A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations
Great power is to be acquired in this world. The great and terrible power of the True Source. One should always understand the limitations of mortality relative to using such power before they go ahead and pursue their ambitions. Otherwise, things can become something of a sticky wicket:
“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 Lews 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…Molten rock fountained five hundred feet into the air, and the groaning ground rose, thrusting the burning spray ever upward, ever higher. From north and south, from east and west, the wind howled in, snapping trees like twigs, shrieking and blowing as if to aid the growing mountain ever skyward. Ever skyward.”
Foreshadowing American Factionalism
The last thing one might expect to find in a fantasy series created in 1990 set in an invented world bearing not relation to the one we know is a description of a state of the nation that aligns eerily well with what the state of America would be like thirty years later. Just make a few well-chosen replacements—baseball caps for cockade, assault rifles for swords, election result for Queen—and the whole fantasy world element begins to merge into the real world. It just to goes to prove that no matter how far away from reality an author tries to locate his story, the real world always finds some way of slipping in:
“He did not want to get involved in Caemlyn politics. Only, it was too late, now. It was not just that he had already chosen—by accident, but there it was. Matters in the city had gone beyond letting anyone stay neutral. Even outlanders wore cockades and armbands, or wrapped their swords, and more wore the white than the red. Maybe some of them did not think that way, but they were far from home and that was the way sentiment was running in Caemlyn. Men who supported the Queen went about in groups for their own protection, when they went out at all.”
The Dragon Banner
This book features lots of banners. There is the Red Eagle banner of Manetheren, for instance. And also the banner of Ba’alzemon. And not to be forgotten and left behind is the banner of Andor and the Golden Crane banner. But none will carry the prominence of the Dragon Banner which will continue to fly proudly and take on significance in novels to come. But it all starts here with this magnificently inspiration imagery:
“A long, white banner spread out, lifting on the air. Rand could only stare. The whole thing seemed of a piece, neither woven, nor dyed, nor painted. A figure like a serpent, scaled in scarlet and gold, ran the entire length, but it had scaled legs, and feet with five long, golden claws on each, and a great head with a golden mane and eyes like the sun. The stirring of the banner made it seem to move, scales glittering like precious metals and gems, alive, and he almost thought he could hear it roar defiance.”
Anti-Violence
For a novel and a series which features the standard amount of fantasy literature violence, there is a strong running undercurrent of anti-violent philosophy that gets spouted. Best of all for the purpose here, these philosophical musings are often couched in metaphor-laden imagery that serves to make the philosophy less ironically preachy:
“`…violence harms the one who does it as much as the one who receives it.’ Perrin looked doubtful. `You could cut down a tree with an axe. The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.’"
