out at the wells and stays there.
  • "A Crown of Swords": Rand chases Sammael through Illian and Shadar Logoth.
  • "The Path of Daggers": Rand and the renegade Asha'man chase each other through the Sun Palace in Cairhien.
  • "Winter's Heart": Rand's allies and enemies sneak around trying to ambush each other in the forests around Shadar Logoth.
• The Multiverse: It's a Multiverse that pretty much consists of Alternate Universes, "Worlds that Might Be" that exist but aren't quite real. The Dream Land, Tel'aran'rhiod, connects these to the real world.
• Mundane Solution: Channelers are extremely susceptible to forkroot tea; low amounts greatly interfere with channeling, and ordinary servings can knock them out outright. The tea has much less effect on Muggles.
• Mundane Utility: The Aes Sedai try to avoid this for the most part, though they do have some mundane uses such as channeling blood/water out of clothes, and they specifically forbid their Novices and Accepted from doing any chores with the Power. The Asha'man, on the other hand, as part of their Training from Hell have to do all of their chores with the Power: if you can't channel Fire, you eat cold food.
  • Special mention goes to Androl Genhald, who is very weak in the Power but has a special talent for Gateways. In his introductory scene, he uses a tiny Gateway to make a perfectly clean cut in the piece of leather he's working with.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Lanfear's dating philosophy.
• Mutant Draft Board:
  • The Seanchan enslave all channelers and periodically test all women under a certain age to root out any others who might show up. Before the collars were developed, their lands had been home to constant warring between rival channelers; they react with horror at the thought of such people roaming free in modern times.
  • Also, the Aes Sedai, but only in the sense that they crush any attempts to abuse channeling or start rival organizations (they're a little unhappy to discover that the Aiel and Sea Folk each have their own). They actually turn a lot of women down for being too old or failing one test or another, as long as they aren't in danger of killing themselves. When Egwene drops these conditions, membership jumps dramatically.
• My Fist Forgives You: The Aiel honor code codifies this as a relatively friendly way to settle some transgressions. Afterwards, the matter is considered settled and is never to be spoken of again.
  • The Maidens of the Spear give Rand a painful but non-debilitating beating for keeping them away from a battle out of chauvinism.
  • The Wise Ones take turns giving a round of corporal punishment to Egwene for misleading them about her rank in the Aes Sedai.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Rand has one when he almost kills his own father during a heated argument in The Gathering Storm. Quite a few of his friends have been telling him in book after book that he's going too far in his actions and losing it, but it doesn't truly sink in until this confrontation.
  • The emotional reunion between Rand and Tam in the following book, where Rand tearfully embraces and begs for his father's forgiveness, finally shows a side of Rand that has not been seen in a very long time.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling:
  • When Rand and Nynaeve cleanse saidin of the taint every channeler in the world can sense it, as shown by reaction shots in Crossroads of Twilight.
  • In The Gathering Storm, several channelers get a horrified reaction to a "balescream" when Rand uses the Choedan Kal to balefire Greandal's castle.
  • Mat frequently has a sensation of "dice rolling in his head" when appropriately important moments are imminent. When the important thing happens, the dice stop rolling, but Mat usually has no idea what the important thing was. On one occasion the dice stop when he walks into a room, and he flips out and wonders if one of the Forsaken is going to burst from the fireplace or something. Made hilarious on a second read when you know that the dice stopped because one of the women in the room is his future wife, and one of the other women in the room is one of the Forsaken.
  • Rural belief has it that the local Wisdom can sense the weather. Nynaeve turns out to have this Talent, but with a twist. She can sense literal storms, but in the later books she also starts to sense figurative storms, i.e., bad things that are going to happen. She spends a lot of time saying A Storm Is Coming.
• My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: The methods of political games between nations generally goes this way. A standout example would be in Book 14, when Rand is talking to Empress Fortuona. He acknowledges the position that Seanchan should in fact rule the Westlands due to Artur Hawkwing's empire, but he also says that, considering he has all of the authority and memories of Lews Therin Telamon, whose rule predates Hawkwing's, his actual ownership should be grandfathered in. Rand also uses it to shut up Cadsuane, pointing out that it's absurd of her to keep calling him "boy" when as the reincarnation of Lews Therin, he is actually stronger than her, several decades older than her, and was actually raised by the original Hall of the Tower of the Aes Sedai, technically making him her senior in every way. He suggests that she should start calling him by an honorific, then has to reassure her he doesn't really mean it when she visibly goes white with dread.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Eventually, we meet some members of the Red Ajah who aren't man-hating psychos and/or secretly Black Ajah. Not many, though.
• Mysterious Veil: The Aiel's standard combat gear, such that "Like a veiled Aiel" is a common idiom.

N

• Named by Democracy: The Black Tower is named by general assent, with no one taking credit for coming up with it. Considering it's the counterpart to the White Tower, the name is obvious enough that anyone could have come up with it.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
  • The Forsaken were branded with evil-sounding names in the Old Tongue. For example, Ishamael means "Betrayer of Hope." Those names also have real-world analogues thanks to Meaningful Name (see this blog for more info). Highlights:
    • Ishamael = Ishmael + Ismaili
    • Sammael = Samael
    • Rahvin = Ravana + raven / raving / ravening
    • Be'lal = Belial
    • Aginor = Agony
    • Asmodean = Asmodeus
    • Graendal = Grendel
    • Lanfear = l'enfer^note hell in French + fear
    • Because time is cyclical, and it's strongly implied that our modern world is one of the seven spokes of the titular Wheel, it's possible that the names the Forsaken were branded with were inspired by demons from our history, or our demons were named after the Forsaken, or both.
  • Some of the alternate names for the Dragon Reborn are this, such as "Kinslayer," "Shadowkiller," etc...
• National Weapon:
  • The Aiel are known for their short spears (which can also be thrown like a javelin). They won't touch a sword (and there's a specific reason for this reluctance), although they do use large knives which are almost big enough to be short swords.
  • Two Rivers folk are known for their very effective use of the longbow.
• Near-Villain Victory: Many, many times during A Memory of Light.
  • Shai'tan nearly gets Rand to give up in despair by forcing him to watch the deaths of his friends in The Last Battle, but Egwene gives a him posthumous pep talk that refreshes his Heroic Resolve.
  • Moridin brings Alanna to Shayol Ghul and planned to use her warder bond with Rand as a trump card. Alanna removes the bond just before dying. Moridin also manages to swipe Callandor from Rand and begins channeling...except that he didn't know it required two female channelers to control it, thus falling for Rand's Batman Gambit and leading to his death.
  • Demandred utterly wrecks the forces of Light and comes within one final push of winning The Last Battle, but wastes time waiting for Rand to come out and challenge him. Then he gets into a swordfight with Lan and ends up dying before issuing his final orders, thus leaving the forces of the Shadow unorganized and making them easier to defeat. Then the Horn of Valere is sounded, thus giving the armies of the Light the reinforcements and momentum needed to turn the battle.
