The Wheel of Time TV Show 5: Eye of the Fandom [BOOK SPOILERS]

[fionwe1987]

21 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

When does Mat betray his friends and betrays the spring of his promises to them?

The first is when Rand reveals he can channel. Rand tells him he stayed to help Mat find the dagger, and here's Mat's response:

Quote

“That is what I’m afraid of,” Mat said, standing. “No offense, Rand, but I think I will just sleep as far away from you as I can, if you don’t mind. That’s if you are staying. I heard about a fellow who could channel, once. A merchant’s guard told me. Before the Red Ajah found him, he woke one morning, and his whole village was smashed flat. All the houses, all the people, everything but the bed he was sleeping in, like a mountain had rolled over them.” Perrin said, “In that case, Mat, you should sleep cheek by jowl with him.”

“I may be a fool, but I intend to be a live fool.” Mat hesitated, looking sideways at Rand. “Look, I know you came along to help me, and I am grateful. I really am. But you just are not the same anymore. You understand that, don’t you?” He waited as if he expected an answer. None came. Finally he vanished into the trees, back toward the camp.

Mat is, at this point, well insulated from the effects of the dagger. And he's grown up in the same village as Perrin, Nynaeve and Egwene, not one of whom felt the need to tell Rand he's too dangerous for them to be near, and just walk away.

Quote

I recall that in one of the middle books the main female characters make a big a deal about getting Mat to give his word, because he will never betray a promise.

Never the letter. But he promises Egwene he wouldn't enter the Doorframe ter'angreal without talking to Moiraine first. Well, he gives her an Aes Sedai answer, because he knows even as he's pretending to make the promise that he won't hold to it. The promise she asks for is that he consult with Moiraine before doing so. The promise he makes is to not do so unless his life depends on it. He then convinces himself it does, and goes without speaking to Moiraine anyway.

Quote

He hates responsibility and wants an easy life. But when he puts his mind to something, he does get it done. Multiple times he does do the right, responsible thing. His humor is largely centered about his grumbling about his lot in life, while still doing the right thing.

But often, especially at the big moments, the Pattern literally had to force him to do that right thing. His running away at Cairhein being the most obvious example of this. Does it count if you do the right thing because the Pattern is making you do it?

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Does it count if you do the right thing because the Pattern is making you do it?

I'm not sure Cairhien is an example of the Pattern forcing him to act a certain way. What it did, I think, is put him in situations where he had to make a choice between saving his skin or saving the soldiers, and he always chose the latter. To me, that's as much the memories of past generals in his head as Mat's own basic decent nature, and has nothing to do with the Pattern forcing his behavior.

The Pattern warps things to put people where they need to be, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it literally takes over your brain. In EotW, Loial discusses ta'veren and what it means, and she sees it as being something you still have a choice about: the Pattern will push and prod you towards what it needs, but you can still choose to disregard it. It may become increasingly dangerous or unhappy to do it, because the Pattern will keep trying to use you as a tool to course-correct, but still, there's a clear sense that there's a choice.

 

[fionwe1987]

12 minutes ago, Ran said:

I'm not sure Cairhien is an example of the Pattern forcing him to act a certain way. What it did, I think, is put him in situations where he had to make a choice between saving his skin or saving the soldiers, and he always chose the latter. To me, that's as much the memories of past generals in his head as Mat's own basic decent nature, and has nothing to do with the Pattern forcing his behavior.

The Pattern warps things to put people where they need to be, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it literally takes over your brain. In EotW, Loial discusses ta'veren and what it means, and she sees it as being something you still have a choice about: the Pattern will push and prod you towards what it needs, but you can still choose to disregard it. It may become increasingly dangerous or unhappy to do it, because the Pattern will keep trying to use you as a tool to course-correct, but still, there's a clear sense that there's a choice.

 

Oh he isn't compelled to. But the truth remains, his instinct and action is to go away from battle, and the Pattern has to throw all these threads (soldiers) at him to evoke his response to stay and help.

Contrast that to Egwene, who is also very reluctant to be a part of this battle, and violate the Three Oaths in view of an Aes Sedai. She's so doing something against the code of the Wise Ones she's learning from.

It is absolutely forbidden for Accepted to launch into battle. The cost for Egwene if this becomes known is very high, and she has personal moral qualms as well. She agonizes about it, and then agrees to help Rand. She and Aviendha kill hundreds of Shaido for him. 

To me, the contrast is clear. One friend had to be forced to do what was entirely within his power to do. Another struggled with the ask and made the active choice to help, without having to have circumstances rearranged by the Pattern to help Rand's cause. 

