Visionary Imagery
Visual imagery is very common in novels and that is one thing. Fantasy novels, however, tend to present readers with not just visual imagery, but imagery seen in visions. Characters in these types of stories are always having one kind of vision or another. That which is induced in Rand’s mind fairly deeply into this story is a presentation of highlights from a life lived or yet to be lived or never to be lived in a maddening montage of mania which is here presented only in fractional extraction. The actual vision goes on for some time:
“He was a soldier. He was a shepherd. He was a beggar, and a king. He was a farmer, gleeman, sailor, carpenter. He was born, lived, and died Aiel. He died mad, he died rotting, he died of sickness, accident, age. He was executed, and multitudes cheered his death. He proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn and flung his banner across the sky; he ran from the Power and hid; he lived and died never knowing. He held off the madness and the sickness for years; he succumbed between two winters.”
Macbeth…Voldemort…and This Guy
The thing about the fantasy genre that turns off some potential readers is the element of repetition and redundancy. For instance, a series of books may become kind of deadening to some because of that feeling of having been through all this before by the later books. And then there are tropes that keep popping up over and over in the genre. Like this one about names that should never be uttered aloud that became very well-known due to a later series of books:
“The man who called himself Bors clamped his teeth to keep them from chattering. Ba'alzamon. In the Trolloc tongue, it meant Heart of the Dark, and even unbelievers knew it was the Trolloc name for the Great Lord of the Dark. He Whose Name Must Not Be Uttered. Not the True Name, Shai'tan, but still forbidden. Among those gathered here, and others of their kind, to sully either with a human tongue was blasphemy.”
Into the Void
Very early in the book, Rand is seen trying to concentrate his thoughts and focus by building a single flickering flame existing only in his consciousness. Into the fire is tossed all those emotional distractions until emptiness forms and a void can be entered. It is not perfect as the flame stubbornly refuses to be extinguished entirely. Skip ahead a little more than a hundred pages and Rand is seen trying again, hoping that practice has brought perfection:
“As Tam had taught him long ago, he formed a single flame in his mind and fed his fears into it, seeking emptiness, the stillness of the void. The flame seemed to grow until it enveloped everything, until it was too large to contain or imagine any longer. With that it was gone, leaving in its place a sense of peace. At its edges, emotions still flickered, fear and anger like black blotches, but the void held. Thought skimmed across its surface like pebbles across ice. The Aes Sedai's attention was only off him for a moment, but when they turned back his face was calm.”
Puppets and Their Masters
The actual descriptions do not necessarily always explicitly mention words like puppet and marionette, but the imagery is clear all the same. It is a referential point running like a thread throughout the narrative, appropriately enough. The philosophical concept of who is controlling whom and who is really in charge is a constant presence among discussions and thoughts of characters:
“The two witches gave no sign that they knew each other. In the White Tower they sat like spiders in the middle of a web, pulling the strings that made kings and queens dance, meddling.”
“Aes Sedai had not been able to wield power openly since the Breaking, much less the One Power, but they plotted and manipulated, pulled strings like puppetmasters.”
“The fifth arrow left his bow, and he lowered it, still deep in the void, as the fourth grolm fell like a huge puppet with its strings cut.”
“She's Moiraine's eyes watching me, Moiraine's hand trying to pull my strings. But I have cut the strings.”