  • Graendal uses her Compulsion technique to make the four Great Captains give commands that resulted in tactical mistakes that cost the lives of thousands of soldiers. However, she didn't count on Mat replacing the captains, or that Aviendha would be enough of a Determinator to outlast her in direct combat.
  • Moghedien uses her typical strategy of lurking and manipulating others, this time by posing as one of the servants in the Seanchan command post. However, Mat quickly figures out that there's a spy in his immediate proximity. He and Tuon fake a falling out to separate the Seanchan command, thus letting him lead the forces without being compromised while she tries to figure out who the spy is. Thanks to Min's viewings and quick thinking, Moghedien's cover is quickly blown, forcing her to escape and ditch her only strategy. Then she tries to rally the remaining forces of the Shadow by posing as Demandred...until she nearly gets blasted by Talmanes's teleporting cannons. She survives the Last Battle, planning to regain power...until she's captured by the Seanchan.
  • Lanfear tasks Slayer with assassinating Rand in the cave at Shayol Ghul. Slayer would have easily pulled it off had Perrin not mastered Tel'aran'riod and stopped him. She also helps Perrin multiple times in Tel'aran'rhiod in an attempt to gain his trust. In the climax of the Last Battle, it's revealed that she's had Perrin under Compulsion the entire time and intends to use him to kill Moiraine and wrest Callandor out of Rand's control while he's vulnerable, thus putting her in the position of having Shai'tan and the others at her mercy. However, she didn't consider that Perrin's Undying Loyalty for Faile and his mastery over Tel'aran'rhiod — two of his most enduring qualities late in the series — would give him the power to resist the Compulsion...and break her neck.
  • Shaisam AKA Padan Fain sweeps over Shayol Ghul and uses its Hate Plague to kill indiscriminately and revive the victims as its own army. Its goal is to consume Rand's soul, which is apparently the strongest in the world. He gets within sight of the cave where Rand is fighting, only for Mat to stop him. Since Mat had contracted and was Healed from the same Hate Plague several books ago, he's completely immune to its effects. Had he not been there, Shaisam would have likely killed everyone.
  • M'Hael, AKA Taim had the Dark One's Seals in his possession; without breaking them, Rand has no way of permanently defeating Shai'tan. However, he ends up holding the Idiot Ball just long enough for Androl to pickpocket the Seals. He also uses balefire to great effect, but relies on it so much that Egwene is able to come up with a counter spell and kill him off in an epic Beam-O-War.
  • Aravine manipulates Faile into leading the Horn of Valere convoy through a Gateway and deep into enemy territory at Shayol Ghul. Without the Horn being sounded, the forces of Light wouldn't survive the Last Battle. However, she didn't count on Faile being able to catch up to her on an old farm horse like Bela. And no one counted on Olver - not Mat - being the Hornsounder.
  • A relatively minor one, but Mellar returns, equipped with a copy of the fox medallion to make him invulnerable to Elayne's spells. He and his men successfully capture Elayne and Birgitte, and Mellar personally stabs and beheads Birgitte while taunting the queen. He and his men come very close to performing a lethal C-section on Elayne in order to steal her unborn children and spread the rumor that she had been killed in combat, thus affecting the armies' morale. However, Olver sounds the Horn of Valere, thus allowing Birgitte to revive just in time to kill Mellar.
• Negative Space Wedgie:
  • Bubbles of evil strike at random even though they are caused by the weakening of the Dark One's prison.
  • Nightmares in Tel'aran'riod are not deliberately created and live a life of their own once they are there.
• Never Found the Body: When Rand finally traps Sammael between balefire and Mashadar, he doesn't manage to see what happened and just assumes his target was killed. Luckily, he is right.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Zig-zagged. At first it seems subverted, and is even discussed when Rand wonders why he doesn't suddenly know what to do when he gets his powers, like the heroes in stories always do. It later gets Double Subverted when all of the heroes get new powers anyway, and after his epiphany at the end of The Gathering Storm Rand eventually figures out what exactly what he's supposed to do.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • From the first book, after being repeatedly told to trust absolutely no one and say nothing about the Trolloc attack on Emond's Field or draw attention to the party, Rand not only has a lengthy discussion with Padan Fain about the attack, but also blabs about the group's travel plans. Since Fain was the Darkfriend who led the Shadowspawn to Emond's Field to begin with, that easily let him rally several Trolloc units to attack the party on Caemlyn Road shortly thereafter.
  • Nynaeve's attempts to get herself and Elayne out of the traveling menagerie and safely to Salidar cause Samara to explode in riots with countless people injured or killed, because she made the mistake of asking both Galad and Masema to help them find a boat, resulting in the Whitecloaks and the Prophet's Dragonsworn battling over it.
  • "The Strike at Shayol Ghul," a short story by Robert Jordan, describes the efforts to seal the Bore and end the War Against the Shadow at the end of the Age of Legends. Apparently, the original plan of sealing involved twenty thousand soldiers to provide security and a circle of seven female and six male Aes Sedai, who would Travel to Shayol Ghul and implant the seals at focus points, but that was opposed by another member of the Hall of Servants, Latra Posae Decume, for being to risky. The women Aes Sedai favored Decume and the men favored Lews Therin, and communication devolved so much that eventually neither group was speaking to the other, and Lews Therin eventually took himself and the Hundred Companions and a private force to seal the Bore without petitioning the Hall at all. This led to the Taint on saidin and the eventual Breaking of the World, all because neither group would compromise. This ties back to the central theme of trust in the series.
  • Before Verin went to Tar Valon to betray the Black Ajah to Egwene, an action which she knew would probably require her death, she gave Mat a sealed letter, asking him to obey it if he were to open it, or to wait a certain period of time for her to return and reclaim it. She counted on Mat's powerful curiosity to make him open it within a few days, but underestimated his extreme distrust of Aes Sedai. By the time Olver opens it, the Trolloc army using the waygates to bypass Andor's defenses and take the capital has already arrived, nearly causing the Light to lose at Tarmon Gaidon.
  • Male channelers among the Aiel will head off into the Blight to kill as many shadowspawn as they can before they die. This is considered by the Aiel to be very noble and heroic, except that the men would get captured and forcibly converted into evil channelers — Samma N'Sei — and thus the Aiel have been inadvertently gifting the Shadow with channelers for hundreds of years. The good Aiel do a collective forehead slap when they realize this.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Moghedien's freakout in Ebou Dar directly causes Nynaeve to break free of her mental block.
  • While the villainous part might be questionable, from the Aes Sedai point of view the Seanchan performed one of these. By ordering a raid on Tar Valon in order to capture as many marath'damane as possible, Tuon accidentally resolved a power struggle. This is because during the raid one of the Aes Sedai taken captive was Elaida, the only viable candidate for the Amyrlin Seat (by virtue of being incumbent) besides Egwene.
