SARSAPARILLA
ADD LINK FROM ARCHIVES
General Disclaimer:
1. First and foremost, I am a jackass. I used to think this was endearing, but have since decided being a jackass isn’t really a virtue. My father is also a jackass. It’s genetic, and I apologize.
2. I will use bad language. Why? Because I’m a bad person. Also because I just naturally insert vulgarity into places where commas should be.
3. This will contain systematic spoilers on a chapter by chapter basis. I do this so that those of us who have read the books can discuss. Recap begins after the jump
CHAPTER 38
POV 1
We come now to Egwene in a cell while she’s dream talking to Siuan in Tel’aran’rhiod. Siuan’s thesis is that now that Egwene is going to be put on trial there’s no longer any point to remaining in the White Tower. Egwene argues that this goes very far to discredit Elaida since she can’t prove anything.
Egwene ALMOSt has a fan girl moment when she finds out Gawyn is with the rebel camp, but suppresses it since I don’t know… she’s an ADULT.
Then there’s this kind of passing of the torch moment where Siuan acknowledges that Egwene IS the Amyrlin since she can walk the Amyrlin walk and talk the Amyrlin talk.
She goes to the TAR for a while, and sees somethings that I’m sure will be super duper important later, including some Tuatha’an who will probably rediscover the Song or something. She finally wakes up, cramped, and thinks again how being in this cell helps her to identify with Rand… except that she’s getting the Shit Lite treatment.
Eventually, some Reds come by and release Egwene from her cell and tell her that the charges are being dropped and that the Mistress of Novices is to be charged for letting her get out of hand. I guess because Elaida has to be getting in the way of good sense wherever she goes. It’s more than what she does, it’s who she is.
As Egwene is being led back to her novice quarters, the Brown Sitter asks to speak to her for a while where it is revealed 1. That Sitters are now able to boss around Reds and 2. The Mistress of Novices lady got in trouble more for speaking up in Egwene’s defense than by Elaida cleverly moving the blame.
The Brown Sitter is of the opinion they should let Elaida kill the Mistress of Novices as she intends because it will horribly undermine her position in the White Tower. So Egwene says “I may face reality, but I also have morals. Fuck no we’re not doing that. Rally your supporters and stop this, I have other shit I need to do as well.”
So the Brown Sitter says “You think you’re in charge?”
So Egwene says “Do you want to be?”
To which the Brown Sitter can’t really say anything other than “Fuck no!”
Also, cool experiment. Every time someone says “Light!” in WoT replace it with “Fuck.”
The Reds who are guarding Egwene overhear this and say “Elaida’s gonna fucking do what now?”
So they say they need to go get shit fixed, so EGWENE tells them what they need to do and even tells them how to forkroot her and such as so she can’t channel while they’re gone. Tired as fuck, Egwene goes to her rooms to think….
and there finds Verin Mathwin….
Who opens the conversation by telling her a LIE!!!
CHAPTER 39
POV 1
So as Verin sits calmly drinking a cup of tea, Egwene is like “What the fuck? Did you not hold the oath rod?”
To which Verin says “Yeah, I held that shit all right.”
So Egwene gasps “Fucking A! You’re Black Ajah!”
So Verin very stoically nods “You’re fucking A right I am.”
At which point I just shit my pants. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for this to come to a resolution? I even wondered if maybe the Creator himself spoke to Verin, or if she was the Creator in disguise. Her being Black Ajah? Never belied it…
AND I WAS RIGHT NOT TO!
You see, Verin had been studying the Black Ajah and came to the point where she either had to swear to serve the Great Lord or be killed, and took this as an opportunity to spy on the Dark One and his servants. For the past seventy years Verin Mathwin has been a double agent.
Egwene is kind of mindfucked by the whole thing, basically wanting to know why now, why after all of these years. So Verin tells her that she promised never to betray the Dark One unto the hour of her death and then takes another sip of tea.
Another sip of her poisoned motherfucking tea. The hour of her death. She drank so she could finally spill all she had done.
Egwene spits back that she thinks Verin did all of this just to ask for forgiveness… until Verin pulls out some book with the names of very nearly every single Black Ajah member in the Dark Tower… as well as a fuck load of Dark Friends.
At which point I shit out shit that I didn’t even know I had left to shit.
So Egwene cries, because as much as she is an adult, Verin is motherfucking VERIN. Plus oh yeah, Verin made the books invisible so they won’t be stolen from Egwene. Put that in your pipes and smoke it!