[Poobah]

22 minutes ago, Ran said:

The Pattern warps things to put people where they need to be, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it literally takes over your brain. In EotW, Loial discusses ta'veren and what it means, and she sees it as being something you still have a choice about: the Pattern will push and prod you towards what it needs, but you can still choose to disregard it. It may become increasingly dangerous or unhappy to do it, because the Pattern will keep trying to use you as a tool to course-correct, but still, there's a clear sense that there's a choice.

Yeah it's a bit complicated when it comes to the whole free will situation. The Wheel of Time does have the pattern when it comes to the shape of the ages and other corrective measures to bring things back on course (ta'veren) but there's also somewhat of a multiverse situation going on which we can see through the portal stones, all the chances Rand had to live different lives, all the worlds that could've been. I wonder if the main characters aren't ta'veren as a result of the pattern forcing them to follow their destinies, but because they are following them if you see what I mean? This is the main, golden, timeline in which they are ta'veren and get to affect the pattern around them because they are making the "right" choices.

Personally I think Mat is actually a very similar character to Nynaeve in that there's all these different layers to who he is where how he thinks of himself, how others see him and he presents himself to them, how he talks, and then how he actually acts tell quite different stories. Mat does, always, when the chips are down and it actually matters come through no matter the difficulty, danger, or cost. However much he moans and complains, protests and comes up with his own justifications, he is actually a hero and someone who can be relied upon. He might not want the aggro but he also won't willingly let someone down or leave someone in danger - he has hundreds of opportunities to just fuck off down the pub and let the world burn, say it's Rand's problem not his, but he never makes that choice.

[fionwe1987]

He does make that choice though. Here, in his own words, in Cairhein:

 

Quote

“It is time to go,” he told the empty tent, then paused thoughtfully and sipped at the goblet. “It is time to get on Pips and ride. Ride to Caemlyn, maybe.” Not a bad city, so long as he avoided the Royal Palace. “Or Lugard.” He had heard rumors about Lugard. A fine place, that, for the likes of him. “Time to leave Rand in my dust. He’s got a bloody Aiel army and more Maidens than he can count taking care of him. He doesn’t need me.”

That last was not strictly true. In some strange way he was tied to Rand’s success or failure in Tarmon Gai’don, him and Perrin both, three ta’veren all tangled together. The histories would probably only mention Rand. Small chance he or Perrin would find any place in the stories. And then there was the Horn of Valere. Which he did not want to think about, and would not. Not until he had to. There might be some way out of that particular mess yet. Any way he looked at it, the Horn was a problem for another day. A distant day. With luck, all those bills would come due on a very distant day. Only, that might take more luck than he had.

The point now was that he had said all of that about going and felt scarcely a twinge. Not long ago, he had been unable even to speak of leaving; when he got too far from Rand, he had been drawn back like a hooked fish on some invisible line. Then he had become able to say it, even to lay plans, but the slightest thing would distract him, make him put off his schemes for stealing away. Even in Rhuidean, when he had told Rand he was going, he had been sure something would get in the way. It had, in a manner of speaking; Mat had made it out of the Waste, but he was no further from Rand than before. This time, he did not think he would be diverted.

So the Pattern did have to force him to stay. It only let him go for a bit to direct him to the right soldiers, but otherwise, it was working double time to the point that Mat could actually sense how he was being compelled to hang around Rand.

There are times when Mat absolutely takes on responsibility and danger because he cannot look the other way, like when he helps the Sea Folk Windfinders escape the Seanchan. But there's entirely too many times when he has to be physically forced into his duty for that to be discounted.

And while yes, like Nynaeve, he's lying to himself a lot, this is somewhere where he's the opposite of her. She takes on too much responsibility. He wants none and works hard to escape whatever has fallen on him. 

[Ran]

The pull to Rand is a lot stronger than the pull he feels with the battles, and I don't believe he ever feels as railroaded by events again after that point, or at least I don't recall his reflecting on it (bear in mind I have not read the Sanderson books in any detail.) And, IMO, the self-delusion of his vision of himself tends to prefer placing the onus on things out of his control when in fact he's still actively making the choices. 

As to his duty... I mean, I have to say, part of Mat's issue is that his duty to them is that of one friend to another, and he has more than done his duty by them as far as he could see it. He even died! Twice! (Sort of, since balefire erased one of those.)  While he recognizes that Tarmon Gai'don is coming, it's not unreasonable for him to think that the Pattern will find another way if he bows out of it and tries to live his life. He didn't ask to be a ta'veren, he didn't ask to have his head full of other people's memories (not really!), and so on and so forth. But then, he didn't ask to also be personally brave, or when push comes to shove soft-hearted enough to help people at great personal risk. It's his character.

I don't know, in the end Mat tries not to impose his will on others, and the characters that do do that tend to be uncompromisingly self-righteous about it, and that's all the difference to reader reception of these characters.

[fionwe1987]

They're particularly self-righteous with Mat. And given how he is, that seems entirely justified. Anyone talking about responsibility to Mat is going to come across as self-righteous. As long as they aren't being hypocrites and partying while asking him to be responsible, I think the better word is righteous. 

