By this point, Rand has more power than almost anyone around him and somehow looks more alone than ever.
Everybody wants something from him. The Aes Sedai want influence. Rulers want alliances. Different groups want to use him, advise him, control him, protect him, or somehow convince themselves they understand what he’s going to do next.
I liked that because Rand is surrounded by people constantly, but there are very few people he actually feels safe trusting.
And honestly, who can blame him?
Half the people offering him help also have their own plans for what he should become. The more important Rand gets, the harder it becomes for him to tell the difference between somebody helping him and somebody trying to manage him.
The Aes Sedai politics become a much bigger part of the story here too. They’re used to walking into a room and automatically being the people with the answers, but Rand isn’t something they can just neatly control. I liked watching that confidence start running into reality.
Egwene is interesting for a different reason. She’s learning how power works from inside that world while Rand is basically learning to distrust every institution around him. They’re both becoming more political, but they’re doing it in completely different ways.
There are definitely stretches where all the negotiations and maneuvering start repeating themselves. Sometimes I wanted everybody to stop talking about what Rand might do and actually let something happen.
But all that pressure is building toward one of the biggest endings in the series.
And that ending works because Rand has spent so much of the book being pushed, watched, judged, and treated like something other people can control.
Eventually, somebody pushes too far.
That’s probably what Lord of Chaos does best for me. It keeps showing how dangerous it is when people look at someone powerful and think, we can manage him.
Maybe you can.
Until you can’t.
Who I’d recommend it to: Anyone already invested in Rand’s transformation and the growing Aes Sedai politics. This is where a lot of that tension really starts paying off.
Caution: There’s a lot of political maneuvering and repeated discussion before the book really lets everything explode.
Discussion question: At this point, did you think Rand was becoming too paranoid, or had everybody around him given him plenty of reasons not to trust them?
— Cory Lane