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<p class="syndicationauthor">Posted by Molly Templeton</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/the-last-of-us-convergence-review/">https://reactormag.com/the-last-of-us-convergence-review/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=815005">https://reactormag.com/?p=815005</a></p><post-hero class="wp-block-post-hero js-post-hero post-hero post-hero-horizontal"> <div class="container container-desktop"> <div class="flex flex-col mx-auto post-hero-container"> <div class="post-hero-content"> <div class="post-hero-tags font-aktiv text-xs tracking-[0.5px] font-medium uppercase"> <span class="mr-3"> <i class="inline-block w-2 h-2 rounded-full mr-[5px] bg-blue"></i> <a href="https://reactormag.com/articles/movies-tv/" class="inline-block link-no-animation" aria-label="Link to term or tag Movies &amp; TV 0"> Movies &amp; TV </a> </span> <span class="mr-3"> <i class="inline-block w-2 h-2 rounded-full mr-[5px] bg-blue"></i> <a href="https://reactormag.com/tag/the-last-of-us/" class="inline-block link-no-animation" aria-label="Link to term or tag The Last of Us 1"> The Last of Us </a> </span> </div> <h2 class="post-hero-title text-h1"><i>The Last of Us</i> Wraps up an Incomplete Story With &#8220;Convergence&#8221;</h2> <div class="prose post-hero-description prose--post-hero">Will that brazen structural choice work out for them?</div> <div class="post-hero-wrapper"> <div class="post-hero-inner"> <p class="post-hero-author text-xs font-aktiv uppercase font-medium [&amp;_a]:link-hover">By <a href="https://reactormag.com/author/molly-templeton/" title="Posts by Molly Templeton" class="author url fn" rel="author">Molly Templeton</a></p> <span class="post-hero-symbol relative top-[-2px] hidden tablet:block">|</span> <p class="text-xs uppercase post-hero-publish font-aktiv"> Published on May 27, 2025 </p> </div> </div> <div class="post-hero-caption post-hero-caption-vertical [&amp;_a]:link"><p>Image: Liane Hentscher/HBO</p> </div> <div class="quick-access post-hero-quick-access mt-[17px] tablet:hidden"> <div class="flex gap-[30px] tablet:gap-6"> <a href="https://reactormag.com/the-last-of-us-convergence-review/#comments" class="flex items-center text-sm font-aktiv tracking-[0.6px] font-semibold uppercase translate-x-[1px] translate-y-[1px]"> <svg class="w-[22px] h-[22px] mr-[7px] icon-hover" viewbox="0 0 18 18" aria-label="comment" role="img" aria-hidden="true" aria-labelledby="icon-comment-quick-access-"> <title id="icon-comment-quick-access-">Comment</title> <g fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"> <path fill="#FFF" fill-rule="nonzero" d="M6.3 18a.9.9 0 0 1-.9-.9v-2.7H1.8A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 0 12.6V1.8A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 1.8 0h14.4A1.8 1.8 0 0 1 18 1.8v10.8a1.8 1.8 0 0 1-1.8 1.8h-5.49l-3.33 3.339a.917.917 0 0 1-.63.261H6.3Z" /> <path stroke="#000" d="M5.9 14.4v-.5H1.8a1.3 1.3 0 0 1-1.3-1.3V1.8A1.3 1.3 0 0 1 1.8.5h14.4a1.3 1.3 0 0 1 1.3 1.3v10.8a1.3 1.3 0 0 1-1.3 1.3h-5.698l-.146.147-3.324 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9.41431V6.41431C2.21205 6.41431 3.64538 6.70197 4.97871 7.27731C6.31205 7.85264 7.47471 8.63597 8.46671 9.62731C9.45805 10.6186 10.2414 11.781 10.8167 13.1143C11.392 14.4476 11.6794 15.881 11.6787 17.4143H8.67871Z" fill="currentColor" fill-opacity="0.2" /> </g> <defs> <clippath id="clip0_1051_121783"> <rect width="17" height="17" fill="white" transform="translate(0.678711 0.414307)" /> </clippath> </defs> </svg> </a> </li> </ul> </div> </details> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-hero-media "> <figure class="w-full h-auto post-hero-image"> <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="740" height="493" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/bella-ramsey_10-740x493.jpg" class="w-full object-cover" alt="Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/bella-ramsey_10-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/bella-ramsey_10-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/bella-ramsey_10-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/bella-ramsey_10-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/bella-ramsey_10.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /> </figure> <div class="post-hero-caption post-hero-caption-horizontal [&amp;_a]:link"><p>Image: Liane Hentscher/HBO</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </post-hero> <div class="wp-block-more-from-category"> <div> </div> </div> <p>We’re here, at the end of it all—except we’re not. <em>The Last of Us</em>’s second season finale did what gamers (and any fool, like me, who had read anything about the story of the second game) expected. It ended without telling a complete story, leaving us with a cliffhanger and the promise of a different perspective in the third season. The cliffhanger isn’t much of one: Neither of these characters is about to die in a fade-to-black. The suffering happens on screen in this series.&nbsp;</p> <p>A generous reading of “Convergence” might say that this episode asks a lot of unanswerable questions about community: What it means, what you can ask of it, what it can ask of you, and where its boundaries are. But the only person really thinking about community is Jesse. He’s in Seattle because, for better or worse, and whether she acts like it or not, Ellie is part of his community, and his role is to look out for the people in it. And yet: By coming to Seattle, he’s put the bigger community at risk—in his case, the risk of losing him as their future leader. He’s following in Ellie’s footsteps in more ways than one. If he did it for selfless rather than selfish reasons, does that change things?</p> <p>But community, for Ellie, is just one more source of hurt. And sometimes it’s one she turns on herself, as when she decides to tell Dina the truth about Joel and the Fireflies. Well, part of the truth. She leaves out the fact that while she long suspected Joel&#8217;s original story was a lie, she didn’t actually <em>know</em> that until the night before he got killed. It’s up to our interpretation whether she leaves this out because the writers thought it would be more dramatic this way, or because she’s looking for a way to hurt herself for what she’s just done. I watched the episode twice, and I saw it both ways. </p> <p>(The most interesting, wrenching moments in this episode are moments in which Ellie is uncertain.&nbsp;Put a pin in that thought, because I’m going to come back to it.)</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/isabela-merced_1-1100x733.jpg" alt="Isabela Merced in The Last of Us" class="wp-image-815007" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/isabela-merced_1-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/isabela-merced_1-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/isabela-merced_1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/isabela-merced_1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/isabela-merced_1.