Verin says she still had things to do before she died (letters to Mat) and she set them all in motion, and hopes it will be enough.
So Verin dies after falling asleep, and Egwene checks just to make sure and tells an Aes Sedai who wants to know what’s taking so long that Verin has just gone to sleep. So when the Aes Sedai leaves again Egwene opens up those books and finds out among other things that Sheriam and some people she’s known for a very long time are Black Ajah.
There’s a message in some soup that isn’t very important (but my oh my this is a very eventful chapter) and then Elaida’s sex abuse victim comes in and gives Egwene an update. Elaida has been censured and punished but not deposed. It was a public humiliation she suffered, and Silviana will still be punished but not executed. Some more yada yada yada. Then Elaida’s sex abuse victim leaves through a Gateway with Verin’s body and also gets rid of the poisoned tea.
Egwene goes to Tel’aran’Rhiod to give Siuan an update on everything that Verin just told her when she’s suddenly yanked out of the world of dreams by that girl Nicola who is obviously really fucking good at Foretelling except we haven’t been told that specifically yet. She’s shaking Egwene and asking her to wake the fuck up because the Seanchan are attacking.
Hole. Lee. Shit.
CHAPTER 40
POV 1
Siuan wakes up in Gareth’s tent saying “Fit just hit the Shan!” And Gareth wants to know how she could possibly know that, etc. Then a scout comes up saying “Fit just hit the shan!” So there’s a lot of looking at Tar Valon with telescopes and muttering about who the hell…?
So Siuan says “Seanchan!”
She says this obviously nulls Egwene’s point to which Gareth Bryne says “I gave my word.” So Siuan says “I break my word all the time when something REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT happens.”
Gareth Bryne says he still won’t be moved, so Siuan goes to find Gawyn.
POV 2
Nicola thinks this is the Last Battle, but Egwene is like “STFU, don’t be like a milkmaid!”
So Nicola says “But milkmaids provide an incredibly valuable service!”
So Egwene slaps her and says “Milkmaids are nothing but whores and cowards who will fuck anything that moves to betray the ones they love. Don’t be a fucking milkmaid. Be an Aes motherfucking Sedai!” So Egwene grabs a tiny tiny tiny little bit of the One Power and like Patton says she’s going to kill some shit like Rand did in the first five or six books.
Then goes “Eh… I’ll need some help to get more killing done.”
So she runs and finds some novice standing in the hallway and tells them how to form a link, and once she’s got a full circle rocking she opens up a gateway and grabs hold of the sa’angreal that was used in Healing Mat. Then once she gets a fuck load of the power what she DOESN’T DO is
1. Open a Gateway to Salidar
2. Tell the novices to escape
3. Lead the rebel Aes Sedai through it to throw off the Seanchan assault completely
4. Seize control of the White Tower in the confusion just by saying “We’re here, we’re better organized than you, get used to it.”
I don’t know why she doesn’t do this but Egwene would rather just fight instead. Okay… umm…. this is the first time you’ve been dumb so I forgive you. But uh… thanks for giving Traveling to the Seanchan Egwene. Oh, and for assisting with the capture of a bunch of Aes Sedai into the Seanchan ranks.
Seriously Egwene, WTF were you thinking? This is out of character.
POV 3
Siuan goes to get Gawyn and Bryne is following her because he loves her and she makes him go all bugfuck with butterflies on the inside. So after he sees she won’t get dissuaded he gets a bunch of people together and says Siuan has to do two things for him.
1. Bond him as a Warder
2. Marry him later although he won’t say it now, it’s obvious from the get go that’s what he wants
So Siuan bonds him, and Bryne is like “this is fucking wondermous and shit.”
POV 4
The Captain General of the greens is running around in a panic because, as a member of the battle Ajah, she can’t get her fucking shit together. Remember people, Aes Sedai are all power until they have to do ANYTHING USEFUL! I say we drop a whole bunch of them into the Pit of Doom and let them squabble the Dark One to death. God I hope Egwene gets them in some kind of fucking fighting shape.
Anyhow, once she’s almost got her ass collared Egwene comes around a corner and tears the sul’dam apart with fire and kills the damane. Then the Green is like.
“Obviously could have gotten away squabble squabble squabble, bully bully, I’ll be in charge now… father and mother weren’t nice to me squabble squabble worry about authority at inappropriate times bully squabble.”
So Egwene tells her to buck the fuck up, and says “I’m in charge until this is over. Am I understood.”
So the Green says “Umm… bully squabble, yes Mother.”
