The Eye of the World: Chapter Five

Gold star, Jordan. Gold star. You took me by surprise and gave me exactly what I thought was lacking in Eye of the World up to this point. But before I can elaborate on what exactly happened in this chapter to be so generous to Jordan, I have to explain a few things about how this blog is currently being run.

I am currently operating this out of Google Blogger, because it's free, it's easy for me to use, and it saves your posts in progress every few minutes. That last part is a godsend when you accidentally hit the back button on your keyboard because it's right next to the arrow keys, and you haven't the good sense to pre-write everything in Word to avoid losing your work. I'm just saying this in case I decide to switch hosts and post it on some other site. I'm currently new to the world of blogging, and I have no real knowledge of what advantages some hosting sites have over others.

More importantly, there's the matter of my update schedule. I've tried to update every day, but unfortunately my erratic sleep schedule and current lack of real responsibility in my life has made that difficult, and I had to cheat to technically make this entry continue my streak, editing in almost all of this post hours after I originally submitted it. One of the reasons I started this blog is because I needed something constructive to do with my time, as I have yet to be gainfully employed and I have no more school to take.

Also, since I am inexperienced at blogging, I'm still trying to find my voice and more importantly, an audience. Social networking is a new and uncomfortable experience for me, so I'll probably have to devote more time to getting the word out about this place as well as making a buffer of chapter review posts so that I don't miss a deadline again.

But who cares about all that, really? On to the chapter!

CHAPTER FIVE: WINTERNIGHT

• The sun stood halfway down from its noonday high by the time the cart reached the farmhouse.

Oh, right, my bad. In the last chapter I said that Rand and Tam were out riding to go on patrol, when they were actually just going home for the night. Goody. I was hoping to get more info on the minutiae of our protagonist's daily life.

• "I don't think the black-cloaked man came here," Rand called to his father...
  "I suppose he didn't, [Tam] told Rand, wiping his hand on his coat front. "All this about men and horses I can't see or hear just makes me look crossways at everything."

Have I told you yet that Tam is my favorite character in the book thus far? Because he is. He's just about the only thing that makes me want to read more about the evening chores he and Rand do around the farm, or cooking dinner. Even when Tam gets out what is apparently a rare and well-made sword, like what Rand saw Lan keep at his side, doesn't really excite me all that much.

• As [Rand] straightened from the fire, a heavy thump at the door rattled the lock. All thoughts of the sword, or the hot kettle in his hand, flew away.

What was that?

• Both of [Tam's] hands rested on his sword hilt. "I don't think-" he began, and the door burst open, pieces of the iron lock spinning across the floor.
  A figure filled the doorway, bigger than any man Rand had ever seen, a figure in black mail that hung to his knees, with spikes at wrists and elbows and shoulders. One hand clutched a heavy, scythe-like sword; the other hand was flung up before his eyes as if to shield them from the light.

Holy crap!

• Rand felt the beginnings of an odd sort of relief. Whoever this was, it was not the black-cloaked rider.

Yeah, it's just a gigantic musclebeast who broke down your door. True, Rand does react very quickly when he sees that the intruder has ram's horns and a wolf muzzle, but it makes me wonder how he'd react if this was a normal human being who broke his lock. How hospitable can you get?

• "Run, lad! Hide in the woods!" The bodies in the doorway jerked as others outside tried to pull them clear. Tam thrust a shoulder under the massive table; with a grunt he heaved it over atop the tangle. "There are too many to hold! Out the back! Go! Go! I'll follow!"

I wish my dad was as awesome as Tam.

The entire rest of this chapter manages to be pretty damn suspenseful, as I didn't know if Tam would die in the attack and really didn't want him to. Tam's got the Sword of Damocles over his head because he's the closest thing to a wise old mentor in this story, and I've lost count on all the wise old mentors who've gotten the axe in order to give their student motivation to fight.

• Idiot! For a moment he lay there, trying to stop panting. Coplin fool idiot!

One thing I forgot to mention in previous chapters is that there's a family called the Coplins and another whose name I forget, and they have a reputation for being dim and or the butt of jokes. And apparently this reputation is so well-known that their family name is a euphemism for stupidity. I wonder if the actual Coplin family turns out to be misunderstood.

Tam and Rand both manage to get out of the building, at which point Tam explains just what attacked them:

• "If anything belongs in the Shepherd of the Night's flocks, it is Trollocs. They kill for the pleasure of killing, so I've been told. But that's the end of my knowledge, except that they cannot be trusted unless they're afraid of you, and then not far."

So they fulfill the same role as Tolkein's orcs and look like the Remade from Perdido Street Station. Got it.

Tam didn't get out unscathed, though. He got hurt in the scuffle, and though he insists it's not that big a deal, Rand decides he needs Nynaeve's healing hands and goes back to get supplies for the journey back into town. I'm just going to cover key points for the rest of the chapter:

-Rand sees one Trolloc has stayed behind, and it tries to convince him to disarm so that a Fade named Myrddraal can talk to him. Rand obviously refuses and kills it in self-defense.

-Fades are supposed to be huge fuck-off monsters that can vanish by turning sideways. The mental image reminded me of Paper Mario, which gave me a bit of a chuckle.

-The cart is destroyed and Bela, the family horse, is nowhere to be seen. Looks like the guys are walking back to the village.

-Rand uses his dad's sword to cut the wheel shafts (the axels on which the cart's wheel's spin), and marvels at how little the process damaged the sword. Clearly this is no ordinary weapon.

-He takes the shafts back to Tam, and then the chapter ends. I have no idea how he's going to use them, though.

So yeah. This chapter managed to be suspenseful and interesting. I had my doubts that the series would add conflict this early in it, because the sheer length of it and what I've heard about the pacing problems of later entries may have clouded my opinion. So far so good.

NEXT TIME: Not that much, really.