  • The Eelfinn gave Mat his ashandarei after he went through the twisted doorway in Rhuidean. This turned out to be the actual means by which they returned him to Rhuidean, and he later uses it to escape when he, Thom, and Noal rescue Moiraine from the Tower of Ghenjei. Mockingly lampshaded by Mat himself.
  • The wording of the Darkfriends' oath says that they are bound to keep the Shadow's secrets until the hour of their death. For those last 60 minutes, though, anything goes - like when Verin exposed the entire Black Ajah operation within the White Tower so that Egwene can remove it. Counts as "fixing it" for both Verin, who did the exposing, and Shaitan, who worded the oath like that.
• The Nicknamer: Faile, especially in her first few appearances, and, strangely enough, Lan in the early books. In The Dragon Reborn Perrin exasperatedly points out to both of them that he does have a name other than "blacksmith".
• Noble Tongue: The Old Tongue, though even nobles aren't fluent. It's a mark of status rather than a usable form of communication.
• Noble Savage: The Aiel, to an extent. By the time of the Shaido defection and after, this characterization is pretty much dropped.
• No Guy Wants an Amazon:
  • Cited as one of the many reasons why Aes Sedai don't marry, aside from the occasional Green. While most Aes Sedai aren't physically powerful, they are strong enough in the One Power that they could overpower a potential husband as easily as a kitten.^note Other reasons include the fact that an Aes Sedai would outlive her non-channeler husband by a couple hundred years, and that the Aes Sedai have a serious ice queen mentality instilled in them for years.
  • Subverted with the Maidens of the Spear. They seldom marry, but this is more due to the fact that they are obligated to give up the spear if they get married. Overall it seems like they don't have too much trouble getting laid.
  • Subverted with Mat, who seems to have no qualms about sleeping with a Maiden who is taller than he is (which is notable since Mat is taller than average for a Westlander), at least until she turns out to be a Darkfriend.
• No, I Am Behind You: A staple of the duels between Perrin and Slayer, due to their ability to shift from one place to the other immediately when in Tel'aran'rhiod.
• No Pregger Sex: An implied aversion in book 14, when Rand visits Elayne during the early parts of the last battle, before he goes to Shayol Ghul, and she's around six months pregnant.
• The Nondescript:
  • The Grey Men. They actually possess the power of being easily ignored and forgotten. The text of the books will emphasize this ability in an interesting way, as a single line will be slipped in sideways about a man coming through the door, then two paragraphs later someone will notice, "Oh shit, a man with a knife is in the room!"
  • There's also a minor human character who has this quality. He looked so ordinary that he managed to be an extraordinarily effective pickpocket for twenty years before being caught. He gets drafted during the Lion Throne subplot, and ends up working as a spy for Andor's chief clerk.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Some of the Forsaken were not especially strong or distinguished by the standards of their own time, having survived the War of Power mainly through dumb luck and being Dirty Cowards, but even they come off as near godlike compared to present-day Aes Sedai.
• The Nose Knows:
  • Perrin, thanks to having the olfactory acuity of a wolf. He can tell a person's emotional state, down to individual emotions such as jealousy or annoyance, just by the scent of their body chemistry.
  • Hurin, a Shienaran, is a "sniffer." Violent acts leave a sort of residual scent that he can smell and follow, and he uses this ability in his occupation as a thief-taker.
• Nostalgia Filter: Galad's main reason for joining the Children of the Light was that he liked what they originally stood for, notwithstanding how far they had fallen since their founding. Hence his willingness to invoke some of their older traditions such as "Trial Beneath the Light."
• Not in Front of the Kid: The hardened soldiers of the borderlands have a great deal of respect for Aes Sedai, and really try to watch their language. This causes some of them a great deal of difficulty.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Even if the good guys win the Last Battle, the war will change everything.
  • The Seanchan have reconquered about a third of the Westlands. Their practice of enslaving channelers might lead to continued war between them and the locals, though the protagonists hope that the revelation that sul'dam are all potential damane will upend the Seanchan's own practice of slavery.
  • Long-forgotten uses of the One Power, like Gateways and many others are returning, and getting disseminated. Some completely new things have been discovered as well, including new ways to heal with the One Power, steam engines, and the idea of using gunpowder as a weapon.
  • Invoked in-universe: Aviendha was the first person to take the test of a Wise One since Rand revealed the Aiel's history, and she inadvertently changed the ceremony: in addition to seeing her people's past, she saw the future of her people, and it's a very Bad Future (although in the last book this Bad Future has probably been averted by the terms and treaties included in the Dragon's Peace).
• No Warping Zone: The thirteenth book introduces the "dreamspike" artifact, which blocks the creation of Gateways within a large radius of its position, including ones inbound from outside the area of effect. In the Dream World, it visibly manifests as a spherical, semipermeable barrier of similar effect, except that teleportation is still possible between between two points inside the barrier.
• Numerological Motif:
  • Seven: There are seven spokes in the titular Wheel, seven seals on the Dark One's prison, and seven Ajahs (not counting the Black), to name just a few cases.
  • Thirteen: There are thirteen Forsaken. Thirteen is the maximum number of participants in a female-only circle; such a circle has guaranteed success in cutting off a channeler from the source, regardless of the strengths of the individuals in the circle. Thirteen Black Ajah working through thirteen Myrddraal can forcibly turn a channeler to the dark side. The thirteenth repository contains the secret histories of the White Tower (including the law forbidding telling most sisters about them).
• Nurture over Nature: Even though Tam al'Thor isn't Rand's biological father, Rand still very much considers Tam his father.

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• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Verin Mathwin, of all people. Eleven books of unusual behavior (including chapters from her own POV) and we didn't find out until the twelfth that she was a Black Ajah double agent who had dedicated her entire life to uncovering the members, workings, and secrets of the Black Ajah. She fatally poisons herself in order to betray the Black Ajah to Egwene, who subsequently purges the Black from the ranks of the Aes Sedai once and for all.
  • High Lord Weiramon, the bumbling commander of the Tairen forces. A common fan theory holds that his bumbling is actually intentional sabotage in disguise. The reveal that he is actually a Darkfriend all but confirms it.
• Oblivious Adoption: Rand is eighteen years old before he discovers that farmers Tam and Kari al'Thor are not his birth parents. This revelation doesn't change the fact that Rand still loves them just the same and resolutely refers to them as his real parents, even after uncovering the identities of his biological parents.
• Obliviously Superpowered:
  • A minority of channelers can wield the One Power with no training, sometimes completely unawares. Unless they're taught, they tend to have limited Psychoactive Powers and a poor survival rate.
  • The protagonist spends the first book unaware that he's intuitively channeling to save himself from danger. He doesn't even connect the dots when a man threatening him is struck by lightning indoors.
  • Nynaeve first used the One Power to heal Egwene of a deadly fever. Since all she knew was that the fever broke, she didn't realize she was a channeler until years later.
• Offered the Crown:
  • Rand was already the de-facto ruler of Tear, Cairhien, and Caemlyn when he invaded Illian and killed Sammael. After that, the Illianers offer the Laurel Crown to Rand, who renames it the Crown of Swords.