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: Liane Hentscher/HBO</figcaption></figure> <p>When Ellie tells Dina what she did—she tells only Dina, <em>not</em> Jesse—she seems horrified at herself. She’s not glad that it was easy to hurt Nora. She’s found a chasm inside herself, a dark place where she didn&#8217;t know she was capable of going. If anything, she seems terrified. And doubtful. Maybe Nora didn’t really deserve that. Telling Dina the truth gives Ellie what she feels like she deserves: Dina turning away from her, saying they should go home. Ellie can&#8217;t call off her hunt, but maybe she could let someone else do it for her.</p> <p>She’s not so mad she won’t give Ellie a bracelet for good luck. Just like Jesse’s not so mad he won’t share his ammo.&nbsp;</p> <p>But before they can go home, they have to find Tommy. En route to the bookstore rendezvous point, Ellie and Jesse talk; she accidentally reveals Dina’s pregnancy, which Jesse had pretty much figured out when Dina turned down whiskey, and Jesse makes fun of Ellie’s insistence that nothing’s changed. (He also tells her that Shimmer is okay; thank you, Jesse! I’m glad someone else is worried about the horse.)&nbsp;</p> <p>Because this is Seattle, they run into a WLF/Seraphite clash—a one-sided incident in which a pack of Wolves ask a lone Scar how he crossed their line (a detail that feels like it may be relevant next season). Ellie wants to throw herself into the situation to defend the Scar kid, which is a little bit hard to swallow, given what they saw from the Scars less than 24 hours ago. But it is just one youth, and Ellie clearly feels for him. Jesse uses a bunch of perfectly reasonable arguments about why this is a terrible idea—they’re outnumbered; “This is not our war”—but for some reason skips over the one thing that seems like it would work: Dina. What would she do if they both died out there? Tommy doesn’t even know where she is. Come on, Jesse!&nbsp;</p> <p>A detour to the WLF—using a Costco for a base of operations—tells us a little bit about what they have planned. Something big, something secret, something that scares the “sheep” in the army, as Isaac calls them. It also tells us that Abby is the Jesse of the WLF, the one who’s been tapped as the future leader. But she and most of her team are all missing. Curious. Curious, also, the relationship between Park and Isaac. She is forthright with him, challenges him, says the thing that might apply to Jesse as well as Abby: If your future leader has fucked off when you need them, maybe they’re not really your future leader.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino-bella-ramsey-1100x733.jpg" alt="Young Mazino and Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us" class="wp-image-815008" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino-bella-ramsey-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino-bella-ramsey-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino-bella-ramsey-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino-bella-ramsey-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino-bella-ramsey.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: Liane Hentscher/HBO</figcaption></figure> <p>In the bookstore, Tommy is nowhere to be found, so Ellie picks out a book for Dina’s unborn child—<em>The Monster at the End of This Book</em>, not on the nose at <em>all</em>—and she and Jesse talk about love and community and responsibility. (A context-less quote from <em>Alice&#8217;s Adventures in Wonderland</em> looms over them both: &#8220;Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.&#8221; I am still trying to figure out what this is doing here. Morals are really not hard to come by in this show. In fact it might be nice if they were a little harder to find.)</p> <p>When Jesse says he didn’t leave Jackson with the woman he fell in love with because he put the community first, Ellie gets her back right up and spits, “Okay. Got it. So you’re Saint Jesse of Wyoming and everyone else is a fucking asshole.”&nbsp;</p> <p>In this moment, yes, Ellie is being a fucking asshole. But who would have taught her to think the way that Jesse does? When, previous to Jackson, has Ellie been shown anything like care or community? Even Jackson wasn’t always kind to her. It is weird to me that the show often pivots so hard to “Ellie’s being awful now, see?” without any seeming awareness of where its own lead character is coming from. <em>Why</em> is she a liar? <em>Why</em> is she so stubborn about denying her feelings? Why, for that matter, did the show skip three months of her healing and having to deal with Joel’s death, which could have been a really, really rich mine of nuance and complexity? (Did I just answer my own question?) Ellie’s character has been reduced to spitting angry words at her friends and/or killing people and feeling terrible about it.&nbsp;</p> <p>When they pick up a WLF SOS about a sniper and head upstairs to figure out what’s going on, Jesse is certain it’s Tommy who’s pinned them down, but Ellie only has eyes for the Seattle Great Wheel and the aquarium, certain that the aquarium is what dying Nora meant when she said “whale” and “wheel.” A few hours ago, she seemed willing to get Tommy and head home; now, with Abby maybe within sight, she reverts to her original bullheaded determination. And for once, someone calls her on it. When Jesse points out her selfishness, admitting he voted against the Seattle trip because it wasn’t in the best interest of the community, she loses her shit and throws the idea of community back in his face.&nbsp;</p> <p>They’ve been having this argument since the first episode, and it reaches no conclusion here, because Ellie just can’t hear anybody else through her grief. Jesse doesn’t deny it when she insists that he would do the same thing if he were in his shoes, but he doesn’t agree, either. She’s determined, once again, to forget about everyone else in favor of single-minded pursuit of vengeance. Ellie’s community was Joel, and he’s dead, and she’ll strand every one of her companions in order to pursue his murderer. And yet when Jesse says “I really hope you make it,” I believe him.&nbsp;</p> <p>I would, to be honest, like to cut the entire sequence of Ellie getting to the aquarium, which hinges on altogether too many coincidences. She keeps going. The Seraphites are still terrible, even the brainwashed children.&nbsp;I get it. The most interesting thing about the waterlogged sequence is the shot of Isaac looking satisfied. We don’t really know why, though he told Park there’s a good chance they’ll both be dead by morning. His war saves Ellie from certain death at the hands of the still-one-note Seraphites. It is hard to muster up a lot of interest in the WLF/Seraphite conflict when one side has been treated like (murderous) characters and the other like cartoon villains.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/jeffrey-wright-1100x733.jpg" alt="Jeffrey Wright in The Last of Us" class="wp-image-815010" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/jeffrey-wright-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/jeffrey-wright-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/jeffrey-wright-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/jeffrey-wright-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/jeffrey-wright.