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 above the great recap pages of Multiversity Comics. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Today, we will look into episode five, “Blood Calls Blood.”
1. Tar Valon and Reunions
The home of the White Tower, just below the volcano Dragonmount (a location we will expound upon if the time comes), is where paths begin to converge. Much like many other figures in The Wheel of Time (Rand al’Thor as King Arthur, Egwene al’Vere as Queen Guinevere, and storyteller Thom Merrilin as Merlin, to name three stated thus far), this location takes its name from Arthurian legend, being a variation on the mythical land of Avalon. Much like that land, there is much magic here, given the concentration of Aes Sedai.
Roughly equivalent to an expanded version of Vatican City in the First Age (our Age), Tar Valon is ruled by the Amyrlin Seat, who is also the leader of the Aes Sedai. Many a petitioner comes to the White Tower seeking aid from the Aes Sedai, though they are known to be turned away often. It is under this reasoning that the various ta’veren are coming, having lost their guide Moiraine.
The set of Tar Valon’s streets themselves is amazing. In contrast to the real-life Vatican, Tar Valon is the second-most populace city in the Westlands (the main continent on which the majority of the story of The Wheel of Time takes place). However, not all is good (from a perspective of the characters), as, much like the rest of the world, the White Tower is plagued with internal politicking amongst the sisters, as was implied in the prior episode with Liandrin’s extrajudicial actions. Those actions are also why the Amyrlin Seat, Siuan Sanche, is coming back to Tar Valon after her trip to the city of Caemlyn, needing to blame someone for acting beyond their station, with Alanna wanting for Moiraine to challenge Siuan for the Seat before Liandrin uses her influence to take it for herself.
Treatment of captured false Dragons in the city is rather terrible, parading them around for others to shame and throw refuse at, something that seems to be a mixture of a lesson in humility and a way of exercising Aes Sedai power over a now-powerless man. The situation is so horrendous that Mat, who otherwise seems not to care about the people in the city, demands that Rand promise him that if one of them turns out able to channel, they will not allow the other to be captured and treated in that way, though perhaps he is also haunted by the fact that Logain looked up at the two of them watching him from a window and laughed in their direction, seemingly focused on one or both of them.
Due to a mistake by the grieving Stepin, Nynaeve is able to leave the Warders’ quarters where she had been kept by Moiraine and Lan. After a talk with Liandrin, who tries to manipulate her while Nynaeve calls her and Reds in general on their misandry keeping them from agreeing to Bond Warders (a trait Moiraine later agrees Liandrin has despite her implicit insistence otherwise), she is found by Loial in the White Tower grounds, mistaken for the person who is to go to the White Tower (Egwene). She notices Mat’s clearly deteriorating condition, and when she reaches to touch him, he briefly gets up with a start and demands she not do so on instinct before realizing she wants to help.
Rand admits what Thom told him and his own worries, namely that Mat is actually able to channel (a not entirely unfair assumption based on what he knows, but also likely false based on what the audience can discern). Nynaeve, based on having not been told about Rand and Mat entering the city (under disguise, and so likely not seen by Moiraine’s “eyes and ears” network of informants) despite having been assured that Moiraine would tell her, does not trust the Aes Sedai at all, and instead elects to help Mat to the best of her personal ability without bringing in those who may gentle him and render him suicidal. She also learns from Rand that he and Mat had not seen Egwene nor Perrin in a month, a vague time frame that was also brought up earlier in the episode.
Continued below2. Capture by Whitecloaks
While traveling with the Tuatha’an, Egwene and Perrin are captured by Valda’s Children of the Light. He is well aware that Egwene can channel, and also notes that he had heard that although Aes Sedai often use hand motions to channel the One Power, it is just a crutch and thus unnecessary (which also may explain how Logain can do so without it, though that may be a male-female difference). Further, Valda, though knowing of Egwene’s ability, still is mistaken about Perrin, who he thinks is her Warder rather than just a traveling companion who happens to be physically strong.
It seems that the original assessment of Child Valda is correct: he is a power-hungry sadist who hides behind religion. He mentions how he never claimed to stand by his oaths, and openly holds people at knifepoint for no reason except his own assumptions. He tortures Perrin, splitting his back along his spine while he is held down and claiming that he is only exercising his abilities as a human being, which he claims are the only ones that could be of the Light in contrast to how he believes all channelers are dabbling in forces of the Dark One by using the One Power at all, an even more extreme and hostile version of what Liandrin Sedai believes. From what Valda says (combined with the information from his first appearance), he cuts off the hands of every Aes Sedai he notices channeling and can do so to, believing them all to be “witches” who meddle in forces they should not control. As if to exacerbate his own cruelty, he gives Egwene a choice: channel, and he will kill her and let Perrin go free; refuse to channel, and he will kill Perrin and let her go free.