  • Rand later offers the crown of Tear to High Lord Darlin in order to end a rebellion of Tairen nobles.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The way that Sanderson had to condense the final conclusion to a legendary Kudzu Plot into A Memory Of Light caused a few of these, sadly. The epic speech from Loial to the Ogier Stump that convinced the Ogier to rise up and fight in the Last Battle is one; many people also felt that the conversation between Tuon and Artur Hawkwing was another.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In the first book when Perrin tells Rand and Mat that Nynaeve had followed them from Emond's Field all the way to Baerlon.
  • Be'lal, Asmodean, Semirhage, and several others, right before their respective deaths.
  • Mat's reaction at the Tower of Ghenjei, when he realizes that he made a deal with the Eelfinn that they wouldn't pursue him, but he had made no such deal with the Aelfinn.
  • The gholam has a very satisfying one right before it is dropped off a skimming platform into the endless abyss.
  • Moghedien, after Nynaeve figures out her identity and taunts her about it: "You knew Birgitte was not dead. You knew who Faolain is. And you knew who Siuan is, that she used to be the Amyrlin Seat. I've never mentioned that in Tel'aran'rhiod. Never. I'll see you very shortly. In Salidar."
  • Elayne in Book 5, when Galad finds her in Sienda and she realizes he's joined the Whitecloaks.
• Oh, My Gods!: "By the Light!", or, more commonly, just "Light!" Darkfriends get to swear by the Great Lord of the Dark and such. Starting in the books written by Brandon Sanderson, the phrase "Darkness within!" gets used.
• Older Than They Look: Aes Sedai have a characteristic "ageless" face, which it later emerges is not due to their channelling (although that is responsible for their long life) but an effect of the Oath Rod. Channelers who have not sworn on the Oath Rod simply age far more slowly as well as living longer than Aes Sedai and look middle-aged while being multiple centuries old.
  • This is also sort of inverted in that the prequel New Spring reveals that several prominent Aes Sedai whom the reader might have assumed to be older, such as Moiraine, Siuan and Sheriam, are actually only in their forties during the main story.
• Ominous Clouds: Taken to its Logical Extreme as the Dark One's influence over the world grows, causing Hostile Weather and other effects. By the Final Battle, the entire planet is shrouded in perpetual clouds.
• Once an Episode: Every book starts with a paragraph that is some variation on the following:
  The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend Fades to Myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in [insert place name here]. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
  • A variation occurs as the very last paragraph of A Memory of Light, making this the Book Ends passage as well.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: The entire male gender suffers this as a result of Lews Therin and his Hundred Companions (all men) attacking the Dark One and getting the male half of the True Source tainted in the backlash. As a consequence of both the stigma against their folly and the fact that male channelers inevitably go insane and die, the entire world has undergone a political shift toward matriarchy, with men having equal status at best in most societies. The sentiment is comparable to the idea in traditionalist Judeo-Christian societies that women are flawed because Eve tempted Adam to eat the Fruit of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden.
• One-Steve Limit: Despite loads of characters, there are few or no identical names. There are still some characters with similar sounding names, though. The most prominent example would be Demandred (the name of one of the Chosen/Forsaken) and Damodred (the family name of Galad and his father, Taringail). This trope is necessitated by the fact that virtually the whole cast is Chekhov's Army, so duplicate names could have easily misled readers into mistaking new characters for returning ones.
• Our Dragons Are Different: And how. "The Dragon Reborn" is just this fantasy world's equivalent of "The Chosen One." We never see any actual dragons, only images of them in the form of the Aiel tattoos and the "Dragon Banner." The characters don't even know what a "dragon" is until the fourth book, when we see Rand make the connection between the name "dragon" and the creature seen on the banner and tattooed on his arms. It should be noted that the banner and tattoos resemble Asian dragons (long, sinuous, and wingless) rather than European dragons.
• Our Monsters Are Different: All the Shadowspawn seen in the series are a mishmash of various real-world folkloric nasties:
  • Trollocs are somewhere between orcs and trolls: massive but otherwise generic fantasy dark-side fodder. They also have animal heads on humanoid bodies, somewhat similar to Ancient Egyptian gods. They were created by combining human and animal genetic stock.
  • Darkhounds are a mix of The Wild Hunt and Hellhounds.
  • Draghkar are similar to vampires from a part of folklore where vampires are more beastial/feral and less Bela Lugosi. Their leathery wings resemble a bat's, they are pale-skinned and eerie-looking, and they can hypnotize their victims with a soft-crooning song (similar to how some vampires can hypnotize victims with their gaze). The Draghkar's "kiss" drains the victim's soul rather than draining blood.
  • Gholams are named similarly to the Golem, and have some similar traits (such as being artificial beings), but in practice they are a lot more like traditional vampires. They survive by drinking blood, and prefer to drink the blood of channelers. Since most channelers are women,^note at least until later in the series when the ranks of the Asha'man have grown this could be compared to how some vampires prefer to drink the blood of beautiful women. Gholams also have inhuman strength and agility, a trait common to many vampires. They are extremely difficult to kill, and can squeeze through tiny openings to get into otherwise sealed rooms (similar to how some vampires can turn into a mist to slip through cracks in the doorway).
  • Myrddraal are probably the strangest, being based in the loosest possible way on the African myth of the "halfman", who is laterally bifurcated and literally only exists when seen from one side, allowing them to appear and attack by surprise. While cloaked, they also bear more than a passing resemblance to the Nazgul.
• Ouroboros: The ring worn by Aes Sedai. A variation is seen in the series symbol (see on the main page), combining the Ouroboros with a lemniscate (infinity symbol).
• Our Orcs Are Different: Trollocs, as noted under Our Monsters Are Different.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Two versions, as noted under Our Monsters Are Different.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: "Wolfbrothers" can communicate telepathically with wolves, and develop greatly enhanced senses and golden eyes. They are also prone to acquiring wolf instincts and, in some cases, completely losing touch with their humanity, becoming essentially wolves trapped in human bodies.
• Outside-Context Problem: The Sharans in the last book; the protagonists know nothing whatsoever about them, and the reader has only the tiniest inkling of what they're like (mostly small bits of foreshadowing). They just suddenly appear and start dealing massive damage to the armies of the Light.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Many characters, but special mention must go to Perrin and Mat. Both are ta'veren, but in the face of who and what Rand is, their importance is somewhat ignored by everyone (except the forces of the Shadow, who are gunning for Perrin and Mat almost as hard as they are for Rand). Its not until later books that their importance is recognized by the forces of the Light.

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• Pacifism Breaking Point: The Tuatha'an are Actual Pacifists who won't do violence even to defend themselves. However, one of their number, Aram, abandons this philosophy after he sees Trollocs kill his mother. He becomes an excellent swordsman, but his choice and the loss of his community cause serious Sanity Slippage.
• Papa Wolf: Tam al'Thor certainly invokes this trope in Gathering Storm, furiously confronting and demanding to know what Cadsuane has done to Rand to make him react so violently.