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: Liane Hentscher/HBO</figcaption></figure> <p>In the aquarium, Ellie finds not Abby but Mel and Owen, talking about something involving Abby—and something about leaving. They are not in agreement, and Abby herself is of a point of contention. More things to wonder about for the next year or two!</p> <p>But first, more tragedy. Ellie demands answers; Mel and Owen are clearly reluctant to provide them, and a lot of clearly meaningful but largely unreadable looks pass between them. When Owen says Ellie will kill them either way, Ellie insists, “No, I won’t. Because I’m not like you.” It’s <em>almost</em> convincing. What she did to Nora was bleak and terrible, and maybe she doesn’t want to do that again. Except to Abby.&nbsp;</p> <p>I think there’s an emotional cheapness to the way the show reveals Mel’s pregnancy and ties her back to Dina, and at the same time, I think it’s an effective and affecting sequence. (This season is just me having two opinions about everything, and then having two opinions—this is good! I’m being manipulated!—about having two opinions.)&nbsp;But if there’s one thing I’m looking forward to in season three, it’s spending time with Mel, who goes into efficient medical mode even as she knows she has thirty seconds to live. It’s just heartrending, and so is Bella Ramsey’s performance as she tries, desperate and lost, to do what Mel asks. With seconds to live, Mel says “You’re doing good, you’re doing really good” to the person who just killed her and the child she’s carrying. She is an astonishing person, and I hope we see more of that.&nbsp;</p> <p>When she asks if it’s out, though, Ellie doesn’t answer. This is a brutal way for her to suddenly and completely understand why Joel didn’t always tell people the whole truth. Ignorance isn&#8217;t bliss, but sometimes it might offer a small measure of peace. When Tommy and Jesse show up, her face, her shocked, shattered face, says “I didn’t mean to” as clearly as any words could.&nbsp;</p> <p>The comfort Tommy offers Ellie, back in the theater as they’re preparing to head back to Jackson, is well-meant but maybe not what she needs to hear. He says Owen and Mel were part of it too; they made their choices. This is true, and he’s trying to soothe her, but further justification is the last thing Ellie needs. This, though, is a moment for softness, no matter how baffling. Jesse’s clearly furious, again, but says that he was willing to come back for Ellie—that it occurred to him that, “If I were out there somewhere, lost and in trouble, you would set the world on fire to save me.”</p> <p>He says this despite the fact that she just left Tommy holed up on a pier alone, sniping wolves. He says this despite everything else they’ve said to each other this episode. It just doesn’t ring true; it feels like a too-tidy ribbon tied around a complex relationship in its last moments. Maybe Jesse’s just trying to remind Ellie that her fury can be used for good. But it still feels wedged in, unconvincing.</p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino_1-1100x733.jpg" alt="Young Mazino in The Last of Us" class="wp-image-815011" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino_1-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino_1-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino_1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino_1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/young-mazino_1.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: Liane Hentscher/HBO</figcaption></figure> <p>RIP, Jesse, you were great, and Jackson will miss you. Presumably Abby finds the theater the same way Jesse did, or she just followed them back from the latest murder scene. This face-off is powerfully acted, fraught, almost too brief, but Abby’s fury is palpable—and Ellie’s fury is muted by fresh grief and a desperation to not have to see Tommy die right in front of her, too.&nbsp;</p> <p>It’s very interesting that even with Ellie right there, Abby assumes the men killed her friends. It’s even more interesting how angry she is at the idea that Elie “wasted” the life Abby didn’t take from her. We’ll have to find out what that means later, as the gunshot-cut-to-black jumps back three days, to <em>The Last of Us: Abby’s Version</em>. But earlier in the episode, there <em>was</em> one very meaningful shot of Dina up in the balcony with a gun, watching the front door.&nbsp;</p> <p>This whole episode is rich with Ellie’s uncertainty, her horror at her own actions, her flip-flopping loyalty to the people in front of her and the vengeance she wants for Joel’s death. Bella Ramsey just kills it, repeatedly, showing us an Ellie miserable and driven, torn and furious and throwing herself into deadly situations but yet, in the hands of the Scars, desperate to live. This show is at its best when it settles, uncomfortably, into Ellie’s lost moments. Those are the real difficult parts, not the bludgeon-heavy messages about violence.</p> <p>And then in the post-show commentary, game and show writer Halley Gross (credited with this episode along with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann) says of the scene with Mel, “It needs to be so brutal that it is the wake-up call Ellie needs. And yet, it isn’t.”</p> <p><em>Isn’t it</em>? I feel like I’m being shown one thing in the actual show, and then told something else by the creators. If this is true further down the line, then why say it now, when Ramsey has just clearly poured her heart into a performance that says, in her expressions, her tears, her body language, that this moment has shaken her deeply and fundamentally?&nbsp;</p> <p>Ramsey, too, says something that doesn’t track for me: They bring up Joel’s bit on the porch, how he wants Ellie to do a little better, and then they say “And she doesn’t. She does worse.”&nbsp; Okay, first, I hate the whole way this pushes me into trying to quantify these acts of violence. Not doing it. But second, Ellie is a 19-year-old who never knew a world before the outbreak. Joel was in his 50s/60s and had a whole lot more life experience when he did what he did. Do you really want audiences to pass the same moral judgment on both of these characters? Why?&nbsp;Why is better/worse even a metric here? I didn&#8217;t like that line last week, and I like it even less now. </p> <figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/kaitlyn-dever-1100x733.jpg" alt="Kaitlyn Dever in The Last of Us" class="wp-image-815014" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/kaitlyn-dever-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/kaitlyn-dever-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/kaitlyn-dever-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/kaitlyn-dever-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/kaitlyn-dever.