So then Egwene says “Good. Not that I’ve made you shut the fuck up, you’re coming with me to get some angreal. You’re going to be fighting from now on.”
CHAPTER 41
POV 1
All that happens in this POV is that Siuan and Bryne go into Tar Valon’s airducts to confront the evil within. That’s basically what happens. I mean, it’s a waterduct but only because that’s the version of an airduct in an evil fortress we have here.
POV 2
Here’s what happens in this chapter, the Brown Sitter that Egwene was talking to her earlier is sitting down in the basement where it’s safe with all the wounded saying:
“Squabble squabble, we will not fight back, squabble squabble.”
To which the other Aes Sedai say
“Squabble squabble I think I should be in charge, bully squabble!”
To the Brown Sitter says “Watch out own asses, squabble squabble.”
Then everyone says “OH! Good idea squabble squabble!”
So after heroically NOT fighting with the Seanchan they hear that someone else is fighting from the FUCKING NOVICE QUARTERS YOU FUCKING SCUM COWARDS and everyone says “Oh! Egwene….”
And then they feel like SHIT!
Which is what they are.
POV 3
Egwene is peering through a hole in the Tower blowing up raken like a mad woman with the wind blowing in her face. Very Patton like I must say. So as she’s nuking the raken back to hell she’s thinking that the Seanchan can’t stop her because they don’t use Circles and even if they wanted to they couldn’t because it was prevented by the a’dam.
Also if some asha’man and Aes Sedai don’t start making ginormous fucking circles in Towers of Midnight I will cry giant man tears of virginity.
POV 4
Siuan almost gets killed by the special forces guy from the Seanchan but Bryne kills him back first. Then Siuan kills the poison that the guy put in Bryne and they say “Awe! I love you so much!” But who gives a fuck considering what just happened?
Oh and Gawyn is still really good with a sword.
They continue to make their way to Egwene.
POV 5
Egwene, after getting the most Ethos anyone has ever had for a long ass time in the White Towe is laying back fucking exhausted as fuck when Gawyn comes picks her up and takes her away through a Gateway that Siuan makes with the wand sa’angreal.
So Egwene, too tired to stop them, thanks “I can’t fucking believe the level of this bullshit. Do you have any idea how much work you just fucking ruined?”
POV 6
Someone tells The Brown Sitter that Elaida is missing. Then someone else says “Oh yeah, the Seanchan got her.
POV 7
A Seanchan sul’dam tells Elaida that her new name is Suffa and that she will be a good damane. Now, I hate most Aes Sedai but most of them didn’t deserve to be damane. Except for Elaida. I hope they fucking RUIN shit UP!
CHAPTER 42
POV 1
Lew Therin is worried that they don’t know the names of any of the women who died in the balesplosion of balefire so they can’t make a perfect list. Then Rand is thinking that he’s going to have to be an asshole and that people will hate him for eternity but at least there will be an eternity left for them to hate him in.
So he’s walking around and all the glory is gone. He’s failed in Bandar Eban and Rodel Ituralde is seeing too many Trollocs to fight… and shit. The World is a Shitty Place at the Moment. Rand tells Bashere to go make the Borderlanders get their shit together and then Travels to Tear where he tells Darlin to get his shit together because pretty soon they will be marching on Shayol Ghul.
And oh yeah, I didn’t want to say this because it was depressing as all hell… the food Rand had brought in? It all went bad in a thunderclap. Just turned sour and it makes people sick to eat it. And I think it’s because Rand is ta’veren and depressed. Remember people “The land is one with the Dragon and the Dragon is one with the land.”
Still, that kid Nynaeve saved? Will probably starve.
Holy shit.
CHAPTER 43
POV 1
Firstly, Egwene is pissed for her own failure to make her friends understand that they’re too fucktarded to take initiative. Then she’s pissed because Gawyn is such a fucking pussy idiot that he just wants to cuddle and go back to the way things were when EGWENE IS THE ONLY FUCKING THING HOLDING THE AES SEDAI TOGETHER!
So she tells him to grow up. I’d be more descriptive but I want to shoot Gawyn in the face… from a safe distance.
POV 2
I will summarize the whole discussion between the Sitters in the Tower as follows:
“Squabble squabble squabble not my fault squabble squabble!”
“Your fault squabble one power bully!”
“Boy men suck!”
“Squabble squabble…. er….?”
“Last Battle? Squabble squabble?
“Squabble we’re power fucked squabble bully squabble.”
“Derrr… I’m retarded!”
“Derr… I’m also retarded!”
