Potential Spoilers Below
“Rand al’Thor—just Rand al’Thor—woke in a
dark tent by himself. Someone had left a candle burning beside his pallet.
He breathed deeply, stretching. He felt as if
he’d just slept long and deep. Shouldn’t he be hurting? Stiff? Aching? He felt
none of that.
He reached to his side and felt no wounds
there. No wounds. For the first time in a long while, there was no pain. He
almost didn’t know what to make of it.
Then he looked down and saw that the hand
prodding his side was his own left hand. He laughed, holding it up before him.
A mirror, he thought.
I need a mirror.”
“He found one beyond the next partition of
the tent. Apparently, he’d been left completely alone. He held up the candle,
looking into the small mirror. Moridin’s face looked back at him.
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| Moridin |
Rand touched his face, feeling it. In his
right eye hung a single saa, black, shaped like the dragon’s fang. It didn’t
move.
 |
| The Dragon's Fang painted on an inn as a symbol of evil |
Rand slipped back into the portion of the
tent where he’d awakened. Laman’s sword was there, sitting atop a neat pile of
mixed clothing. Alivia apparently hadn’t known what he would want to wear. She
had been the one to leave these things, of course, along with a bag of coins
from a variety of nations. She hadn’t ever cared much for either clothing or
coin, but she had known he’d need both.”
 |
| Laman |
 |
| Alivia |
“She will help you die. Rand shook his head,
dressing and gathering the coins and the sword, then slipping out of the tent.
Someone had left a good horse, a dappled gelding, tied not far away. That would
do him well. From Dragon Reborn to horse thief. He chuckled to himself.
Bareback would have to do.
He hesitated. Nearby, in the darkness, people
were singing. This was Shayol Ghul, but not as he remembered it. A blooming
Shayol Ghul, full of life.
The song they sang was a Borderlander funeral
song. Rand led the horse through the night to get a little closer. He peered
between the tents to where three women stood around a funeral pyre.
 |
| Rand's Funeral Pyre |
Moridin, he thought. He’s being cremated with
full honors as the Dragon Reborn.”
“Rand backed away, then mounted the dapple.
As he did so, he noticed one figure who was not standing by the fire. A
solitary figure, who looked toward him when all other eyes were turned away.
Cadsuane. She looked him up and down, eyes
reflecting firelight from the glow of Rand's pyre. Rand nodded, waited for a
moment, then turned the horse and heeled it away.”
 |
| Cadsuane |
“He sighed, fishing in his pocket, where he
found a pipe. Thank you, Alivia, for that, he thought, packing it with tabac
from a pouch he found in the other pocket. By instinct, he reached for the One Power to light it.
He found nothing. No saidin in the void,
nothing. He paused, then smiled and felt an enormous relief. He could not
channel. Just to be certain, he tentatively reached for the True Power. Nothing
there either.
He regarded his pipe, riding up a little
incline to the side of Thakan dar, now covered in plants. No way to light the
tabac. He inspected it for a moment in the darkness, then thought of the pipe
being lit. And it was.”
“Rand smiled and turned south. He glanced
over his shoulder. All three women at the pyre had turned from it to look
directly at him. He could make them out, though not much else, by the light of
the burning body.
I wonder which of them will follow me, he
thought, then smiled deeper. Rand al’Thor, you’ve built up quite a swelled
head, haven’t you? Assuming that one, or more, would follow.
Maybe none of them would. Or maybe all of
them would, in their own time. He found himself chuckling.
Which would he pick? Min ... but no, to leave
Aviendha? Elayne. No. He laughed. He couldn’t pick. He had three women in love
with him, and didn’t know which he would like to have follow him. Any of them.
All of them. Light, man. You’re hopeless. Hopelessly in love with all three,
and there's no way out of it.”
 |
| Min, Elyane & Aviendha |
“He heeled the horse into a canter, heading
farther south. He had a purse full of coin, a good horse and a strong sword.
Laman’s sword, which was a better sword than he’d have wanted. It might draw
attention. It was a true heron-marked sword with a fine blade.
Did Alivia realize how much money she’d given
him? She didn't know a thing about coins. She’d probably stolen the lot of it,
so he wasn't just a horse thief. Well, he’d told her to get him some gold, and
she’d done it. He could buy an entire farm in the Two Rivers with what he
carried.
South. East or west would do, but he figured
he wanted to go someplace away from it all for good. South first, then maybe
out west, along the coast. Maybe he could find a ship? There was so much of the
world he hadn't seen. He’d experienced a few battles, he’d gotten caught up in
a huge Game of Houses. Many things he hadn’t wanted anything to do with. He’d
seen his father’s farm. And palaces. He’d seen a lot of palaces.”
“He just had not had the leisure to have a
real look at much of the world. That will be new, he thought. Traveling without
being chased, or having to rule here or there. Traveling where he could just
sleep in a barn in exchange for splitting someones firewood. He thought about
that, and found himself laughing, riding on south and smoking his impossible
pipe. As he did so, a wind rose up around him, around the man who had been
called lord, Dragon Reborn, king, killer, lover and friend.
The wind rose high and free, to soar in an
open sky with no clouds. It passed over a broken landscape scattered with
corpses not yet buried. A landscape covered, at the same time, with
celebrations. It tickled the branches of trees that had finally begun to put
forth buds.”
“The wind blew southward, through knotted
forests, over shimmering plains and toward lands unexplored. This wind, it was
not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning
of the Wheel of Time.
 |
| Wheel of Time |
But it was an ending.”
So what does all that have to do with Arya? Everything IMO. Let me explain. Whether this happens in both the TV show and
the books I don’t know but I think it may play out this way in the TV show by
what they have shown us.
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| Arya |
If you break down “Rand’s eye” you find that
it is an anagram of “Daenerys.” I have
long said in my blogs that Daenerys is breaking bad or will be evil come the
end of the series. She has throughout
the books been thought of as the force that will save the world but in the end
IMO she will become the force that needs to be stopped. Since she will IMO become Jon Snow’s greatest
enemy, and has been throughout ages past, and the one who everyone will have to stop in order to save all that they hold
true. I see the following taking place.
Jon and Arya will come together and I believe that she will end up being
his version of Min in TWOT who had the ability to tell when people were being
truthful. Arya if you have been paying
attention has been learning this skill while an acolyte in the House of Black and White. When all is said and done I
believe that with her training in becoming a faceless man she will end of
taking Daenerys face in the end and explore the world and actually discover
what is “West of Westeros.”
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| Daenerys |
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| Arya & Jon Snow |
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| The House of Black and White |
Arya like Rand traveled their respective worlds but both were caught up in events not being able to take in where they were when they were there. In TWOT Rand had Alivia help him die (sort of). Will Arya have an assist in this when she takes Daenerys face and be assumed dead? Who will possibly follow after her when she does? Gendry? Jon Snow? Ser Jorah believing Daenerys still alive? Will Old Nan fill the place of Cadsuane at the end of the story?
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| Gendry |
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| Ser Jorah |
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| Old Nan |
Comments
encouraged. Love to hear the ideas of others. Most believe that
since I present my ideas as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints
which is far from the truth. I simply look at the information presented
and go from there. If you can shine a light on another way of thinking
that opens the door to debate.
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