• Painless Death for a Price: In the Final Battle between Rand and the Dark One, the Dark One offers to mercy-kill all Creation if Rand surrenders, rather than torment it forever if Rand loses. It's both a lie and a case of Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, since Rand, motivated by sincere hope for the future, doesn't buy it for a moment.
• Pater Familicide: Lews Therin Telamon, "the one called Dragon," stepped over the edge of sanity in spectacular fashion: by killing everyone he ever loved, everyone who ever loved him, everyone who shared even a drop of his blood. This is why he is known in legend as "Kinslayer."
• People of Hair Color: Applies to most of the main continent: the Borderlands, Andor, Cairhien, Tar Valon, Far Madding, Mayene, Ghealdan, Amadicia, northern Altara, Tuatha'an, Aiel. Exceptions being Seanchan, Sea Folk, Shara, Arad Doman, Tarabon, southern Altara, Tear, Illian.
• Perception Filter: The Grey Men, supreme assassins and masters of fading into the background even right next to you, the latter explained as a consequence of losing their souls.
• Perfection Is Static: In Rand's final confrontation with the Dark One, he discovers that if he were to kill the Dark One, taking away the source of temptation and evil, humanity would essentially lose free will and become robots.
  Shai'tan: PERFECT. UNCHANGING. RUINED. DO THIS, IF YOU WISH, ADVERSARY. IN KILLING ME, I WOULD WIN.
• Perfect Pacifist People: Tinkers and those who adopt The Way of the Leaf, including previously, the Aiel.
• Permanent Elected Official: Zigzagged. The Amyrlin Seat of the Aes Sedai is elected for life, but the Hall of the Tower can vote to depose and De-power her. It's such an extreme measure that it's only been done thrice in 3000 years, and the third time is a coup with the barest veneer of legality.
• Perpetual Frowner: Bukama from New Spring.
• Perpetual Storm: The Dark One's center of power, the mountain Shayol Ghul, is covered with perpetual stormclouds, complete with lightning that strikes upward from the ground, to signify its status as an Eldritch Location.
  • Characters are fond of saying A Storm Is Coming, and in the penultimate book it literally happens, a layer of silver-and-black clouds that cover the entire planet, though actual precipitation is sparse.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Strong channelers are this, especially Rand, who gets progressively stronger as the series goes on. If the channeler has an angreal or sa'angreal then the level of destruction they can cause goes up by a lot.
• The Philosopher: Ishamael AKA Moridin, who in his saner moments likes to brood over the endless cycle of the Dark One trying to break free, in a Genre Savvy way. Rand also becomes this in Books 13 and 14.
• Pillar of Light:
  • Lews Therin kills himself by drawing too much saidin, resulting in a massive pillar of light and creating Dragonmount in the process.
  • When the Bowl of the Winds is used, it creates a pillar of saidar and saidin, which reaches upward out of sight, then unravels from the top into many complex weaves of the Power.
  • In Books 13 and 14, Rand's presence creates this, breaking the constant cloud cover to allow the sun through.
  • Also, when Rand seals away the Dark One a massive pillar of light appears. This event is referenced in prophecy thus: "Twice dawns the day when his blood is shed. Once for mourning, once for birth."
  • In the final book, when Egwene invents a new weave to counter M'Hael's balefire it results in a pillar of light before turning her and all the surrounding enemies into crystal statues.
• Pillars of Moral Character: There's a borderlander saying, frequently quoted by Lan: "Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain."
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Aviendha deliberately changes clothes and strips herself in Rand's presence to freak him out. Eventually, Rand runs out of patience with this and pointedly looks her up and down, whereupon she gets dressed at light-speed. And since she has no nudity taboo, it plays out like Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest.
• Poisonous Captive: Semirhage. Twice. Actually, The Dark One counts too.
• Polyamory:
  • Rand's relationships with Min, Aviendha, and Elayne certainly count. This custom is not entirely unheard of with the Aiel, who are his ancestors, so it's not surprising. It is not uncommon in Aiel society for one person to marry two other people who are already de facto married (although there don't appear to be any other examples in the text of one person marrying three different people).
  • Implied to happen at least occasionally with members of the Green Ajah.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • One of the major themes across the books, especially (but not exclusively) between the genders. It is one of Jordan's many pet topics that men and women simply cannot learn to communicate with each other effectively.
  • Much of the plot would be resolved almost instantly if the Ta'veren Trio would talk to each other and compare notes about what's going on. Instead, they steadfastly avoid one another, apparently because they don't want to be bothersome.
  • You can want to help and serve goodness and fight evil all you like, but unless you're willing to trust other people and treat them like allies instead of victims, enemies, and hindrances, you might as well be actively serving evil and destruction for all the good you actually end up doing. On the few occasions when the characters, major or otherwise, do actually talk honestly to one another, it tends to pay off in spades. While this is good moral overall, it does suffer a bit from Author Tract and too much time taken to get to the "payoff" bits for the lesson.
  • The world at large is filled with cross-cultural miscommunication. Aiel (Shaido and non-Shaido), Andorans (Andorans proper and Two Rivers folk), Tairens and Illianers, Taraboners and Domani, Andorans and Cairhienin, Tairens and Mayeners...even with a common language, it's a wonder anyone knows what anyone else is saying.
  • The poor communication mostly goes away as of Book 12. As soon as Sanderson takes over as author, characters start talking to each other, and TONS of long-dangling plots start to make real progress. It should be noted that Jordan intended there to be only one more book (which got split into three due to size) which would tie up most of the major plot threads. While Sanderson had to write much of the dialogue and narrative, all the major plot points were outlined and mapped out in great detail for him, so clearly Jordan intended the characters to start communicating properly and get plots resolved at this point.
• Portal Cut: Travelling can kill anyone unlucky enough to be standing where the exit is opened because the edge of the portal is sharper than a razor. One character who is otherwise very weak in the One Power has a gift with Travelling and manages to weaponize the Portal Cut to great effect.
  • For other channelers, there is the "Deathgate" weave, that very explicitly uses the Portal Cut properties by rapidly opening and closing a gate while sending it along a path (typically through hordes of Shadowspawn).
  • For Shadowspawn, any use of a portal is deadly, no cutting required - simply going through one (as opposed to one going through them) kills them instantly.
• Posthumous Character: Many, as you'd expect in a series with loads of characters and Reincarnation, but Gitara Moroso stands out. She gave at least two or three Foretellings that set the stage for the whole series. Gitara is probably in the top three most important characters born in the three thousand years before the story starts.
• Power Dynamics Kink:
  • The culture of Ebou Dar and other parts of Altara likely has a fair amount of this, since it's basically a sexualized form of Matriarchy. Every husband gives his wife a knife as a wedding gift, and the wife has the right to stab him if he displeases her (for this reason, in Ebou Dar "men walked small around women, and forced a smile at what they would kill another man for").