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: Liane Hentscher/HBO</figcaption></figure> <p>At any rate, it is really, really time to stop watching those little post-show bits, which are mostly unnecessary explainers that reiterate what we just saw. At best, they include cool bits about how scenes were actually filmed. One thing I can unreservedly say for this show is that it is beautifully crafted, from the posters and graffiti in the theater dressing room to the greenery all over Seattle to the hauntingly empty aquarium. Seattle&#8217;s geography may <a href="https://www.thestranger.com/tv/2025/05/14/80055596/the-last-of-uss-apocalypse-seattle" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">not make a lick of sense,</a> but I can mostly let that go in favor of admiring this dark, mossy vision of it. </p> <p><em>The Last of Us Part II,</em> as I understand it, switches halfway through so that you play as Abby, and now the show is mirroring the game. Rather than a season that switches halfway through, we get a truncated season that purposefully only tells half of the story. Obviously no one can say until season three rolls around if this structure, the hiding away of Abby for most of the season, will be effective in the end. </p> <p>I can’t speak to how this split felt to gamers when <em>The Last of Us Part 2</em> came out, though I certainly have the sense that a lot of them did not like it at all. But the notion that a so-called villain is also a complex human, that a “hero” might be flawed and morally dubious—that’s been explored a lot in television. You could watch shows about terrible men doing terrible things for years and never run out. </p> <p>It’s less common for those antiheroes to be young women. But a young, female antihero deserves the same complexity of writing and storytelling and character development that all those terrible, morally gray men with their own shows have, and that’s not happening here. Ellie has two modes this season: love for Dina and rage for anything that gets in her way. Her grief is too rarely visible to us <em>as love</em>; the show relied on last week’s flashback episode as a sort of shorthand reminder for all the things it skipped past in the rush to get to Seattle. Too often, it feels like she’s spinning from one side of this coin to the other abruptly. The emotions are oversimplified, and this extends to the people around her, too; they are angry or they are supportive. The show wants to be morally ambiguous, but too often it paints in black and white. </p> <p>Will audiences wait a year or more for Abby&#8217;s side of the story? The show also made the choice to reveal her connection to the doctor Joel killed, meaning that we can already have some sympathy for her—and that it&#8217;s clear just how much she and Ellie mirror one another (they even both have the marks of Seraphites around their necks at the end). The shock of handing the story to Joel&#8217;s murderer is less intense than it might have been, and that certainly feels like a choice made in hopes that people will keep watching. Will you? [end-mark]</p> <p>The post <a href="https://reactormag.com/the-last-of-us-convergence-review/">&lt;i&gt;The Last of Us&lt;/i&gt; Wraps up an Incomplete Story With &#8220;Convergence&#8221;</a> appeared first on <a href="https://reactormag.com">Reactor</a>.</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/the-last-of-us-convergence-review/">https://reactormag.com/the-last-of-us-convergence-review/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=815005">https://reactormag.com/?p=815005</a></p>

<p class="syndicationauthor">Posted by Stefan Raets</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/reading-the-wheel-of-time-duty-is-heavy-on-every-shoulder-in-knife-of-dreams-part-15/">https://reactormag.com/reading-the-wheel-of-time-duty-is-heavy-on-every-shoulder-in-knife-of-dreams-part-15/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=814987">https://reactormag.com/?p=814987</a></p><post-hero class="wp-block-post-hero js-post-hero post-hero post-hero-horizontal"> <div class="container container-desktop"> <div class="flex flex-col mx-auto post-hero-container"> <div class="post-hero-content"> <div class="post-hero-tags font-aktiv text-xs tracking-[0.5px] font-medium uppercase"> <span class="mr-3"> <i class="inline-block w-2 h-2 rounded-full mr-[5px] bg-blue"></i> <a href="https://reactormag.com/articles/books/" class="inline-block link-no-animation" aria-label="Link to term or tag Books 0"> Books </a> </span> <span class="mr-3"> <i class="inline-block w-2 h-2 rounded-full mr-[5px] bg-blue"></i> <a href="https://reactormag.com/tag/the-wheel-of-time/" class="inline-block link-no-animation" aria-label="Link to term or tag The Wheel of Time 1"> The Wheel of Time </a> </span> </div> <h2 class="post-hero-title text-h1">Reading The Wheel of Time: Duty is Heavy on Every Shoulder in <i>Knife of Dreams</i> (Part 15) </h2> <div class="prose post-hero-description prose--post-hero">The Golden Crane flies for Tarmon Gai’don!</div> <div class="post-hero-wrapper"> <div class="post-hero-inner"> <p class="post-hero-author text-xs font-aktiv uppercase font-medium [&amp;_a]:link-hover">By <a href="https://reactormag.com/author/kjbarrett/" title="Posts by Sylas K Barrett" class="author url fn" rel="author">Sylas K Barrett</a></p> <span class="post-hero-symbol relative top-[-2px] hidden tablet:block">|</span> <p class="text-xs uppercase post-hero-publish font-aktiv"> Published on May 27, 2025 </p> </div> </div> <div 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clip-path="url(#clip0_1051_121783)"> <path d="M2.67871 17.4143C2.12871 17.4143 1.65771 17.2183 1.26571 16.8263C0.873713 16.4343 0.678046 15.9636 0.678713 15.4143C0.678713 14.8643 0.874713 14.3933 1.26671 14.0013C1.65871 13.6093 2.12938 13.4136 2.67871 13.4143C3.22871 13.4143 3.69971 13.6103 4.09171 14.0023C4.48371 14.3943 4.67938 14.865 4.67871 15.4143C4.67871 15.9643 4.48271 16.4353 4.09071 16.8273C3.69871 17.2193 3.22805 17.415 2.67871 17.4143ZM14.6787 17.4143C14.6787 15.481 14.312 13.6683 13.5787 11.9763C12.8454 10.2843 11.841 8.80097 10.5657 7.52631C9.29171 6.25164 7.80871 5.24764 6.11671 4.51431C4.42471 3.78097 2.61205 3.41431 0.678713 3.41431V0.414307C3.02871 0.414307 5.23705 0.860306 7.30371 1.75231C9.37038 2.64431 11.1704 3.85664 12.7037 5.38931C14.237 6.92264 15.4497 8.72264 16.3417 10.7893C17.2337 12.856 17.6794 15.0643 17.6787 17.4143H14.6787ZM8.67871 17.4143C8.67871 15.1976 7.89971 13.31 6.34171 11.7513C4.78371 10.1926 2.89605 9.41364 0.678713 9.41431V6.41431C2.21205 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12.856 17.6794 15.0643 17.6787 17.4143H14.6787ZM8.67871 17.4143C8.67871 15.1976 7.89971 13.31 6.34171 11.7513C4.78371 10.1926 2.89605 9.41364 0.678713 9.41431V6.41431C2.21205 6.41431 3.64538 6.70197 4.97871 7.27731C6.31205 7.85264 7.47471 8.63597 8.46671 9.62731C9.45805 10.6186 10.2414 11.781 10.8167 13.1143C11.392 14.4476 11.6794 15.881 11.6787 17.4143H8.67871Z" fill="currentColor" fill-opacity="0.2" /> </g> <defs> <clippath id="clip0_1051_121783"> <rect width="17" height="17" fill="white" transform="translate(0.678711 0.414307)" /> </clippath> </defs> </svg> </a> </li> </ul> </div> </details> </div> </div> </div> <div class="post-hero-media "> <figure class="w-full h-auto post-hero-image"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="407" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ReadingWOT_KODbook11-740x407.png" class="w-full object-cover" alt="Reading The Wheel of Time on Tor.com: Knife of Dreams" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ReadingWOT_KODbook11-740x407.