The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Rhannon Hills. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
As it was, as it will be, here it is again. One the elements of the books that unifies them together in an extended series is the repetition and recurrence of certain dependably ritualistic elements. Chapter 1—not to be confused with the Prologue which most, but not all of the books also feature—always commences with the same paragraph. Oh, sure, there might be a variation in a word or two here and there, but the only major alteration from book to book is the site where the wind is rising. In this case, Rhannon Hills, though, of course, that will mean nothing to anyone who has not followed the series to this point. This ritualistic repetition of recurring literary elements serves the purpose of unifying individual novels into the broader integration of the series as a whole. It also tends to have a soothing effect upon readers who like to open the book and feel an immediate sense of familiarity.
Outside a flyspeck village called Weesin, a thatch-roofed little cluster of houses where not even Luca thought two coppers could be shaken loose, Mat stood with a heavy woolen cloak pulled around him in a driving rain and watched the three Aes Sedai steal back into the show as the sun set. Thunder boomed in the distance.
By the time one has worked their way through the length and breadth of the narrative, a reader may begin to feel that it was mistitled. References to thunder are so pervasive and omnipresent in almost every scene that it almost feels like “thunder” must be part of the title. A quick check can only dispel this notion temporarily for after another fifty pages in which the climate of the setting has remains virtually unchanged from its relentlessly rainy condition, the same feeling begins to creep upon one all over.
Obviously, the author is up to something through this use of repetition; a writer does not simply create a setting dominated by the sound of thunder unless it is intended to mean something beyond mere description of weather activity. Thunder in the distance is literally a warning a sign of a storm approaching and with the concluding lines of the narrative being the final reiteration of the sound of thunder, it is safe to assume that the author is indicating to readers to prepare for an approaching storm in the next entry in the series. In this sense, the entire book may be viewed as an example of foreshadowing of the next. Or, then again, maybe not. The only way to be sure is to read the next book.
The Creator had made the world and then left humankind to make of it what they would, a heaven or the Pit of Doom by their choosing. The Creator had made many worlds, watched each flower or die, and gone on to make endless worlds beyond. A gardener did not weep for each blossom that fell.
Although the series as a whole often makes it way into spiritual matters and philosophical contemplation is often the order of the day for all characters at one point or another, this is a rare moment for the main protagonist of the series. Rand is the action hero of this battle between good and evil, but he is just as philosophically inclined as the rest. However, he is not usually given to ponderous over such quite specifically religious matters. In fact, he catches himself up short at this moment and begins to wonder whether these thoughts really belong to him or Lews Therin. The connection between Rand and Therin is too complicated to explain here, but the fact that it may not really be Rand himself making this very un-Rand-like expression of a spiritual nature is indicative of his complexity as a hero which, in turn, helps to explain how he can sustain the weight of being the heroic protagonist of a series comprising more than a dozen books.