3. Loial the Ogier
While looking into books in Tar Valon, Rand meets an unusual figure who brings in a new species for the saga: Loial son of Arent son of Halan. Loial is an Ogier (pronounced “oh-geer”), a long-lived species (to the point of Loial appearing equivalent to a teenager in maturity despite being nearly a century old) that stands at roughly ten feet tall on average and tend to live their lives in magical groves known as stedding. In terms of common fantasy archetypes, they are essentially forest elves merged with giants, along with a hint of J.R.R. Tolkien’s tree-based ents.
While talking with Rand, Loial immediately assumes him to be an Aiel due to his red hair, something that he had been taught to believe is an easy designator of where humans come from. He is also very excited about books and knowledge, such as one Rand holds, The Adventures of Jain Farstrider (a book that will come up in the future, but we will hold off from delving into too much), which Rand says Egwene had read many times and jokingly believed to be the reincarnation of Jain himself. Further, Loial is relatively slow moving, not bothering to be quick about anything but rather trying to properly prepare for whatever he is going to do (to the point of believing humans to be hasty and excitable by comparison).
4. Guilt and Grief
Two emotions seem to hold sway over much of this episode: guilt and grief.
On the one hand, we have Mat, who feels guilty about the possibility, however false, of having killed the Grinwells. While his increasing sickness seems tied to his dagger, it also seems to be at least in part from his feeling that he may have done something and not known it, that he is becoming all the madder over time.
On another, we have Perrin, who believes his accidental killing of his wife requires punishment, be it through Valda’s torture or his own death. Egwene apparently did not actually know he had killed Laila himself, having blamed Trollocs for having done it, but still she does not blame him, and continues to try to have him absolve himself of blame, and keep him from trying to sacrifice himself in her stead, up until she herself wills herself to channel openly in an attempt (though unsuccessful) to kill Valda with fire.
Continued belowThe most prominent example is instead Stepin, whose attitude takes up a major plotline throughout the Tar Valon section. His suicide is rather telegraphed, to the point that Lan seems to be aware of it as a possibility and to stay with him in order to attempt (ultimately unsuccessfully) to prevent it. His own feelings of guilt over not being able to save Kerene, along with his grief over her passing, seem emphasized by the Warder bond he still has, but he also confesses to Lan and other Warders that he had always had a death wish derived from his abusive father’s treatment of him, even before he was a Warder, with Kerene having stopped his self-destructive behavior toward others in wanting them to kill or punish him. Admittedly, this take on Warder grief is different from that in the novels, where upon the death of an Aes Sedai, their Warder(s) would immediately go mad with grief and charge into battle until they were killed. Even if a single person had been bonded to several Aes Sedai, one of them dying was implied to be enough to cause this reaction.
Stepin prays for “truth” through religious efforts to ward off the influence of the “Forsaken,” a group of thirteen individuals, likely channelers, who had sided with the Dark One in exchange for eternal life, with the one he mentions being the previously-mentioned Ishamael, one he identifies as the “Father of Lies.” Whether the Forsaken, bound wherever they are (as per what Stepin says), are actually capable of spinning lies this far out or influencing truth itself is unclear, and may be merely superstition exaggerating their abilities over millennia, but any answer remains unclear so far.
Despite his intention to kill himself, Stepin is not so single-minded as to ignore any preparation. In the clearest example of this intelligence, he procures a plant meant to help him sleep from Nynaeve, then drugs Lan’s tea so that he will sleep and give him the time needed for him to commit suicide by way of a knife on his own.
Lan’s grief and guilt take up the last moments of the episode, his mournful scream and tears all the more potent by his previous lack of emotional reaction to most things. Was he a close friend, or does he just feel guilty overall? Or, in another way, is he just doing as requested and showing his grief for everyone else in the group?
5. A Wolf Among Men
In his torture, as well as after, things are rather strange with Perrin. When the knife splits his back, his eyes flash gold. He seems unnaturally strong, to the point of, when exceptionally stressed, actually managing to rip free of his bindings without aid, and to get up and run on his own despite having had multiple slices down and across his back with Valda’s knife. When angry in this state, he even growls akin to a beast rather than a human being, to the point of the Whitecloak being horrified and wondering what kind of creature he actually happens to be.
His freedom comes in time with the arrival of a pack of wolves that tear apart the Questioner’s encampment, killing many (with Valda himself left wounded by Egwene with his own knife). As a note, the gold of Perrin’s eyes seem identical to that of the wolves who come to his rescue, as if he is some form of toned-down variation on a werewolf. But what exactly is he, and what does this mean?
Until next the Wheel wills. Do you have any thoughts, questions, or concerns? Feel free to leave comments below. See you next week!