I dunno, it just bugs me that so many excuses are made for Mat, while the exact opposite is at play for the women, who all go out of their way to shoulder burdens and take on risks that they too could just as easily walk away from. More easily, in fact, since the Pattern never tries to force them. Probably because there's no need to.

[Ran]

It's not a problem that they shoulder burdens and take risks for themselves. It's great and heroic for them. This doesn't mean that Mat's shying away from heroism and not wanting to do anything other than what he wants to do is wrong. He's not an automaton, nor is he a beast of burden, which is how he's often treated. 

Look, the whole point is that Jordan wrote the gender relations of the setting as being kind of like 19th c. adventure literature's take on things... but rather than women being wilting flowers and all agency being in the hands of men, it's women who have agency and men who need a strong (feminine) guiding hand. Most of the female characters are sexist, to greater or lesser degree. This is a large part of why they feel comfortable treating the men like woolheaded fools, whereas among themselves they tend to just negotiate their goals and act cooperatively, not assuming they know what's best for the others (Nynaeve, early on, is an exception due to her Wisdom status and sense of responsibility as the oldest of the Two Rivers bunch.)

Moiraine is, I think, a character who escapes a lot of opprobrium from readers because her approach to things with Rand and the lads seems much more collaborative than coercive, and substantially less influenced by sexism. He's young and inexperienced, he's overwhelmed, he's the Dragon Reborn, her job is to guide and help him, not treat him like his mother dropped him on his head when he was an infant.

 

[David Selig]

Moiraine treated Rand like an idiot who can't do anything right without her guiding him a lot of the time. She let him go on his own in Book 2, but after that she was very determined not to repeat that. And she only started advising him instead of trying to boss him and arranging things so he had no choice but to do what she wanted once she knew she didn't have much time left and that was the only way she could get him to listen to her.

As for Mat, he was a terrible friend to Rand for most of the series. Once he learned Rand could channel, he did everything possible to minimize his contact with him and they barely ever talked to each other the rest of the series. And he never even considered telling Rand any of his secrets or lending him his foxhead medallion. He spent months planning how to get as far as possible away from Rand in Books 4 and 5.

[A True Kaniggit]

1 hour ago, David Selig said:

As for Mat, he was a terrible friend to Rand for most of the series. Once he learned Rand could channel, he did everything possible to minimize his contact with him and they barely ever talked to each other the rest of the series. And he never even considered telling Rand any of his secrets or lending him his foxhead medallion. He spent months planning how to get as far as possible away from Rand in Books 4 and 5.

“Rest of the series?

Starting at the end of book 5 Mat follows Rand’s orders.

First for the assault against Illian.

But then Rand gives him new orders concerning the Aes Sedai in Salidar. After which they don’t see each other for like 7 books. (Actually, until the last book). How do you blame Mat for not talking to someone he doesn’t see for more than half the series?
 

Was Mat ever comfortable around a male channeler? I don’t think so. Apparently 3,000 years of indoctrinated fear and hate had an impact. 

[fionwe1987]

5 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

 How do you blame Mat for not  talking to someone he doesn’t see for more than half the series?

I don't, for most of that time. After the rescue of

Spoiler

Moiraine

the fact that he thought to escape to Ebou Dar was just astounding.

This may just be Brandon regressing the character so they could have "growth" again, though. He did that with a lot of them.

[Corvinus85]

17 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

 

  Hide contents

Moiraine

the fact that he thought to escape to Ebou Dar was just astounding.

This may just be Brandon regressing the character so they could have "growth" again, though. He did that with a lot of them.

Yes, that part was bewildering and feels like another Sanderson moment.

[David Selig]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

“Rest of the series?

Starting at the end of book 5 Mat follows Rand’s orders.

First for the assault against Illian.

But then Rand gives him new orders concerning the Aes Sedai in Salidar. After which they don’t see each other for like 7 books. (Actually, until the last book). How do you blame Mat for not talking to someone he doesn’t see for more than half the series?

They were in the same place for months in Tear, the Aiel Waste and Cairhien and Mat did his best to avoid talking to Rand during this whole period. 

[A True Kaniggit]

22 minutes ago, David Selig said:

They were in the same place for months in Tear, the Aiel Waste and Cairhien and Mat did his best to avoid talking to Rand during this whole period. 

So book 4 and the bulk of book 5?