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ReadingWOT_KODbook11-768x422.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ReadingWOT_KODbook11.png 951w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /> </figure> </div> </div> </div> </post-hero> <div class="wp-block-more-from-category"> <div> </div> </div> <p>Hello friend! Did you miss me? I’ve missed you, and also these dumb, romantic heroes of ours.</p> <p>If I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t think romance is something that Robert Jordan was the best at, and I’ve mentioned ways in which that’s the case before in the read. However, he has made some great pairings. For me, Perrin and Faile are one, and I think Min and Rand might be growing on me. Loial and Erith are even turning out to be kind of cute. But above all, my heart belongs to Lan and Nynaeve, and I’m really excited about the development in that area that we’ve gotten this week.</p> <p>So let’s get right into the recap of chapter 20 of <em>Knife of Dreams</em>.</p> <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots" /> <p>Accompanied by Min, Logain, Cadsuane, Alivia, and a guard of Maidens, Rand walks through the bodies littering the grounds of Algarin’s manor. The Asha’man and Aes Sedai are using the One Power to burn away the bodies, and also to make a shield for themselves against the rain, but Rand doesn’t want to give Lews Therin any more chances to seize control of <em>saidin</em>, so he’s letting himself get soaked. He realizes that without the men Logain brought, the battle might have ended very differently, and worries that there could be another attack.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Plainly someone knew Ishamael’s trick. Or that blue-eyed man in his head really could locate him. Another attack would be larger. That, or come from some unexpected direction. Perhaps he should let Logain bring a few more Asha’man.<br><br><em>You should have killed them,</em> Lews Therin wept. <em>Too late, now. Too late.</em><br><br><em>The Source is clean now, fool,</em> Rand thought.<br><br><em>Yes,</em> Lews Therin replied. <em>But are they? Am I?</em></p></blockquote></figure> <p>The rain is keeping the vultures away but there are many ravens, too many to kill all of them, some of which might be spies for the Dark One.&nbsp;</p> <p>One of the servants brings Rand a letter from Verin, which she apparently insisted on being delivered at once. Rand makes his way to the barn where the Saldaeans have been quartered, and where the dead soldiers have been laid out. They are alarmed to find the space filled with flies, far too many to be naturally occurring. Rand tells Logain to get rid of them, but when Logain complains, Alivia asks to try. Her channeling drives all the flies out of the barn and into the rain. Cadsuane has refused to teach her, as has Nynaeve, but it is clear that Alivia has been watching and learning. She tells Cadsuane that she has learned more than the other woman is aware of. Rand praises Alivia and encourages her to learn as much as she can, which makes her blush.</p> <p>Min becomes upset with him at the reminder of what her vision says that Alivia will do, and she and Rand get into an argument about it. Min admits that she needs to believe that she wasn’t right this time, and points out that she hasn’t always been around to see the culmination of every vision she’s ever had. In Rand’s head, Lews Therin reminds him that he promised they would die at Tarmon Gai’don.</p> <p>Rand opens Verin’s letter, in which she tells him that she is leaving with Tomas. She writes that this is the best way that she can serve him, then cautions him to be wary of other Aes Sedai, even those who are sworn to him, as the oath won’t hold a Black Sister and any of the rest could interpret it in a way that Rand might not like. She is, however, convinced that he can trust Cadsuane. Rand lets Cadsuane read the letter, and Cadsuane agrees with Verin’s advice.</p> <p>They are interrupted by the arrival of the Ogier. Loial informs Rand that the wedding has already been completed, but that he has to leave to go to the Great Stump. He does, however, promise to be at Tarmon Gai’don.</p> <p>Rand asks Loial to find the rest of the Waygates and seal them, but Loial apologetically reveals that he has to leave in the morning and doesn’t know when he’ll be able to leave the <em>stedding </em>again. Elder Haman adds that Loial has been outside the <em>stedding</em> for five years, and should stay and rest for at least weeks, if not months. But Elder Haman also offers to do the job Rand has asked.</p> <p>Everyone is surprised, and Cadsuane remarks, disdainfully, that Rand can “infect” even Ogier.</p> <p>Davram Bashere arrives, dressed in all the finery he wore to meet the Seanchan. Rand is eager to hear his report, but waits for Bashere to inspect the dead and have a moment to mourn. Bashere reports that arrangements have been made for Rand to meet the Daughter of the Nine Moons at a neutral location in three days time. He and Logain both suspect a trap, but Bashere is more concerned about how secretive Suroth was about the whole affair, not letting Bashere speak to anyone other than herself. Even the servants were mutes, and everyone Bashere encountered, both Altaran and Seanchan, seemed to be looking over their shoulders. Rand suggests they are frightened of Tarmon Gai’don, or perhaps of Rand himself. He and Bashere begin to discuss the particulars of the meeting.</p> <p>Nynaeve lies on the bed in the room she shares with Lan, recovering from a headache. One of her rings can detect channeling, and it vibrates constantly as Aes Sedai and Asha’man work outside. Lan stops her when she says it’s time for her to go back out and help—Moiraine always told him that a headache was a sign she had been channeling too much, and there will still be plenty of work left for tomorrow. Nynaeve decides to listen because of her marriage vows.</p> <p>They stand together at the window, and Nynaeve feels distaste seeing the Aes Sedai who are bonded by Asha’man, especially because some of them seem to be sleeping together. But she senses that Lan’s thoughts are elsewhere, and after some pressing from her, he admits that he is thinking of Tarmon Gai’don. Lan is frustrated by the fact that Rand seems more concerned about the Seanchan than about the fact that there could already be Trollocs moving through the Blight and into the Borderlands.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“He should send someone to convince King Easar and the others to return to their duty along the Blight. He should be marshaling all the force he can gather and taking it to the Blight. The Last Battle will be there, and at Shayol Ghul. The <em>war</em> is there.”