Chapter 5: Winternight

Anyone remember this? No? Amazing what a social life can do to your blog. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd type. Anyway, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of this, so here we go.

When we last left Our Hero, he and Tam were arriving back at their little house. As usual, the narration takes a little timeout for some world-building, this time to tell us about how usually lots of people live together and why that makes two men living alone seem unusual. I wonder if Jordan realized what he was actually writing here. Considering that he likes to put Riders and ravens in unimaginatively ominous positions, I can't imagine he would recognize subtext if it punched him in the face. It's a rather unusual thing to add to what's so far been otherwise standard conservative fantasy, but considering what women are like in Wheelworld, I can't exactly say it's all that surprising.

We get some more lengthy description, this time about their farm and how everything is shaped just so. It mentions that farmers need wool and "tabac," and I nearly threw the book at the wall again because it's not even trying to be subtle. I like subtle. This is not subtle. But anyway, they go around checking to make sure that the Rider wasn't doing mischievous things while they were away. It's implied that drinking some well water is as important to this procedure as is looking in obvious hiding places. Even disregarding the fact that the water should probably be ice, this makes no sense, which means it's perfectly logical in Wheelworld. Because obviously a trespasser's top priority would be to poison the well instead of actually making off with sheep or something. Can you tell I've missed this book?

Rand does chores. That's summing up two pages in three words, because I'm not all that interested in how he "lost himself in the rhythm of the axe," and neither should you be. Eventually they go in for dinner, and we get more description about how Tam made the cabinets and how the reading chair is positioned by the hearth and whatever. Stop pretending their house is going to be relevant, story. We all know that Rand has a *~destiny~* and won't be in this house for more than a few pages. Well, not unless the book decides to grace us with a story about how their beds are just so comfortable and were made in the year 4829342 when so-and-so was still alive. I wouldn't put it past the book.

The book makes it blatantly obvious that something is about to go wrong, because Rand is confident that in this house "[t]here was no false Dragon ... No wars or Aes Sedai. No men in black cloaks." This is possibly the one shining moment that reveals how little medium awareness the characters have. It's always the quiet little backwater that gets hit the hardest. If this book were written today, someone else would follow up on this observation by warning them not to tempt fate, but nobody here so much as knocks on wood. Do they not realize that they're part of a story? Because they are. Having an author pull the strings has little to do with it. I'm part of a story. You're part of a story. Part of living in a literary culture is recognizing that themes aren't just cute little things meant to make books into works of art; they reflect life, and sometimes unexpected things happen that might make superstitious people believe in fate. Clearly none of the characters in this little land of losers can remember any of these so-called glorious stories of the ages for more than five seconds. /philosophicalidiocy

Enough of my rambling. Tam goes upstairs and fetches a sword, because I guess he's still spooked that nothing's actually gone wrong yet. Or maybe he realized that the narration is tempting fate and decided to prevent himself from dying a horrible death, which is an idea I like better. When Rand asks where it comes from, he deliberately avoids the question. What is with people and dancing around actual answers? Is this part of the secretly-not-his-dad thing? Because it's not like he'd have to tell the whole truth. Being vague doesn't magically make everything more interesting.

On a related note, the sword and the scabbard have a heron on them. That seemed like a rather unusual choice, so I consulted the almighty Google for some reasons as to why. It turns out that in China, the heron symbolizes purity and strength. It also serves as the yang to the crow's yin, which would make sense ... except that the whole point of yin and yang is that they're not good or evil, just light and dark. Why are we having herons set up as pinnacles of nobility just to be contrasted with leering crows? Wouldn't a conflict between two morally ambiguous factions be more thematically appropriate than a situation that is supposed to be about balance but isn't? Then again, we've seen that the story will be about the evil schemes of Satan, so perhaps it's not so surprising to see Jordan taking some artistic license. I'm not a connoisseur of symbols and how they function in various cultures, but even I can tell that he's really stretching it here.

The sword is barely in its sheath again when someone thumps against the door. All right, here comes the carnage. Buckle up, everyone. Tam knows something's up, because all the other farms are far away, making it highly unlikely that they would go on an hour's walk so close to dark. And he's completely right. The door gets smashed off his hinges by a hideous half-human monster, and Rand is relieved(?!) because it's not the Rider. (At least he lampshades his stupidity by mentioning that it's an "odd" thing to think. People are not normally relieved to encounter monsters who want their guts spilled everywhere.)