“Derr… maybe we should get the ONE ADULT WHO CAN CHANNEL AND IS A WOMAN to be our leader squabble squabble!”
“Derr… I guess we have to since we all suck so much.”
“But the second the crisis is over we are going to squabble for all we are fucking worth.”
POV 3
Siuan knows Egwene is pissed and Bryne says he wants to get married some day but he’ll wait until the Last Battle is over.
POV 4
Egwene sits in the Hall of the Rebels and takes the Three Oaths on the Oath Rod she has stolen. Then says that someone has told her that there are Black Ajah among them, a sister who was in fact Black Ajah.
Egwene says that they will all foreswear their oaths and reswear them, when Sheriam embraces the Power like a fucking retard full of retardation (not people who are born with other than standard genetics, that’s different. People with Down’s Syndrome just have a genetic anomaly. Glenn Beck is retarded) So Egwene shields her and gets her to confess to being Black Ajah by tricking her into a lie.
After one other Black Ajah member is captured everyone inside swears that they’re not Black Ajah and the Great Purge begins for plans are laid to capture the rest of the Black Sisters as well.
Oh, and Egwene will begin her assault on Tar Valon in the evening, after she’s had her tea and crumpets.
CHAPTER 44
POV 1
Rand is walking along with Nynaeve listening to her convince that he should save THE BEST CHARACTER IN THE WHOLE SERIES WHO WAS HIS BEST FRIEND AND MENTOR… but Rand is all like “strategy strategy have to do the hard thing no humanity strategy.”
So Nynaeve is like “Every day we get out of bed we’re all fucking hypocrites for giving meaning to this hollow fucking universe, so you put on a motherfucking happy face and save your friend and you fake that shit until you MAKE that shit be true for you!”
But then Rand has gone through a Gateway to meet with the Borderland delegation which consists of Hurin the Sniffer.
In the one scene where I really want to chop Rand’s cock off. Hurin is a nice person Rand. He’s not like you or me. He doesn’t think life is bullshit. He LIKES You even though you are not a good person or worthy of being liked. You’re an asshole like me, Rand so you know what wasn’t called for?
You bullying him with the One Power, scaring him to death, acting as if you didn’t know him, and then almost killing the people he came with.
So fuck you Rand al’Thor. Hurin deserved better than that.
Also, there was a neat little Traveling Trick here about Traveling a short distance and then Traveling a long one to cut out the time it takes to learn the area since Traveling TO a place helps you learn it faster and you don’t have to know a place well to Travel TO it.
But still… Hurin man. Hurin. He even called you Lord Rand.
Broke my fucking jaded ass heart.
So probably because he does feel SOME shame Rand tells Nynaeve where Perrin is… or about where Perrin is and then Nynaeve goes to Cadsuane who in a very manipulative sort of way which would not work unless everyone involved broke the rules tells Nynaeve she doesn’t need Perrin at all. She needs someone who is WITH Perrin.
CHAPTER 45
POV 1
Egwene is sad that there are so many members of the Black Ajah, although some got away and she’s moving her forces to Tar Valon. Once she gets there she notices there aren’t that many people standing guard over it…. and that’s because the squabblers finally decided to WOman up and invite Egwene in to be Amyrlin.
All I can say is: Thank God All-fucking Mighty!”
CHAPTER 46
POV 1
Egwene is made Amrylin, yells at the Sitters for being squabblers, and makes the Rebels apologize for Rebelling since she needs to forge the tower whole again. Then, like in Dora the Explorer, Egwene shouts “Squabblers! No squabbling!”
So the Aes Sedai shut up and Egwene says “Shit is going to happen. Shape the fuck up!”
Then, like an overly competitive high school football coach, Egwene kicks a Gatorade container thing hard enough to knock it open and then stalks off brooding. Or not. But still, it could have happened.
CHAPTER 47
POV 1
Rand is walking around the Stone thinking about how he was a nicer person before the Stone of Tear fell. And he’s right of course, but I think he really reached his peak between “nice and necessity” around book four or five.
Rand is thinking about all of his many failures, and then realizes he’s going to have to Choeden Kal the Seanchan to death if he wants the world to be viable after the Last Battle. So he goes off to his room, orders the Maidens to Maiden themselves up and…. finds Tam al’Thor standing in his bedroom plain as day.
And what follows really kind of breaks my heart, because we see the two Rands. The Rand that was, before the Dragon, and the Rand that embraced the True Power as a weapon and used it to kill Semhirage. We see a broken wounded HUMAN BEING who needs some small shred of comfort to remember why in the hell the world is worth saving…. except Rand really can’t allow himself to do that. Not and be the kind of person he feels he needs to be to save the world.