<br><br>Sadness welled up in her, yet she managed to keep it out of her voice. “You have to go back,” she said quietly.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Lan answers that his place is with her, but Nynaeve reminds him of the Borderland saying about death being light and duty heavy. Her duty lies with Rand, but she offers to take him to Shienar. He asks if she is sure, and Nynaeve implies that she is, though she never actually says it. He packs and they both change into traveling clothes, then go out to the stables for their horses. The grooms are dismayed at having to deal with Mandarb.</p> <p>While they wait, Nynaeve demands an oath from Lan, that he will ride to Fal Dara before he goes to the Blight, and that he’ll allow any man who asks to ride with him to do so. Lan reminds her that he has always refused to lead men into the Blight, and asks how far south in Shienar she plans to leave him. But she insists that he promise, and he finally does.</p> <p>Nynaeve is usually against kissing in public, but this time she urges him to kiss her. He teases her, then obliges.</p> <p>When the horses are ready, Nynaeve makes a gateway and they ride through. Once on the other side, Lan realizes that he has been tricked.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, turning back. “This isn’t Shienar. It’s World’s End, in Saldaea, as far from Shienar as you can get and still be in the Borderlands.”<br><br>“I told you I would take you to the Borderlands, Lan, and I have. Remember your oath, my heart, because I surely will.” And with that she dug her heels in the mare’s flanks and let the animal bolt through the open gateway. She heard him call her name, but she let the gateway close behind her. She <em>would</em> give him a chance to survive.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>In the common room of an inn called the The Queen’s Lance, a merchant named Weilin Aldragoran is bargaining to sell some jewels. He was only a toddler when Malkier fell, but he is glad that his uncles insisted on giving him the <em>hadori</em>, since the reputation attached to those who wear it is useful at the bargaining table. After a very successful trading session, he is approached by a woman wearing odd jewelry, who wants him to send a message by pigeon to every merchant he corresponds with. When he spots the Serpent Ring on her finger he realizes that she is Aes Sedai, but what shocks him is that she is wearing the <em>ki’sain</em>, which marks a married Malkieri woman. Confusion turns to shock when she shows him a signet ring with the Golden Crane of Malkier on it.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“My name is Nynaeve ti al’Meara Mandragoran. The message I want sent is this. My husband rides from World’s End toward Tarwin’s Gap, toward Tarmon Gai’don. Will he ride alone?”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Aldragoran insists that he is only a merchant, but Nynaeve tells him that, as Lan once said to her, Malkier lives as long as one man wears the <em>hadori</em> or one woman wears the <em>ki’sain</em>.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“I wear the <em>ki’sain</em>, Master Aldragoran. My husband wears the <em>hadori</em>. So do you. Will Lan Mandragoran ride to the Last Battle alone?”</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Somehow both laughing and crying, Aldragoran promises to send the messages and swears that he, at least, will ride with Lan. He offers her wine, but she answers that she has more towns to visit and that she has to be back in Tear tonight, leaving him awestruck at the marvels of Aes Sedai. Once she has gone, he asks the other Malkieri men in the room, Managan and Gorenellin, if they will ride with him. They jump to their feet, and all three men cry out that “The Golden Crane flies for Tarmon Gai’don!”</p> <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots" /> <p>The Golden Crane flies for my heart, too!</p> <p>Lan really is an excellent character. I just love that Jordan said, “okay, what if I wrote Aragorn but like 100% more angst?” and then sat down and did exactly that.</p> <p>Lan is not really a focal character after the first two books, and he’s been very much in the background since Moiraine’s death, except for when it comes to the romantic plotline with Nynaeve—and even that aspect of the story is entirely from her point of view. We had <em>New Spring</em>, of course, which gave us a wealth of interesting information, but that was all about how Lan and Moiraine had come to be the searchers for the reborn Dragon, a flashback to the story of one character who was (we assumed at the time) dead, and the other who was very much sidelined in the events of the most recent books.</p> <p>Now, however, Lan’s story has become plot-relevant again, and it looks like his character arc is going to continue as a result. Everything we learned about him in <em>New Spring</em>—his private war with the Shadow, his guilt over the death of Malkier, his sense of displacement—is all relevant in a new way as the approach of Tarmon Gai’don becomes imminent.</p> <p>In <em>New Spring</em>, Moiraine recognized Lan’s potential and the fact that it was being wasted on raids into the Blight that would, sooner or later, end in his untimely death. When she asked him to become her Warder, she offered him a better, more effective way to fight the Shadow, and Lan accepted that offer, finding a sense of purpose for himself in fighting alongside her. Then when Moiriane learned that she was going to “die,” she decided to set up the transfer of Lan’s bond for the same reason she took him as a Warder in the first place—because she saw him as being too valuable to the fight to be wasted in a useless death. She also did it because she loved him and wanted to give him a chance to be happy, but Moriaine always put the goal of protecting Rand and preparing for Tarmon Gai’don first, and this act was no exception.</p> <p>Nynaeve may not currently hold Lan’s bond, but she is the one responsible for him, the one Lan follows in a different but comparable way to the way he followed Moiraine. And she is handling him in a similar way as she tries to figure out how to save him from the death he feels his connection to Malkier makes inevitable—perhaps even demands. Nynaeve acts out of love first and duty second, I think, but the result is about the same as Moiraine’s choices: Nynaeve is offering him a chance to fight the Shadow in a way that gives him a better chance of success, and a higher chance of survival. Also like Moiraine, she is willing to be tricky about it. In true Aes Sedai fashion, she makes Lan think she is going to take him to Shienar, but never actually says those words—she only guarantees that she is going to take him to the Borderlands. While he is under this mistaken impression, she extracts an oath from him under somewhat false pretenses, knowing that he will feel bound to hold to his promise even though he doesn’t want to. Finally, she knows that he won’t ask men to follow him into the Blight, so she, as his wife, goes and asks for him.