  • This is especially prominent in the relationship between Queen Tylin Quintara Mitsobar and Mat Cauthon. Tylin basically forces him to become her lover at knifepoint and constantly makes fun of him, calling him "little duckling", and treating him as her boytoy. Nonetheless, it is strongly implied that Mat did enjoy this at least to some extent, since he later admits some affection for Tylin, and is devastated when he accidentally allows the gholam to kill her.
  • Nynaeve and Lan marry in a culture where the higher-ranking member of an Unequal Pairing is expected to take an obedient role in private for balance's sake. Nynaeve's only word on being "outranked" on her wedding night is "glorious".
• Power High: The One Power is so addictive that most channelers who lose the ability to channel die of despair within a year or two. The True Power, the Power supplied by the Dark One to his favoured minions, is even more addictive.
• The Power of Hate: Shadar Logoth is what remained when the nation of Aridhol grew to hate the Shadow so much, and threw away any restraints on fighting it, that the hate manifested and made the place a no-go area for both Light and Shadow. And the hate there hates the Shadow so much that it was eventually used to mutually annihilate the taint on Saidin.
• Power Levels: Nothing so obtuse as a numerical system is employed^note Overtly; numerical ranking was developed by the author, but doesn't appear within the text., but there is a strict pecking order of which characters are stronger in the Power than others. This is not explicitly laid out in the series, except when one character meets another and remarks how much stronger they are. The difference goes a long way to determining who has the advantage in a duel. There's also an established pecking order for swordsmen, which becomes important in the last book when Demandred fights the top tier in ascending order except for Rand, the one he really wanted to fight.
• Power Loss Depression: People who lose the ability to channel the One Power, which comes with a Power High and an incredible sense of feeling more alive, almost universally succumb to Death by Despair within a year or two. A rare few manage to survive by throwing themselves wholeheartedly into a new cause.
• Power Perversion Potential:
  • The potential of the Warder bonding process, already noted above under Mindlink Mates, is explicitly mentioned in the books. It grants each person a constant view of the other's physical and mental state and also varying levels of mind control. Several characters note how wonderful it is to feel their significant other's love for them through their empathic bond, and how exhilarating it is to feel their lust.
  • There's Compulsion — more simply, mind control — which at least two bad guys use freely and recreationally.
  • Lastly, there's the a'dams, which are used to keep magic-users enslaved and can induce any desired sensation at all, pain or pleasure.
• Power-Strain Blackout: Physical exhaustion is the main symptom of overchanneling, even to the point of unconsciousness.
• Power Trio:
  • In typical Fantasy fashion, the three boys even each wielded a sword, a bow, and an axe as they left their hometown.
  • The main female characters also form their own across a few books though like the boys they eventually get split up.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: No, we don't mean one of the Forsaken as a child. The black blades used by Myrddraal require a human soul for seasoning.
• Powerful People Are Subs: Prevalent throughout. Invoked by the Sea Folk, whose marriage vows include a requirement that one member of the couple is always in command while in public, and always submissive in private, something that Lan and Nynaeve don't realize when they ask the Sea Folk to perform their wedding ceremony.
• Prank Punishment: The Wise Ones give their apprentice Aviendha more and more arbitrary punishments throughout The Gathering Storm, like filling water buckets with only her fingertip, until she snaps and tells them either to make her a Wise One or send her away. They burst out laughing and admit that asserting her own will over them was the final test to become a Wise One, and she could have been finished weeks earlier if her Pride had let her admit that her work was absurd.
  Amys: You forced us to be very creative.
• Pre-Climax Climax: Happens a few times in the final book. Explicitly invoked by Aviendha when she's talking to Elayne about going to Rand. Also implied to occur later with Elayne herself when Rand visits her command HQ.
• Preemptive Cavalry: in Towers of Midnight the Whitecloaks see Perrin suddenly appear on a hill about to charge down and slaughter them. All hope seems lost and the Whitecloaks prepare for a final stand when a whole army of Shadowspawn appear. The Whitecloaks feel like they're about to get crushed between both forces when Perrin's army charges in and saves most of them, finally convincing them that he was their ally after all.
• Prefers Proper Names: To the Aiel people, nicknames of any sort are the kind of affectionate gesture that's only used between family and lovers, and never in public. They insist on Full-Name Basis because their own naming convention doesn't have surnames and they're uncomfortable using only part of someone's name.
• Print Long-Runners: The first book came out in 1990. That's fourteen books in twenty-two years (fifteen if you count the prequel).
• Promotion, Not Punishment: When Egwene is formally raised Amyrlin (for the second time) her first act is to call Silviana before her. Everyone thinks that it is to personally punish Silviana for the punishment beatings that she had administered to Egwene during her capture. Egwene chides the others for thinking that of her, and instead commends Silviana for first doing her duty and then later speaking out against Elaida's further mistreatment of Egwene. She then makes Silviana her Keeper. This goes a long way towards healing the rifts between the Tower and rebel Aes Sedai, and between the Red and other Ajahs.
• Prophecies Are Always Right: This series is one of the few in speculative fiction in which prophecy is extremely nebulous, and following it to the letter is sometimes not the right thing to do at all. All prophecies are eventually proven accurate, but most cannot be correctly interpreted until after they are fulfilled. Attempts to force them into a particular interpretation can backfire. Horribly.
• Prophecy Pileup: Rand al’Thor is the Dragon Reborn who must follow the (fragmented) Prophecies of the Dragon. He is also the Dragon Reborn to the Seanchan who follow a different version of the prophecy, the Car’a’carn who will lead and destroy and save the Aiel people, and the Coramoor to the Sea Folk. In addition, his actions (and even his birth) tie in to various Aes Sedai Foretellings and he manages to fulfill other prophecies such as the "end of the time of illusions" for people on Tremalking.
• Prophecy Twist: Many. Nearly every prophecy (and there are quite a few; see Prophecy Pileup) gets interpreted in several different ways before it comes to pass, meaning that it's always a twist for someone.
  • One of the prophecies of the Dragon mentions him wearing "a crown of swords". One could take this to mean his reign would be a militaristic, brutal dictatorship, but by the end of the book A Crown of Swords, it is revealed that the prophecy was literal: the traditional crown of Illian has small, ceremonial swords on it.
  • Elaida has an excellent track record of misinterpreting her own prophecies.
    • There's her prophecy that "The black tower will be rent in fire, and sisters shall walk inside its walls. The Dragon shall face the Amyrlin Seat, and he shall know her anger." Well, by the end of the series, sisters have walked inside the Black Tower's walls — as prisoners. The "rent in fire" bit is actually about the infighting amongst the Asha'man, not about Elaida's strike force. The Amyrlin referred to in the last part is actually Egwene, the legitimate Amyrlin, and not Elaida.
    • There's also her prophecy that the royal house of Andor would be key to winning the Last Battle. This led her to become advisor to the ruler and to keep the Daughter-Heir on a short leash. However, the woman who was heir to the throne when Elaida made that prophecy vanished without a trace, and only Rand and the reader knows what happened to her: she went to the Aiel Waste, and years later gave birth to the Chosen One. It gets better when you consider the reason why the woman who was heir to the throne vanished: because Gitara's prophecy told her to.