[Derfel Cadarn]

To be fair, if one of my best friends turned out to be the reincarnation of a guy who went mad, killed his family and kicked kff the destruction of the world, and was fated to possibly do it again, I’d be fucking ghosting him too 

[Ran]

17 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

To be fair, if one of my best friends turned out to be the reincarnation of a guy who went mad, killed his family and kicked kff the destruction of the world, and was fated to possibly do it again, I’d be fucking ghosting him too 

Yeah, that's the thing. I'm trying to imagine a real world analogy... it's like discovering that your lifelong best friend has murderous schizophrenic episodes. Are you a bad friend for getting the hell away? I can buy that it's a good friend that sticks by you and hopes for the best, but I'm not sure the friends who say nope are necessarily bad friends because of that decision. There are things that go beyond friendship.

Like, if your best friend tells you to join him in jumping off a bridge, yeah, I guess he may say you're a "bad friend" when you refuse, but are you really a bad friend? Or just someone who has a healthy sense of self-preservation?

I basically can't fault Mat for his attitude towards Rand being a channeler. He's literally a dangerous madman. That merchant woman and her guards ... he killed them in cold blood without knowing if they were darkfriends or not (and in all likelihood they weren't, re-reading that passage -- the men were setting up camp, removing saddles from their horses, rather than preparing to swarm Rand.) 

[Quijote Light]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Yeah, that's the thing. I'm trying to imagine a real world analogy... it's like discovering that your lifelong best friend has murderous schizophrenic episodes. Are you a bad friend for getting the hell away? I can buy that it's a good friend that sticks by you and hopes for the best, but I'm not sure the friends who say nope are necessarily bad friends because of that decision. There are things that go beyond friendship.

Like, if your best friend tells you to join him in jumping off a bridge, yeah, I guess he may say you're a "bad friend" when you refuse, but are you really a bad friend? Or just someone who has a healthy sense of self-preservation?

I basically can't fault Mat for his attitude towards Rand being a channeler. He's literally a dangerous madman. That merchant woman and her guards ... he killed them in cold blood without knowing if they were darkfriends or not (and in all likelihood they weren't, re-reading that passage -- the men were setting up camp, removing saddles from their horses, rather than preparing to swarm Rand.) 

Wasn’t there a Gray Man with them? Though that doesn’t discount your point. 
 

eta: or could channelers sense Grey Men? I can’t remember. 

[fionwe1987]

Yes, Rand can channel and is destined to go mad. What makes Mat's behavior assholey is that at the very moment he rejects Rand, Rand has just informed him he's with them to find the evil dagger that taints it's holder (Mat) with paranoia, suspicion and an alternate version of evil even the Dark One's minions fear, and not finding it would mean Mat's death.

Mat has evidence of Rand overcoming fear of something just as bad as taint induced madness and sticking by him. 

If in the face of that, you can't even try to overcome your fear to be with your friend, then yeah, you're a tool. 

And if you want a helpful counter example, you have Perrin:

Quote

“What about you?” Rand asked. Perrin shook his head, shaggy curls swinging. “I don’t know, Rand. You are the same, but then again, you aren’t. A man channeling; my mother used to frighten me with that, when I was little. I just do not know.” He stretched out his hand and touched a corner of the banner. “I think I would burn this, or bury it, if I were you. Then I’d run so far, so fast, no Aes Sedai would ever find me. Mat was right about that.” He stood up, squinting at the western sky, beginning to turn red with the sinking sun. “Time to get back to the camp. You think on what I said, Rand. I’d run. But maybe you can’t run. Think of that, too.” His yellow eyes seemed to look inward, and he sounded tired. “Sometimes you can’t run.” Then he was gone, too.

RJ has these two conversations happen right after each other, so it's not like you have to search deep to figure out how fucked up Mat's reaction is. One guy finds empathy for Rand based on his (much) less crazy ability to talk to wolves. The other guy is filled with the taint of Mashadar but drops Rand like a hot potato because he will go mad in the future. 

[Ran]

15 minutes ago, Quijote Light said:

Wasn’t there a Gray Man with them? Though that doesn’t discount your point. 
 

eta: or could channelers sense Grey Men? I can’t remember. 

There was, but per Jordan he did not intend for Rand to really know about him or whether they were Darkfriends, he wanted to emphasize Rand’s madness. Interestingly, folks have noted how Rand is waaaay crazier in TDR than at any other time, and most assume it’s because when writing it RJ assumed he was only a couple books away from being done and then had to pull it back as the series expanded.

[Gertrude]

I won't deny that Mat is not a great friend to Rand. I don't think he's a bad friend, just not a great friend. He's upfront about why and that's admirable (as well as understandable). Yeah, he's kind of a selfish asshole sometimes, but when it comes down to it, he runs into the burning house (as Verin's? comparison goes). People with charming personalities get away with a lot more in life, why not in a book series? I can see why someone would not appreciate that about him, but I've always been a Mat fan. The contrast in approaches is needed for a good story - it would be boring if they all approached their destiny the same. Rand is (eventually) resigned, Perrin is reluctant, Mat is appalled, Egwene is determined, Nyneave is furious. Works for me.