</p> <p>Nynaeve’s trickery is certainly less of a violation than transferring his bond without his consent, but it is a thematically similar action. And while there is some room, I think, for debate on Moiraine and Nynaeve’s moral right to make decisions for Lan, against what he himself desires or would have chosen, one factor that I don’t think I have ever talked about in the read before is Lan’s suicidality.</p> <p>Lan exists in a world where his purpose, the thing he was born to be, no longer exists. As a boy, he was raised and trained to think of himself as Malkieri, and his attachment to the home he never knew is as strong as anyone who was old enough to remember life in Malkier. As much as he shuns the idea of being called a king or of leading men, he still knows who he is, who he was meant to be, and the pain of that knowledge clearly cuts deeply. After all, there’s that oath of the Malkieri Kings to remember:</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>To stand against the Shadow so long as iron is hard and stone abides. To defend the Malkieri while one drop of blood remains. To avenge what cannot be defended.</p></blockquote></figure> <p>Malkier’s fall and the fact that Lan has no throne changes nothing about this oath. Though Lan has never sworn it, since he has never been crowned, it’s easy to see that he feels bound by it. His trips into the Blight were an attempt to avenge what could not be defended, and one might argue that his refusal to lead men is due in part to the drive to defend those Malkieri who remain—he can hardly want to be connected to the death of even a single one of those few survivors. Like Rand, he carries guilt for deaths that were only connected to him thematically, and for deaths of people who chose to fight for or alongside him.&nbsp;</p> <p>When Nynaeve and Lan first fell in love, Lan told her they couldn’t ever marry because he knew he would die and leave her a widow. Rand has this same problem, but for Rand, it is because of Prophecy. For Lan, well, that’s just what he believes about himself. It’s more than an awareness of the statistical likelihood of death when you’re a warrior like Lan is—it’s survivor’s guilt and a sense of displacement that was only compounded by the severing of his bond to Moiraine.</p> <p>After her death, when Lan left Rand to follow the pull of the bond to Myrelle, Lan told Rand that they were the same, that there is a darkness, pain, and death that radiates from them onto other people. This is how Lan sees himself, and has always seen himself. When he says that death is lighter than a feather and duty is heavier than a mountain, that is because death would be a release from that burden of duty. I doubt he thinks of himself as someone who wants to, or is trying to, die. But he is, and does, and the women who love him—his friend Moiraine, his wife Nynaeve—do. And they both set themselves to combat that impulse.</p> <p>When we covered the chapter in which Lan gave Rand that advice, I remarked that, for all the good advice and teaching Lan had given Rand up to that point, what a terrible person he was to advise Rand on the subject, especially in that current moment. Lan saw himself as being the same as Rand, but the real way in which that is true is not as a bringing of death and darkness, but because they’re both struggling with depression. They wouldn’t put it that way, of course, not in their world and timeframe. But that is absolutely what it is. Lan was speaking from a place of depression, pain, and fatalism born of everything he suffered, and he projected that onto Rand because he related to Rand so strongly. But Lan isn’t equipped to deal with his pain constructively or healthily, and so of course his advice to Rand isn’t helpful, for all Lan believes it to be.</p> <p>Unlike Lan, Rand doesn’t want to die. In fact, we’ve even seen evidence recently that some part of him hopes to find a way around what seems like an inevitable death. But he does see his death as basically guaranteed, and it’s looking like he will also need the intervention of the women who care about him—a friend, and at least one of his lovers—to survive, just as Lan has.</p> <p>The wording of Min’s vision is so important here. Alivia is going to “help Rand die.” The fact that everyone feels hostile towards Alivia as a result is understandable, but when viewed objectively, the darkest way you can interpret the vision is that Rand will have to die in the course of defeating the Dark One (as Rand initially interpreted the Prophecy to mean) and that Alivia will be the one to help him in whatever act both results in victory and also in his death. However, since we as readers know that Rand was told by the Aelfinn that he has to die in order to live, it seems even more likely that Alivia will help Rand fake his death, or maybe “kill” him in a way that allows him to be revived. There are a lot of ways “die” might be interpreted as less than purely literal. It could be metaphorical, or metaphysical. Maybe Alivia will find a way to “kill” the Lews Therin persona, or help Rand absorb it back into himself, or something like that.</p> <p>Min tells Rand that she refuses to believe that her vision about his death is true because she cannot accept his death, and she is determined to make the outcome different. But by the time the event comes to pass, she may have more information, may be able to help prevent Rand’s death, perhaps even working with Alivia, in a way that still fulfills the knowledge she received from her vision. In this way, we might see the two of them positioned towards Rand in a similar way to Moiraine and Nynaeve’s position towards Lan.</p> <p>Nynaeve’s conversation with Aldragoran was beautifully written, and I appreciated how Jordan gave it to us from Aldragoran’s point of view. We already have the context to understand Nynaeve’s emotional investment in Lan’s journey, but now we also get to see what this story looks like to the Malkieri refugees, and to feel their reaction to return of their king.</p> <p>This scene also made me think of the version of Melindhra that was created for the television show, and how she was willing to break her Dark Oaths for the sake of Malkier and out of loyalty to Lan. Aldragoran’s transformation from a man who thinks of his heritage mainly as an advantage at the bargaining table to someone who is ready to follow the uncrowned king into Tarmon Gai’don really shows how the surviving Malkieri feel about their lost home. Aldragoran’s instance that he is only a merchant speaks, I think, to his own sense of displacement and depression, and his weeping joy over being offered the chance to join Lan reveals how much he actually wants that connection, to call himself Malkieri and to ride for that nation and its king. Having seen season three of the television show before I read this chapter, I am retroactively impressed with how the show portrayed the same emotions and connections with Melindhra that Jordan put so beautifully on the page with Aldragoran.