Tam can barely believe the person Rand has become, and misses his son and worries about the kind of person he is letting himself become. Rand says that he is not free to choose his own destiny, and he has made himself ready to get MURDERED BY THE ULTIMATE SOUL-RAPING DARK— except Tam is there so that great darkness doesn’t seem so black anymore… it seems…. it seems like Tam could just hug it all away.
Tam tells Rand that it doesn’t matter that he can’t leave because the person that Tam raised WOULDN’T leave. The person Tam raised was full of love and would never abandon the world. So Rand starts to feel better because what Tam is saying rings true and then Tam lets it drop that he was sent to talk to Rand by Cadsuane the Seaward Witch.
So RAND GOES BUGSHIT AND ALMOST BALEFIRES TAM! Instead, he just runs through a gateway horrified by the fact that he has become a monster. Which really he has. First Hurin and then TAM?
Rand needs to just sit down for a few seconds and maintain homeostasis.
CHAPTER 46
POV 1
Min is in Cadsaune’s room reading some kind of vague prophecy about Callandor being essential to the Last Battle. Three being as one, vague Christian reference, la dee dah.*
Some Aes Sedai wants to call Min a whore and a dumbass which makes me angry on so many levels. Min is so much better than you will ever be, and I hope you fucking choke on your grandmother’s femurh. No one insults Min Farshaw. NO ONE! She’s like cuddly unicorns and rainbows AT THE SAME TIME!
Suddenly Tam bursts in, full of Charles Ingalls like fury and Cadsaune tries to bully him with the one power until Tam calls her a bully and she puts him back down because he simply has THAT MUCH FOLKSY WISDOM AND INTEGRITY!
By the way, I saw Robert Jordan’s cousin Wilson on youtube and I now picture him as Tam al’Thor. That guy had Little House on the Prairie Levels of Awesome. You could just tell the dude had integrity, manners, and balls… and it just made me realize what a horrible shell of a person I am. I have never been so overcome with the feeling that someone should punch me in the face to punish me for being a douchebag as when I saw Wilson. And if he ever reads this, sir, feel free to just clean my clock if you ever happen to see me in public. I’m serious, just punch me in the throat and don’t stop until I’m a bloody pulp.
Trust me, I deserve it.
Anyhow, everyone knows that Rand is gone and they worry he’s going to kill a bunch of people.
*Also, as someone who suffers from the disgusting disease of “Aspiring Authorhood”** May I just say that ripping off Biblical Prose is one of the most effective ways possible of making profound mystical language. I do it A LOT.
**We should all be killed, raped, and thrown into the Ocean. We’re worse than lepers.
CHAPTER 49
POV 1
Rand has traveled to Ebou Dar and is hanging out with some Tinkers trying to get a sense of the lay of the land. He walks around, feeling bizarre to be lost in a crowd, and bumps into someone dressed in a bright chest. Rand prepares himself to destroy the whole place and realizes… he just can’t do it.
So he Travels.
To Dragonmount.
To the place he and Lews Therin Telamon died.
CHAPTER 50
POV 1
In a very Last Temptation of Christ, kind of way Rand is sitting on top of Dragonmount looking over the whole of the world and his heart is breaking. He wants to know what the point of it is if he will just live again and again. Always hurting the ones he loves always being denied rest. Always having to fight the dark one with no end in sight… and… and…. he grabs the Choeden Kal and thinks about destroying the world, about drawing in so much of the One Power that he will make a new dragonmount out of the entire globe….
And he asks Lews Therin why… why must they live again and again without end!
And Lews Therin, sanely responds it is so that they can have a second chance. So that they can go back and correct their mistakes. So that they can love again and be loved, that the purpose of life is to live and experience everything fully.
And holding the power of the Choeden Kal like a tempest Rand throws its power upon itself and destroys it.
And all at once, the voice of Lews Therin is gone, because they had never really been two different men but the same man and Rand can remember a thousand lives now beyond his own.
PROLOGUE
Egwene wonders where Mesaana is hiding, and someone tells her to look out her window. She sees in the gray clouds the first shaft of sunlight in a long time centered over Dragonmount. She tells everyone that something wonderful has happened but they will have to wait to find out what that is.
And people…. trust me… you need to go pick up this fucking book. Read this whole series. Jaysus. I’ll do a more comprehensive write up later.
