Re-reading The Fires of Heaven
In which I compartmentalise, because the wheel is weaving in all different directions now.
OK, I loved this one too. A lot of it was a ton of fun, and a lot of it was gripping too. Nonetheless, I am of the opinion that this is where the seams begin to show.
Although we are actually dealing with fewer plot threads than in TSR (due to Perrin's complete absence), I feel this is where they start to meander about on their own a bit. Despite Nynaeve pitching in to help Rand kill Rahvin at the end there (a detail I'd completely forgotten), that wasn't really the culmination of her storyline in this book, which was the fight with Moghedien. This had almost nothing to do with Rand, just as Rand's stuff had very little to do with the girls. From here on, everyone's pretty much off on their own, only intersecting every now and then. On the one hand, this makes the whole of Randland much more complex. On the other, it kind of hampers any kind of uniformity to any of the future books, at least until we get towards the final act. So, yeah, not so tight as the previous ones. But as I said, fun.
Let's start with Nynaeve and Elayne and the travelling circus, which wow, they did a lot of travelling in this book, didn't they? There was not much point, plottily speaking, for them to spend quite so much time with Valan Luca's magical menagerie, and I felt Thom and Juilin were pretty much just adjuncts to the girls for this, but since we saw all this through Nynaeve's frankly hilarious POV, I didn't care too much. Once more I am struck by the similarity between her and my other favourite, Mat. They are both abrasive and terrifically loyal, deeply insecure but unfailingly brave, but most of all they are both self-deluded to a simply titanic degree. And it's hilarious. Nynaeve sees herself as a meek model of good behaviour, which is about as close to the truth as Mat telling himself that he doesn't care what happens to Rand or Egwene or the stupid Tairens or Cairhienin anyway. As I said before - we know their mushy secrets, and they don't even know them themselves.
So yay, Nynaeve. Elayne's fine too, I guess. And I even still kind of like Galad (not Masema, though), which I have to explain.
See, in many ways Galad and Gawyn have parallel storylines. After the coup, both of them make horrendous decisions. They both support loathsome and clearly wrong people (coincidentally, both people who think they're doing the right thing), and they both appear to think of the girls as some kind of damsels in distress rather than people who are quite capable of taking care of themselves. Let's get this out of the way: all of this sucks equally as much when it's Galad as it does when it's Gawyn. So why do I smile tolerantly at Galad while boiling with anger every time Gawyn appears on the page (which, thankfully, he doesn't in TFOH)? Well, it's because Galad sucked to begin with. For Galad, the journey is upward; like Egeanin, his story is about discovering what's wrong with his worldview. I have a huge weak spot for redemption stories, and while neither Galad nor Egeanin is evil, they are both misguided, and so I love watching their journeys towards enlightenment. For Gawyn, though, he was already a good person, and then he did all those stupid things. His trajectory is in the other direction, becoming a worse person, and I haven't seen anything to mitigate it. Plus, he still treats Egwene as though she's wrapped in cotton wool when she's the Amyrlin Seat. At least Galad, here, listens to Nynaeve and accepts what she says because she makes sense; he doesn't disregard it because it came from one of those fragile wenches. And that is why I still like Galad.
Having said all that: he started a war over a boat. He's got a long way to go.
Siuan, Leane, Min and Logain: heh. I love the Salidar storyline, and Siuan and Min are both favourites of mine, so I had fun with this. We also begin to see truly how messed up Aes Sedai are as a society. The way the Salidar Six treat Siuan and Leane is so cold, and you know it's mostly because they have no idea what to do, with their complex, stupid hierarchy taken away from them. Also, it's weird reading this knowing Sheriam is Black, isn't it? Kind of takes away a bit from a lot of the rebels' early achievements.
Glimpses of the White Tower: wow, a lot of people showed up at Elaida's council, and I couldn't help thinking that half of them would hate her at least as much as the rebels a few books from now. Although - and I say this in full knowledge of what's to come - grow a backbone, Shemerin, geez. But we see Teslyn (hi Teslyn!), Mesaana/Danelle (hi Mesaana!), and Joline (uh ... hi Joline, I guess). Also: Alviarin. How cool is she with Fain later on in the book, when we find out for sure she's evil? Even Fain is chilled by her. Awesome.
Battle of Cairhien: total fakeout. But good, and introducing lots of New Folks, like Talmanes and other Band people, Weiramon (sigh), Dobraine and Colavaere and their ilk (about whom I remember almost nothing, because I paid even less attention to the Cairhienin succession stuff than the Andoran).
Morgase: ugh, so sad.
The Forsaken: yay, more Forsaken! And two dead at the end. Rahvin I don't care about, because it's not as if he was ever major, but Asmodean - I'm a bit sad we lost him so soon. For some reason I thought he was around for another whole book, and I wish we'd seen a bit more of his motivations and how he might have behaved moving forward. But in retrospect - nice debut, Graendal.
Moiraine and Lanfear: I will miss Moiraine a whole lot, but she was awesome in this book. I was really moved by Rand's reaction to her death, after all he's put her through and what he's thought of her (and I forgave Mat for not really caring, knowing that he's going to bring her back). Lanfear is utterly nuts, and will be back sooner than we all might wish. Sigh.