</p> <p>I’m proud of Nynaeve, too. I think the way she handled Lan’s situation—her willingness to be parted from him because their duties were drawing them in different directions, her very Aes Sedai manipulation of the situation, and the way she was (mostly) willing to share her feelings with Lan during their conversation—shows how much she has grown as a person. She isn’t relying on anger to stifle her fear, and she’s being more realistic about what she can and can’t control.</p> <p>What I love even more than how much she has grown is how, at the end of the day, she feels her duty still lies in protecting Rand. That duty—towards him, and Egwene, and Mat, and Perrin—is what started Nynaeve on the path that led her to becoming Aes Sedai, to meeting and falling in love with Lan, to living a life outside of the small village in which she was born, is a foundational part of Nynaeve. Certainly she has to think about the fact that Rand’s survival dictates whether or not the world survives, but I think that the village Wisdom inside her feels just as duty-bound to him as does the Aes Sedai she has become. </p> <p>I was interested in Cadsuane’s disdain around Elder Haman volunteering for the job of closing the rest of the Waygates. It’s possible that the disgust was somewhat performative, meant to keep Rand from getting a big head about being obeyed by everyone. But if it wasn’t, I’m curious how she is interpreting his ta’veren power. Does she think that he is often exerting his will improperly? We know that Rand’s effect on the world results in both good and bad events, but that has always been the passive effects. Perhaps Cadsuane is thinking about how Rand forced so many sisters to swear loyalty to him, a move that was based on Rand’s fear and distrust of the Aes Sedai and his need for control. His ta’veren power is there to aid him in all he must accomplish, but that doesn’t mean he’s always using it correctly, or wisely.</p> <p>Once again, I ask the question: What is Verin’s deal? I love that she told Rand he could trust Cadsuane, though, even while cautioning him against everyone else. I don’t know if it will encourage Rand to do so, given how little he trusts everyone, including Verin, but I really enjoyed how Verin positioned herself, a humble Brown, as the one to vet Cadsuane, possibly the most famous Aes Sedai living. Also, I suspect Elza Penfell more than ever, just because Rand thought about how she, at least, is clearly loyal to him. Metatextually that almost guarantees she’s Black, I think.</p> <p>I also really, really hope that we actually get a chapter in which we read about Loial’s speech at the Great Stump. I’d be bummed if that happened “off screen.”</p> <p>I was also very interested in the exchange between Rand and Lews Therin in the barn. Rand goes to look at the bodies of the fallen Saldaeans to remind himself of the cost of battle, and when Lews Therin remarks that he needs no reminders, Rand snaps at him that he isn’t Lews Therin, and that he has to harden himself. Lews Therin replies that Rand is harder than Lews ever was.</p> <p>There has been so much attention, both in the narration and in the conversations and observations between other characters about Rand’s belief that becoming hard and cold is the same as becoming strong. Cadsuane and the Wise Ones are determined to teach him the difference, the necessity to still be a human being, and Min’s vision (though she does not know it) confirms how important the lesson is, both for Rand’s sake and the world’s. Rand’s mistake is understandable—he has had to learn to face horrors, to carry responsibilities, and to accept massive deaths, and he has had very little time in which to adjust to this new reality. I can’t stop thinking about how Lews Therin also had a journey like this. Lews Therin grew up and came to prominence in a world that didn’t know war, and had to learn the art after the Bore was drilled and the Dark One’s touch came to the world. He was betrayed by many people who were close to him, witnessed the creation of Shadowspawn and many new weaves of destruction and death. He, too, would have had to learn how to bear the burden of leadership when part of that meant leading men and women to their deaths (and worse) in battle against the Darkness. If Lews Therin—mad Lews Therin who killed his family in the throes of the taint and then killed himself, and wants to again—thinks that Rand is harder than he ever was, that feels so much more grave even than Cadsuane or Min’s read on Rand. Even more, I think, than my own.</p> <p>It sounds like we need that lesson soon, lest Rand enter Tarmon Gai’don with a heart as hard as the Forsaken he will face in that battle.</p> <p>Lews Therin also points out to Rand that, even though saidin is clean now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all the taint’s effects are erased. It isn’t something I had really thought about, and now I feel kind of silly. Hopefully no one’s mental state will deteriorate any further than it has already, now that no one will ever touch the taint again, but even that is not a guarantee. Perhaps the corruption, once placed, is enough to eat away at the mind without being reinforced by additional corruption. Even if it doesn’t, there might be many who are already mostly insane. Rand himself is clearly not entirely stable, even before you take into account Lews Therin’s presence. And Lews Therin’s presence definitely is a result of taint-induced madness.</p> <p>That’s an opinion that I’ve never been one hundred percent ready to commit to until now. I always thought there might be a possibility that the Dragon is meant to be able to speak to a former self, to receive knowledge and guidance from lifetimes other than his own. But given how the Dark One’s touch has affected the world, with the ghosts and the ancient towns appearing and then melting away, sometimes taking living people with them, Lews Therin’s presence feels like it fits that pattern. It makes me wonder if any other male channelers, men who perhaps have been reincarnated before, have ever had other versions of themselves in their heads. It’s an interesting thought, the idea that this phenomenon might not be reserved solely for the Dragon Reborn.</p> <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots" /> <p>Next week we’ll be covering chapters 21 and 22, in which Rand will return to the Stone of Tear and send Logain to meet with the Sea Folk. I’ll see you all then.[end-mark]</p> <p>The post <a href="https://reactormag.com/reading-the-wheel-of-time-duty-is-heavy-on-every-shoulder-in-knife-of-dreams-part-15/">Reading The Wheel of Time: Duty is Heavy on Every Shoulder in &lt;i&gt;Knife of Dreams&lt;/i&gt; (Part 15) </a> appeared first on <a href="https://reactormag.com">Reactor</a>.</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/reading-the-wheel-of-time-duty-is-heavy-on-every-shoulder-in-knife-of-dreams-part-15/">https://reactormag.com/reading-the-wheel-of-time-duty-is-heavy-on-every-shoulder-in-knife-of-dreams-part-15/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=814987">https://reactormag.com/?p=814987</a></p>