“The Road to the Spear” focuses solely on the Aiel trials at Rhuidean, delivering a deeply emotional and revelation-packed episode. While the plot owes so much to Dune, the period of time spent exploring Rand and Moiraine’s visions of the previous and future makes for a richer model of the rituals of enlightenment than Denis Villeneuve offered in Dune: Part Two. It additionally makes for one of the best episode of season 3 up to now.
Rand has some good man discuss with Lan, musing on the straightforward, idyllic life his adoptive blademaster father selected for him though he was born of bloody battle. Lan is a steadying presence in Rand’s life, listening to his issues with endurance, gently ribbing him as a “sheepherder,” after which giving him bodily exercise to distract him from his issues.
Rank these excessive fantasy collection
Rank these excessive fantasy collection
It’s one other manner, Lan actually compliments and balances Moiraine, who can’t cease worrying about what Rand will do subsequent. Egwene responds to Moiraine’s fretting with a folksy remark about watched pots by no means boiling, an ideal reminder of her Emond’s Field roots. But what Moiraine is really afraid of is Rand boiling over, and that will get to the center of the hazard of making an attempt to assist the Dragon Reborn. Yes she is going to nonetheless do no matter it takes to assist Rand obtain his future, even present process the harmful trial with him after it’s strongly implied that he would die with out her.
The Aiel taboo about carrying swords leads Aviendha to show how significantly better she is at combating than Rand by shortly knocking him to the bottom. Lan is clearly excited for the prospect to actually showcase, and the remainder of the Aiel are simply as blissful to observe a great battle. The match is excellently choreographed, demonstrating their acrobatics and blade expertise by the flickering firelight – however no blow lands more durable than Avienda’s purpose for selecting the struggle within the first place.
Like Rand, she has a future she doesn’t wish to face: Giving up the spear to turn into a Wise One. Moraine, Egwene, and Rand all trade realizing appears about how discovering you’re a channeler adjustments the course of your life. There’s such harsh finality in Bair breaking Aviendha’s spears, adopted by the vulnerability she exhibits in stripping off her warrior garments, barely holding again tears as she departs to enter Rhuidean. This mixture of severity and tenderness is a robust present of the Aiel’s priorities and worldview.
But “The Road to the Spear” is basically concerning the sophisticated relationship between Moiraine and Rand. Moiraine devoted her life to the prophecy of the Dragon, however has a tough time really getting via to the cussed, boastful younger man who hates the concept of being manipulated by her and the White Tower. Like Avienda, Egwene has to be taught a troublesome lesson that she’s already beginning to settle for: her path and Rand’s are not aligned. She may wish to accompany Rand into Rhuidean, however solely Moiraine can see him via that journey.
The wall of weapons left by those that didn’t return is a warning of the peril, but additionally a hilarious alternative to show who Moiraine is: She retains producing hidden knife after hidden knife to go together with Rand’s heron-marked blade. The clouded metropolis is superbly ominous, crammed with titanic sculpture from a misplaced age and the towering 3,000-year-old tree Avendesora. The story of Moiraine’s private hyperlink to the Aiel War lastly will get Rand to truly hear her out and acknowledge the ties that bind them, earlier than he walks into the mist to start his trial in earnest.
What follows is a trippy, layered story reminiscent not solely of Dune but additionally Cloud Atlas, as Rand journeys additional and additional again in time. Seeing his organic father struggle and mourn his mom offers him a transparent reply to the query of how Aiel he’s, nevertheless it’s the deeper flashbacks which are much more revealing. Rand digs additional into simply how a lot was misplaced with the Breaking of the World, with the great contact of Josha Stradowski donning a special costume for each new position and period he inhabits.
The Aiel warriors and pacifist Tinkers look like they couldn’t be extra completely different, however they had been as soon as one individuals. The imaginative and prescient the place that reality is revealed is so touching (regardless of one other mediocre longhaired wig for Stradowski) as a result of it begins with Rand and his two finest pals, earlier than the air of lighthearted attraction is completely shattered by violence – similar to within the collection premiere. As he goes deeper, there’s extra to find concerning the Aiel’s progenitors, the losses they suffered, and the origins of their wandering: a harmful mission to discover a secure new residence for the Tree of Life.
Moiraine has her personal unusual journey, beginning with quietly pocketing the highly effective sa’angreal that serves as the feminine equal of the blade that Rand is destined to grab. Avienda appears to be having a very horrible time within the rings, however Moiraine dives proper into her personal check, which is even weirder than Rand’s: She sees lives that is perhaps, and the loss of life and violence that join most of them. We see her world actually turned the wrong way up because the digital camera does flips over the heads of Rosamund Pike and her co-stars – a jarring transition between Moiraine’s visions. There’s the straightforward happiness of life mending fishing nets with Siuan and the grand energy of being the Amyrlin Seat (with Egwene standing by as she slits Rand’s throat). She walks away from Lan and bonds Rand as her Warder. She bows down earlier than the Dragon Reborn and sleeps with him.
But it’s Lanfear who’s essentially the most constant presence in these dizzying montages; she makes an influence on Rand’s flashbacks, too. The former Aes Sedai tore open the Dark One’s jail to convey energy to the individuals, although that wasn’t her true motivation: She’s clearly pushed by her personal ambition and a need to undermine her ex, Lews Therin. Lanfear leads gothed-up variations of many of the present’s heroes towards Moiraine, strangles Moiraine in mattress, stabs her within the White Tower, and kills her time and again within the desert. If this trial is supposed to indicate Moiraine what have to be, her loss of life by the hands of the Daughter of the Night is all however sure.
Despite all the pieces he went via, together with watching a would-be clan chief die, Rand makes the selection to remain for Moiraine. He carries her out of the desert into Lan’s ready arms, as soon as once more bonding the 2 along with the data of who they’re and what should come subsequent.