Then, because it's Delayed Reaction December, Rand eventually throws the kettle at it. Tam cuts it down with the super special sword while it's in pain, but another one of them starts clawing its way past the body, and he tells Rand to save himself in a decision to be all noble and self-sacrificing. Or at least, that's probably how it was meant to come across. But it feels more like he just wants Rand out of the way because only one of them was ever a soldier here, and standing around like a useless lump without another kettle to throw isn't a productive way to spend time in situations like these. And can you really blame him? Rand is ashamed at himself for being terrified for his life, which is unbelievable of course, but he runs away anyway because even Our Hero can have the sense to save himself on occasion.

He escapes out a window and gets attacked by something, struggling a bit until he realizes it's a hoe handle that's fallen on him, which was probably meant to build tension but just seems funny. Brings new meaning to the word "hoedown," doesn't it? (I'm sorry, that was terrible.) Defenestration seems to be a thing, because a page later Tam does just that while brandishing his sword, and he leads the monsters off on a merry chase in the wrong direction to distract them from Rand. I have nothing snarky to say about that because it's the first thing that actually makes sense in this novel. Although it makes me tempted to make Tam my new favorite character, because he's actually using his brain in a way that doesn't involve thinking up snide comments. Then again that would dislodge Cenn from that position, so we'll probably have to wait and see. Cenn is pretty awesome.

Meanwhile, Rand starts freaking out because ... there are shadows. Really. As before, he remarks that it's an odd thing to be terrified of, especially considering that they're hiding him from the monsters, who can't sneak up on him without the subtlety of a crashing plane. It's nice to see him acknowledging his own eccentricities.

Tam then sneaks up on him and grabs at him from behind instead of just whispering to him. What a great pretend dad. Tam claims that this is because the monsters are apparently good at hearing things, but since Rand loudly let him know he where he was before the merry chase began and the monsters didn't notice he was there, Tam mostly just comes off as a jerk. I get that sometimes dads like to mess with their son's heads, but now is really not the time.

The monsters are called Trollocs. Really. Someone seems to think that mashing trolls and orcs together is a creative idea. At least these things aren't something dumb like Urgals. Tam warns that Trollocs have good senses, but since they're lazy they'll probably give up the search if they haven't found these guys. Which shows how little Tam knows, because they didn't come all the way to Nowhereville just for the sake of taking some pictures. It might just be that Tam is being racially insensitive, because he goes on to add that they can't be trusted, and that "if anything belongs in the Shepherd of the Night's flocks ... it is Trollocs." And they kill for the sake of killing. You know, in case you didn't get it the first time that these are supposed to be our orc equivalents.

Rand realizes that Tam's injured and it's far too cold out to be healthy, so of course he decides to play with the sword for a bit before sneaking back over to the house. When he reaches it, there are dead sheep everywhere. And some dead Trollocs too. It's surprising that Tam was able to cut them down when they outnumbered him at least a dozen to one, but his plot armor wasn't chipping away at the time, so that explains that.

Suddenly, one of the Trollocs gets up, revealing that it was only pretending to be dead and bragging that this makes it smarter than the others. While this isn't a bad tactic, it shows that this thing is unaware of how dangerous a Chosen One™ can become when cornered. They're like rats that way. Before the monster skewers itself on the sword (not intentionally, it's not that stupid), it reveals that something called "Myrddraal", or a Fade, is looking for him. Why does whatever that is have more than one name? Isn't that just going to confuse people? Maybe it's a dialectical thing.

Knowing that the other Trollocs will come back, Rand grabs the sword and either has a minor freakout or laments that nothing here will ever be clean again. Rand has weird priorities. He grabs some supplies, looks for the horse and cart in the barn, and makes do with rebuilding the broken cart into a litter. That's two pages right there. And the sword is still sharp after hacking the cart to pieces. It has to somehow prove it's super special, after all.

The narration lingers on Rand as he discards his bloodstained shirt and puts on a new one. Then he starts tending to Tam's wounds, which I suppose makes sense. You have to make sure he's stable before you can move him. I don't know if that applies to anything besides broken spines, but it seems like a piece of logic for once.

The chapter ends with Rand assuring himself that it will all be fine when they reach Emond's Field and Nynaeve can step in. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be a comforting thought, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

I'm not sure what to feel about how it ends here, so you can insert a generic disparaging comment here at your leisure. Next comes their exciting chase through the forest! And when I say "chase" I'm probably exaggerating, but such is life.

Sixth chapter to come soon! With any luck it won't take another nine months.