  • A few in A Memory of Light.
    • In the Prophecies of the Shadow, Graendal thinks she reads that Perrin will die and signal the despair of mankind. However, "the Broken Wolf" is Hopper, not Perrin, and Demandred is the one whose death causes despair to mankind — or at least to the Sharans under his command, and not to mankind as a whole.
    • On another front, we have Rand's death. His blood does end up on the rocks of Shayol Ghul, but it's from the wounds in his side opening up because of the surrounding corruption and not because of his death. Also, while his body does die, he invokes a "Freaky Friday" Flip with Moridin, taking Moridin's body while his own body dies with Moridin and is subsequently burned on a funeral pyre.
• A Protagonist Shall Lead Them: The three ta'veren all get chances at this.
  • Rand, in addition to being the Dragon Reborn, becomes de facto ruler of several countries.
  • Mat leads the Band of the Red Hand before being given command of all the forces of The Light in the Last Battle.
  • Perrin becomes lord of the Two Rivers, and later leads a coalition of Two Rivers folk, Mayeners, White Cloaks, Aiel, and others.
  • Egwene al'Vere as the Amyrlin Seat also counts, assuming you consider her a protagonist.
• Proud Merchant Race: The Sea Folk and the Domani.
• Proud Scholar Race: The Ogier.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Aiel and the Borderlanders.
• Psychic Glimpse of Death: The Sword and Sorcerer arrangement between Warders and Aes Sedai (respectively) includes a low-level Psychic Link that transmits their emotional and physical states. It's incredibly traumatic to the survivor if one of them dies: an Aes Sedai is left emotionally devastated for months, while a Warder usually makes a berserk self-destructive charge and needs long-term rehabilitation if they survive their rampage.
• Psychic Link:
  • The Warder bond allows Aes Sedai and Warder to sense each other's emotions, direction, and approximate distance. It drifts into Mindlink Mates territory when lovers do this; in fact, some male channelers bond their wives for no other reason.
  • Pevara and Androl have a double-bond which gives them a far deeper connection, to the point that they have a rough idea of what the other person is thinking. They can even communicate telepathically if the thoughts are simple enough.
• Psychic Powers: Mindspeech: Wolves communicate by telepathy with Wolfbrothers, though Wolfbrothers are not telepathic between each other.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Lanfear was Lews Therin's ex, and several millennia later she still has a thing for his reincarnated version.
• Punctuation Shaker: Every word in the Old Tongue seems to have at least one apostrophe, often several. Some words are justified because the Old Tongue is a synthetic language, where smaller words are stuck together into larger ones. For instance, Al'cair'rahienallen, the full name of the city of Cairhein, means "Hill of the Golden Dawn".
• The Puppet Cuts His Strings:
  • The Salidar Aes Sedai Hall of the Tower raises Egwene to the Amyrlin Seat because she's young, inexperienced, untrained and without any political power. Since the Hall is split in various factions that can't agree on anyone, this seems like a good compromise, each faction secretly thinking that they can control Egwene and use her against the other ones. A few months later, they realize much to their horror that they have raised one of the most powerful and strong-willed Amyrlin in the history of the tower. This failure can be attributed not to any kind of evil agenda from the Hall, but to their overly proud and disdainful Aes Sedai nature. These old powerful women are so much used to ruling that they have forgotten they can lose their power, and they can't even imagine that a mere 17-something half-trained girl could challenge their authority.
  • This happens with Elaida and Alviarin. Initially, after her coup against Siuan, Elaida is the Amyrlin Seat, Alviarin is her Keeper of Chronicles (secretary) and there is no much more to it that it seems (well, except that Alviarin is the head of the Black Ajah). But after the botched attempt by the Tower to capture Rand, Alviarin blackmails Elaida and effectively turns her into her puppet, threatening to spill the inconvenient truth about her failures (which would at the time be enough to have her deposed and probably stilled) if she ever disobeys her. This goes on for a while, then Alviarin leaves for a few months on Black Ajah business. During that time, Elaida manages both to clear herself by putting the responsibility of her own failures on other people, and to discredit Alviarin enough to have her removed as Keeper and destroy much of her influence. When Alviarin finally returns, Elaida is free, she is in control, and she exerts painful revenge on her former blackmailer.
• Puppet King:
  • This is what the rebel Aes Sedai faction intend when they summon Egwene Al'Vere to become their version of the Amyrlin Seat. Because she is so young and not even completely trained, they assume they will have no trouble pushing her to any aim they have in mind, while presenting the image of a united group. What they don't consider is that she has unbreakable Heroic Willpower and wholly takes Siuan's lessons in political maneuvering to heart, so within a book or so she has them dancing on her strings and becoming the strongest Amyrlin in centuries.
  • Morgase is made into this by Rahvin when he started to control her with his abilities.
  • Also, the Sharan monarchs secretly have always been controlled by their channelers, the Ayyad.
• Pure Energy: The titular artifact in The Eye of the World is an ancient well of untainted saidin concentrated into liquid form. Liquefied evil Pure Energy appears in Book 9 during the cleansing of saidin.

Q-R

• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil:
  • Myrddraal tend to enjoy raping human women. The results of such unions rarely survive, and thankfully the mothers usually don't either. Using this as a punishment is considered so awful that even Moghedien received sympathy from the readers after undergoing this courtesy of Shaidar Haran. This also happened to Graendal at the end of book thirteen and to Mesaana following her failure to appear at the Cleansing. Even villains don't deserve such a fate, it seems.
  • Part of the reason Rahvin and Graendal are so reviled is their tendency to use Compulsion to create sex slaves. Rahvin is explicitly mentioned to have done this to at least eight women in the series, and Graendal is implied to have done it to hundreds.
  • Eamon Valda's abuse and probable rape of Morgase is part of the reason why he is such a repulsive character and ultimately what leads to his death.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Lanfear to the point where even Loial, an Ogier, has trouble keeping his eyes off her. Also Moiraine and Berelain.
• Rays from Heaven: In Books 13 and 14, Rand's presence causes these, signifying his becoming a Messianic Archetype.
• Reaction Shot: Crossroads of Twilight is a book-sized one. The novel is largely made up of points-of-view of channelers across the continent reacting to the colossal amount of the One Power used to cleanse saidin in the previous book.
• Real Stitches for Fake Snitches: After Rand finds a way to sever the Forsaken Asmodean's connection to the Dark One and another Forsaken spreads the lie that Asmodean intentionally betrayed his oaths, Asmodean realizes that the Dark One will inflict a Fate Worse than Death on him at the first opportunity (including if he dies before the Dark One is defeated) and joins forces with Rand to try to save himself.
• Reality Warper: The One Power pretty much does this. The Dark One has an even stronger reality warper. As of A Memory of Light, post-Last Battle Rand doesn't even need the Power to do this.
