Dear Robert,
I’m more than halfway through A Crown of Swords, and here’s what’s happening:
Mirella, one of the Aes Sedai, reveals to Egwene that Lan has returned and is her warder. Egwene, Siuan and some of the other sisters argue about how his bond was passed to her without his consent from the now-dead Moiraine. Robert Jordan again compares this to rape, which, again, is just a super extreme and awful comparison. It’s established that warders whose Aes Sedai have died are eaten up by grief until they die. Egwene tells Lan to go to Ebou Dar where Nynaeve is and be her warder, which I totally called about 4 books ago when Moiraine started talking about her own death.
After Lan leaves for Ebou Dar and Nynaeve, the perspective switches to Mat at a horse race. I can tell Robert Jordan LOVED writing this scene. There were SO many horses! It’s revealed that Mat’s father made him a “good judge of horse flesh” and so Mat is able to bet on his own horse, whose name I believe is Winds, and is ridden by Oliver, the orphan Mat has kind of adopted. Mat’s horse wins, of course, and he gets A BUNCH of money. While watching the horse races, Mat sees a dark friend who once tried to kill him and Rand in a stable while they were on the road in either the first or second book. Mat pursues her through the streets of Ebou Dar and to a mansion. He stops along the way and purchases a ring with a mysterious stone. It’s probably evil or cursed, but Mat doesn’t really pay attention because he’s too busy watching the dark friend. He pursues her to a mansion that is being rented by Jaichim Carridin, a dark friend and also a Child of the Light who serves Sammael.
While Mat is out in the street gazing up at the mansion, the perspective shifts to inside the mansion where Carridin is speaking to the dark friend who almost killed Mat and Rand. He is then visited by Sammael who tells him that he needs to find Elayne and a cache of ter’angreal hidden in the city.
Mat runs to the queen’s palace and tries to explain that dark friends are in the city and the children of the light are involved. The queen flirts with Mat and then says he and her son would be good friends. They’re both about the same age. The flirting is creepy, but it was kind of sweet for Mat to get a good friend, though probably another ploy to humanize Mat. He remains my least-favorite character.
Rand gets a visit from Cadsuane, a legendary and adventurous Aes Sedai who has been in and out of retirement since the Aiel War. She behaves rudely to Rand because she’s encountered men who can channel before. He throws a temper tantrum when she lets on that she knows about Lews Therrin’s voice in his head, and pitches everyone out of his throne room. Cadsuane then gathers the Aes Sedai in the palace and grills them about what has been happening with Rand. She does not answer any questions about why she is there. Rand fires Berelain as regent of Caemlyn and installs Dobraine in her stead. With his increasing hostility and mistrust of Aes Sedai (and women in general,) the optics of this decision are not great. I think Rand gives the reason that Berelain has received assassination attempts and he doesn’t want to see her hurt, but it’s just another way Robert Jordan others women and decreases their agency. Dobraine might get death threats, but that’s fine because he’s a man! The other disgusting part about this is that Robert Jordan takes EVERY opportunity to talk about Berelain’s looks, and he also reveals that Rand gave Berelain’s dismissal in writing rather than showing her respect for the work she’s done in person, because he didn’t want to risk being dumbstruck by Berelain’s boobs. This entire scene is preposterously antifeminist on many levels and really shows the failings of this supposed “hero” pre-ordained to be a leader of men. Truly appalling.
Later, Min comes to visit Rand and says Coulavaere, the woman who Rand kicked off the throne and exiled to be a farmer, has hung herself. Min and Rand probably have sex, but it was one of those “they started ripping each other’s clothes off and the scene ended” kind of scenes. On Min’s way to visit Rand, she went over all of the reasons why she shouldn’t be in love with him, but was nonetheless still in love with him and she’s wearing high heels because it “makes Rand smile.” I’m not sure why Robert Jordan continues to force his female characters to make excuses for his male characters’ mediocrity, or change themselves to suit men! Min deserves better! #agency4Min
I don’t have a whole lot of other insight on this stretch of the book because while stuff is happening, it’s not terribly meaningful. Robert Jordan has had a scene here or there with some of the Forsaken scheming, but they’ve been scheming for about 4 books now and nothing has really happened with Sammael or Graendal. There’s some nonsense about the Shaido using a cube to communicate with some bad guys, and that’s about it.
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