- "You cannot escape so easily, Dragon. It is not done between us. It will not be done until the end of time."
As it turns out, this is the only part of the prologue that I really remember from the time I read it as a kid. I knew that there was a confrontation between a good guy and a bad guy long before the time frame of the main narrative. Turns out it wasn't exactly a confrontation so much as the villain rubbing it in the hero's face. But I'll get back to that.
My first thought on the prologue was in noting the similarity to the opening of the Lord of the Rings films. (I haven't read the books in a long time, or finished the whole series ever, but I don't remember them opening like this as well.) In both stories, we have a high fantasy-style conflict between good and evil that explains the mythological background of the story and will no doubt tie in thematically with the events in the main narrative. Additionally, both events are a stalemate of sorts, with the forces of good preventing evil from winning outright, but faltering when the chips were down, making it a bittersweet victory at best.
Isildur may have killed Sauron's physical form, but he was manipulated into not destroying the One Ring and finishing Sauron for good. Likewise, Wheel of Time's ancient champion of good, the Dragon Lews Therin, failed to finish off the Dark Lord (actually the Great Lord of the Dark, but that's too archaic and wordy for my tastes) and was punished for trying by being manipulated by dark magic into killing his wife and children.
The main difference, of course, lies in how the story is told. In Lord of the Rings, the events with Isildur are narrated simply and unambiguously, whereas it's unclear at first what happened to Lews Therin. The prologue begins in the ruins of his house, after the fact. The reader doesn't know what happened until the evil Elan Morin (who dresses in black, natch) appears and forces him to remember what happened, as Lews Therin had repressed those memories. When he realizes what he's done, Lews Therin commits suicide in what might be one of the most melodramatic ways I've ever seen in fiction: he channels far more magic than he can safely handle and uses it to create a gigantic mountain.
- The air turned to fire, the fire to light liquefied. The bolt that struck from the heavens would have seared and blinded any eye that glimpsed it, even for an instant. From the heavens it came, blazed through Lew Therin Telamon, bored into the bowels of the earth. Stone turned to vapor at its touch. The earth thrashed and quivered, like a living thing in agony.
And so on. The prologue is a bit unclear as to whether or not Lews Therin actually dies, and what, if anything, making a mountain accomplished.
My second thought on the prologue was that it seemed like the grand climax and tragic ending to another story that the reader doesn't get to see. In addition to emphasizing just how godlike and cataclysmic the mountain-making process is, Robert Jordan's prose does a serviceable job of conveying the maddened desperation Lews Therin feels in looking for his wife, not yet knowing what he did to her:
- He gazed at his own image with as much wonder. A tall man just into this middle years, handsome one, but now with hair already more white than brown and a face lined by strain and worry, dark eyes that had seen too much. Lews Therin began to chuckle, then threw back his head; his laughter echoed down lifeless halls. "Ilyena, my love! Come to me, my wife. You must see this."
The only thing missing is an emotional connection with the characters and the readers. Even the best prose can't hide the fact that we barely know who this man is, and we don't know who his dead family members are at all. As such, the drama doesn't quite feel earned here. I admit I'm a little curious about seeing the story with this ending, but I doubt I'll get to it anytime soon. We do have another protagonist to follow, after all.
NEXT TIME: Setup, setup, and additional setup.
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