Mat and the Dagger, Nynaeve and the Snake
THE WHEEL OF TIME – Season 1 Episode 4 – SPOILERS
Alanna Mosvani (Priyanka Bose) and Kerene Nagashi (Clare Perkins) join Liandrin in restraining Logain.
“The Wheel doesn’t want anything. It can’t. Any more than a river or the rain can want something.”
Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney) have been joined by Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins). Nyaeve was believed to have been killed in the Trolloc attack on Two Rivers, but escaped when her captors turned on each other. The trio encounter Leandrin and her band of Aes Sedai, and we find out that the war in Ghealdan (referred to in earlier episodes) was caused by Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte) a man who believes himself to be the Dragon Reborn. Logain was captured by Leandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) and is caged and under constant restraint.
Nynaeve (Zoë Robins) meets Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) and quickly forms a negative opinion of her.
Leandrin’s parents chose a name for her that sounds a lot like Leanan sídhe, a creature from Irish myth that is part of the Aos Si, a supernatural race said to be descended from the Tuatha Dé Danann. It might be a stretch, but Leandrin could be distantly related to Ila and the Tuatha’an. Ila’s grandson Aram (Daryl McCormack) tells Egwene: “You know we leave the wagons when we turn 20 to live in the world for a while, see if what we were born into is what we would choose. Some farm. Some set sail. Some even take up arms, I hear.” Perhaps Leandrin was one of those who took up channeling, and did not return.
After meeting Leandrin, Nynaeve remarks “That woman is a snake.” Leandrin has a noticeable personal grudge against men, particularly men who attempt to channel the One Power. We have not yet learned what experiences generated that grudge. In reaction to past traumatic events, Leandrin seems to have chosen the path of revenge. (In sharp contrast to that, Ila (Maria Doyle Kennedy) tells Perrin, with whom she is traveling, that her daughter’s death at the hands of outlaws caused her to reaffirm her faith in pacifism and The Way of the Leaf.)
Egwene (Madeleine Madden) and Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) with Ila (Maria Doyle Kennedy).
We learn that Lan speaks the Old Tongue, because when Nynaeve reiterates the final words her parents spoke to her before they died, he translates them for her. “It’s what the last King of Manetherin said to his wife bebore the battle he knew they’d lose. ‘We shall go into the land so our children can always hold us and will never be alone.'” She tells Lan that he is not what she thought him to be. In return, he tells her that she is exactly what he thought her to be, but before he can explain that, Logain’s army arrives from the south and attacks. Lan and Nynaeve seem to be getting closer and closer to one another.
Nynaeve and Lan
Logain manages to briefly break free of his bonds. He kills one of the Aes Sedai before he can again be restrained, and her Warder becomes enraged and attacks Logain with axes, which was a mistake because Logain channels the One Power through the axe blades. This results in Moiraine, Leandrin, and Lan being wounded, Lan most severely. Nynaeve enters and seeing Lan bleeding out through a severed carotid, reacts with a burst of the One Power that heals everyone (not the dead though), and manages to convince Logain that he is not the Dragon Reborn. Logain is then stripped of his powers. It seems that Nynaeve might herself be the Dragon.
Meanwhile, Mat (Barney Harris) and Rand (Josha Stradowski) have stopped to rest in a farmer’s barn. (They are allowed to stay there in return for cleaning out the stables.) Merrilin (Alexandre Willaume), who must have been following the two of them, wakes Rand from a bad dream. Mat is not asleep and they find him standing in the farmhouse surrounded by the corpses of the family, and we see a shadow cross Mat’s face. Then he uses the dagger he found in Shadar Logoth to point to where the Fade is hiding. (When he opened the box that held that dagger, he released a whispering shadow that consumed everything living that it touched.)
Mat points with the shadow dagger to where the Fade is hiding
The gleeman is last seen in combat with the Fade and we don’t find out if he manages to survive. It seems possible that part of the whispering shadow from Shadar Logoth is contained in Mat and that being in possession of the dagger protects him against it. Fades are able to move between shadows, or disappear into them. Is it possible for the Fade to travel inside the shadow that Mat carries inside himself? Did pointing the dagger tell the Fade which of the other shadows to enter?