Good versus Evil
A common complaint made about this entry in the Wheel of Time series is that it doesn’t do much in the way of introducing anything new. Rather, it perpetuates already established themes. Since this is a fantasy novel series, it goes without saying that the predominant theme already established is good versus evil. This is the foundation of the entire genre. And it is perpetuated here through the various subplots. The overall construction of the series is related to the gradual development of the power of its protagonist, Rand, to defeat the powers of its antagonist, the Dark One. Most of the narrative is directed toward the gaining of power and the psychological complexity of that evolution. Rand becomes at this point in the series a far more ambiguous type of hero resulting from his accumulation of authority.
Men and Women
Another recurring theme which is visited once again over the course of the narrative is the relationship between men and women relative to conventions and expectations of gender. Throughout this book and the entire series are scenes of men complaining about women and women complaining about men. The pervasive presence of this obsessive contemplation can sometimes disguise the ironic underpinning: the complaints usually wind up amounting to the same things. Subtlety is the not the strong point of the fantasy genre in general and certainly applies to this series in particular, but on the issue of gender stereotypes, the author seems clearly to be about a decade ahead of his time as his focus on the difference between men and women wind up suggesting more about the absence of differences.
Climate Change
The book was published in 1998 back when Al Gore was still primarily a figure of absurdity in his urgent calls to address the inconvenient truths about the coming of a crisis know at the time as “global warming.” Once again, the author was ahead of his time in seemingly introducing an aspect into the series that made climate change a major theme in this book. The Dark One has begun using his powers to actually enact global warming in the form of a vicious heat wave that is producing long term deleterious effects that today are commonly known, but back then may actually have seemed to be only stuff of fantasy nightmare scenarios.