• Really 700 Years Old: Channellers enjoy a drastically extended lifespan, perhaps influenced by their strength in the One Power and how often they use it. The oldest living Aes Sedai — and a powerful one at that — is approximately 300 years old. The oldest living channeler met in the series is about 500, as the Oath Rod used by the Aes Sedai reduces their lifespan somewhat. Channellers do not degrade as they age either, their minds and bodies stay strong up until death.
• Redemption Equals Death:
  • Ingtar invokes this in The Great Hunt, choosing to defend Rand and Mat against an approaching army of Seanchan to atone for his deeds as a Darkfriend. Rand even performs a brief funeral rite in his name as a sign of forgiveness before leaving him to die.
  • Verin exploits this in Towers of Midnight via Loophole Abuse: As an Aes Sedai of the Black Ajah, she swore a binding oath not to betray the Dark One until "the hour of [her] death", so she poisons herself and gives Egwene a lifetime's worth of intel on the entire Black Ajah in her last moments.
  • To an extent, Davram Bashere in A Memory of Light: knowing that he's been Mind Controlled to lead the Light's armies to ruin, he forfeits his command and fights to the death as a common soldier instead.
  • Noal Charin in Towers of Midnight, holds off the pursuing Aelfinn to allow Mat and the others to escape, and with his last words says that Jain Farstrider dies clean.
• Regional Redecoration: The Breaking of the World was a cataclysm sparked by the Dark One corrupting and driving insane every magically capable male in the Age of Legends. Their uncontrolled power rearranged the map, flooding some regions and raising impassable mountain ranges; the ruins of one coastal city are found halfway up a mountain in the middle of a desert.
• Reincarnation: Several types.
  • Every single person will eventually be reincarnated by the Pattern. It is unclear if "normal" people have any connection to their past lives or not.
  • Those who become famous heroes will find themselves bound to the Horn of Valere after death. Such heroes are put into a cycle of reincarnation where it is very clear that they have a connection to their past lives, and they will hang out in the World of Dreams in between incarnations. When the Horn is blown, it summons any heroes who are not currently incarnated.
  • Rand, the Dragon Reborn, is the reincarnation of Lews Therin Telamon, the Dragon, who went insane and incinerated himself a few thousand years ago after resealing the Dark One.
  • The Dark One can pluck the souls of his dead followers from the Pattern and put them into new bodies, unless they were killed by balefire.
• Reincarnation Romance: Gaidal Cain and Birgitte Silverbow. After Birgitte gets ripped out of Tel'aran'rhiod by Moghedien, she worries that it will cause problems for her reincarnation cycle. She later dies and ends up in Tel'aran'rhiod again, and in her last talk with Elayne she says that she's about to be born again. Since she is usually somewhat younger than Gaidal, and she knows that he got reincarnated a few books ago, it looks like it's going to work out fine for them.
• Repressive, but Efficient: One of the reasons for the Seanchans' rapid conquests is that they provide order and safety in places like Tarabon, where people are sick and tired of the fighting between the Crown and the rebels and the Dragonsworn and the other rebels and the bandits and the invading neighbors and the Darkfriends.
• Restoration of Sanity: A few examples.
  • In the prologue, Ishamael used the True Power to cure Lews Therin's insanity. Lews Therin's subsequent realization of what he had done while insane drove him to suicide.
  • Late in the series, Nynaeve works out how to use her Healing Hands to cure the insanity caused by prolonged use of saidin, the tainted male half of the One Power. The first man she tests it on breaks down in relief when his paranoid delusions disappear.
  • Rand suffers long-term Sanity Slippage from his own powers and the terrible responsibilities he's taken on. At his darkest point, he almost crosses the Despair Event Horizon but instead has an epiphany about his hopes for the future of the world, gets a Split-Personality Merge with his previous reincarnation, and shakes off his madness for good.
• Restraining Bolt:
  • The Oath Rod. The Aes Sedai use it to enforce their Three Oaths. It was originally used on criminals in the Age of Legends as both punishment and control. The Aes Sedai later find out that it shortens their lifespans to "only" two or three hundred years — still much longer than ordinary people, but significantly shorter than channelers who have never taken the Oaths.
  • A'dam collars, which prevent collared channelers from using their power or engaging in violent actions without permission. They can also be used to inflict pain on the collared person, usually as punishment.
• Riddle for the Ages: A few, especially the mysterious old Aiel woman who appears once in each of the last two books and knows things she shouldn't.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Latra Posae Decumae was an Aes Sedai in the age of legends, who opposed Lews Therin's plan to seal the bore and got the agreement of every female Aes Sedai of sufficient power. She could not possibly have known of the Taint at that point, but correctly got the female Aes Sedai away from the Dark One's counterstroke, thus ensuring Saidar remained untainted. Without that, likely both sexes of Aes Sedai would have gone insane and the world would have ended. It would take another 3,000 years and Rand using Saidar, Saidin and the Dark One's own power together to properly repair the Bore in a way that the Dark One could not taint.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Aes Sedai are supposedly united in a single cause, but spend so much time scheming against each other that it almost never happens. Darkfriends have it worse, often directly opposing each other without knowing that they are supposed to be on the same side.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Even if the effects of an action are undone by balefire, everyone's memories remain the same. For example, if Character A is killed by Character B, and Character C then kills B with balefire, A will have no memory of dying, but C will still remember seeing A's corpse. Lampshaded by Moridin in Book 12.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The Dumai's Wells sequence.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Rand at the end of The Fires of Heaven hunting down Rahvin who had just killed Mat and several others.
  • Lanfear when she hears a rumor that Rand has a relationship with Aviendha.
  • Rand in Winter's Heart, hunting down the rogue Asha'man who tried to kill him in the previous book.
• Roguish Romani: Tinkers are a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Roma, right down to being unfairly distrusted as thieves by other cultures. The key difference is the addition of pacifism.
• Roll-and-Move: The Fictional Board Game Snakes and Foxes is entirely luck-based; dice rolls determine how far the player and enemy tokens move, and the rules of the game board determine their paths. Children commonly outgrow it when they realize they can only win by cheating — much like with The Fair Folk the game is based on.
• Romantic Runner-Up: Demandred was once a rival with Lews Therin for the affections of Ilyena.
• Royal Favorite: Queen Morgase's rule suffers tremendously when she takes Lord Gaebril as a lover, advisor, and eventual de facto co-ruler, costing her most of her allies and public support for the monarchy. Subverted with The Reveal that he is actually Rahvin the Forsaken, who mind-controlled his way into her good graces to destroy her nation from within.
• Rule of Three: Several cases, such as the Three Oaths of the Aes Sedai. One notable instance is during the Last Battle, when Demandred is separately challenged to single combat by three different swordsmen.
• Running Gag: In the earlier books, whenever one of the three male leads is faced with a pretty woman, he almost invariably wishes that one of the other two was there, because "they were always better with girls."

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