OK, I loved this one too. A lot of it was a ton of fun, and a lot of it was gripping too. Nonetheless, I am of the opinion that this is where the seams begin to show.
Although we are actually dealing with fewer plot threads than in TSR (due to Perrin's complete absence), I feel this is where they start to meander about on their own a bit. Despite Nynaeve pitching in to help Rand kill Rahvin at the end there (a detail I'd completely forgotten), that wasn't really the culmination of her storyline in this book, which was the fight with Moghedien. This had almost nothing to do with Rand, just as Rand's stuff had very little to do with the girls. From here on, everyone's pretty much off on their own, only intersecting every now and then. On the one hand, this makes the whole of Randland much more complex. On the other, it kind of hampers any kind of uniformity to any of the future books, at least until we get towards the final act. So, yeah, not so tight as the previous ones. But as I said, fun.
Let's start with Nynaeve and Elayne and the travelling circus, which wow, they did a lot of travelling in this book, didn't they? There was not much point, plottily speaking, for them to spend quite so much time with Valan Luca's magical menagerie, and I felt Thom and Juilin were pretty much just adjuncts to the girls for this, but since we saw all this through Nynaeve's frankly hilarious POV, I didn't care too much. Once more I am struck by the similarity between her and my other favourite, Mat. They are both abrasive and terrifically loyal, deeply insecure but unfailingly brave, but most of all they are both self-deluded to a simply titanic degree. And it's hilarious. Nynaeve sees herself as a meek model of good behaviour, which is about as close to the truth as Mat telling himself that he doesn't care what happens to Rand or Egwene or the stupid Tairens or Cairhienin anyway. As I said before - we know their mushy secrets, and they don't even know them themselves.
So yay, Nynaeve. Elayne's fine too, I guess. And I even still kind of like Galad (not Masema, though), which I have to explain.
See, in many ways Galad and Gawyn have parallel storylines. After the coup, both of them make horrendous decisions. They both support loathsome and clearly wrong people (coincidentally, both people who think they're doing the right thing), and they both appear to think of the girls as some kind of damsels in distress rather than people who are quite capable of taking care of themselves. Let's get this out of the way: all of this sucks equally as much when it's Galad as it does when it's Gawyn. So why do I smile tolerantly at Galad while boiling with anger every time Gawyn appears on the page (which, thankfully, he doesn't in TFOH)? Well, it's because Galad sucked to begin with. For Galad, the journey is upward; like Egeanin, his story is about discovering what's wrong with his worldview. I have a huge weak spot for redemption stories, and while neither Galad nor Egeanin is evil, they are both misguided, and so I love watching their journeys towards enlightenment. For Gawyn, though, he was already a good person, and then he did all those stupid things. His trajectory is in the other direction, becoming a worse person, and I haven't seen anything to mitigate it. Plus, he still treats Egwene as though she's wrapped in cotton wool when she's the Amyrlin Seat. At least Galad, here, listens to Nynaeve and accepts what she says because she makes sense; he doesn't disregard it because it came from one of those fragile wenches. And that is why I still like Galad.
Having said all that: he started a war over a boat. He's got a long way to go.
Siuan, Leane, Min and Logain: heh. I love the Salidar storyline, and Siuan and Min are both favourites of mine, so I had fun with this. We also begin to see truly how messed up Aes Sedai are as a society. The way the Salidar Six treat Siuan and Leane is so cold, and you know it's mostly because they have no idea what to do, with their complex, stupid hierarchy taken away from them. Also, it's weird reading this knowing Sheriam is Black, isn't it? Kind of takes away a bit from a lot of the rebels' early achievements.
Glimpses of the White Tower: wow, a lot of people showed up at Elaida's council, and I couldn't help thinking that half of them would hate her at least as much as the rebels a few books from now. Although - and I say this in full knowledge of what's to come - grow a backbone, Shemerin, geez. But we see Teslyn (hi Teslyn!), Mesaana/Danelle (hi Mesaana!), and Joline (uh ... hi Joline, I guess). Also: Alviarin. How cool is she with Fain later on in the book, when we find out for sure she's evil? Even Fain is chilled by her. Awesome.
Battle of Cairhien: total fakeout. But good, and introducing lots of New Folks, like Talmanes and other Band people, Weiramon (sigh), Dobraine and Colavaere and their ilk (about whom I remember almost nothing, because I paid even less attention to the Cairhienin succession stuff than the Andoran).
Morgase: ugh, so sad.
The Forsaken: yay, more Forsaken! And two dead at the end. Rahvin I don't care about, because it's not as if he was ever major, but Asmodean - I'm a bit sad we lost him so soon. For some reason I thought he was around for another whole book, and I wish we'd seen a bit more of his motivations and how he might have behaved moving forward. But in retrospect - nice debut, Graendal.
Moiraine and Lanfear: I will miss Moiraine a whole lot, but she was awesome in this book. I was really moved by Rand's reaction to her death, after all he's put her through and what he's thought of her (and I forgave Mat for not really caring, knowing that he's going to bring her back). Lanfear is utterly nuts, and will be back sooner than we all might wish. Sigh.