The Great Hunt - Chapter 29 : Seanchan
Ch.29
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Symbol : It looks like some sort of helmet. It might go hand in hand with the chapter. This looks like a Seanchan helmet and could just be showing what helmets these people wear.
On the hardcover edition of TGH I’m starting to think the creature on top of the rocks is a Seanchan and same with the ones on the back cover.
Chapter title : The title of the chapter is Seanchan. This title is referring to the tribe of Seanchan and probably in particular the Captain, that's a woman.
Main Points of the Chapter
Mentioned characters : Geofram Bornhald, Byar, Muadh (Whitecloak questioner), Child Jeral, Child, Earwin, Child Wuan, Arthur Hawkwing
Mentioned characters : Yarin, Caban, Turak
351,275 the watchers : “Bornhald pulled off his gauntlets and sat at one of the tables. He knew they called themselves the Seanchan, and Hailene. He had enough of the Old Tongue to know the the latter meant Those Who Come Before, or the Forerunners. They also called themselves Rhyagelle, Those Who Come Home, and spoke of Corenne, the Return” (351).
“......some of the books and manuscripts on the table shaking his head. “‘......The Watchers Over the Waves. The legend of the Return” (275).
351, “The Child, set time recite, swallowed before he began.” “‘My Lord Captain, he—he says you are moving too many men too close to Toman Head. He says the Darkfriends on Almoth Plain must be rooted out, and you are—forgive me, Lord Captain—you are to turn back at once and ride toward the heart of the plain.”’ He stood stiffly, waiting.
352, “There are Darkfriends here, but they are in Falme, not on the plain. When Jeral rides, he will not ride alone. Messages will go to every group of the Children I know how to find. I mean to take the legion onto Toman Head, Byar, and see what the true Darkfriends, these Seanchan, are up to” (352).
353, “The people spoke of visits from their tall, boxy ships of the invaders. When Seanchan ships anchored off the coast, the villagers who drew up to defend their homes were rent by lightning from the while while small boats were still ferrying the invaders ashore, and the earth erupted in fire under their feet” (353).
353-354, “The Seanchan told astonished people they must swear the swear again oaths they had forsaken, though never deigning to explain when they had forsaken them, or what the oaths meant.
The young women were taken away one by one to be examined, and some were carried aboard the ships and never seen again. This makes me believe they were examined to see if they were Aes Sedai and if it was proven that they were they’d be turned over to be stilled or even be slaves with collars like the Damane woman.
A few older women had also vanished, some of the Guides and Healers. New mayors were chosen by the Seanchan, and new Councils, and any who protested the disappearances of the women or having no voice in the choosing might be hung, or burst suddenly into flame, or be brushed aside like yapping dogs” ( 353-354).
*354, “Doman had no intention of meeting any Seanchan, if he could avoid it. He was raising a glass to see what he could make out on the nearing Seanchan decks, when, with a roar, the surface of the sea broke out into fountaining water and flame not a hundred paces from his labored side. Before he even had to gape, another column of flame split the sea on the other side, and as he was spinning to stare at that, another burst up ahead. The eruptions died as quickly as they were born, spray from them blown across the deck. Where they had been, the sea bubbled and steamed as if boiling” (354).
354 , Doman’s cargo was mainly fireworks and he is afraid the eruption of flame might blow his boat up.
Bornhald wants information about the Seanchan.
the Seanchan woman, 355 :
(clothing) appearance : “The helmet looked very much like some monstrous insect’s head, with thin red plumes like feelers; the wearer seemed to be peering out through mandibles. It was painted and gilded to increase the effect, and the rest of the man’s armor was also worked with paint and gold. Overlapping plates in black and red outlines with gold covered the chest and ran down the outsides of his arms and the fronts of his thighs. Even the steel backs of his gauntlets were red and gold.
Where he did not wear metal, his clothes were dark leather. The two-handed sword on his back, with its curved blade, was scabbarded and hilted in black-and-red leather” (355).
Physical appearance, “Then the armored figure removed his helmet, and Doman stared. He was a woman. Her dark hair was cut short, and her face was hard, but there was no mistaking it.
355, the Seanchan woman had blue eyes and Doman has begun to have visions of blue-eyed (white eyed) women with swords meaning the Aes Sedai. Is this foreshadowing that the Aes Sedai will learn to be of use in war since they are able to channel ?
356, 359, this makes me think the women with collars are slaves being sold for money , “The two women dressed women were coming up from the longboat, one drawing the other—Doman blinked—by a leash of silvery metal as she climbed aboard. The leash went from a bracelet worn by the first woman to a collar around the neck of the second. He could not tell whether it was woven or jointed—it seemed somehow to be both—but it was clearly of a piece with both bracelet and collar. The first woman gathered the leash in coils as the other came onto the deck. The collared woman wore plain dark gray and stood with her hands folded and her eyes on the planks under her feet. The other had red panels bearing forked lighting bolts on the breast of her blue dress and on the sides of her skirts, which ended short of the ankle of her boots. Doman eyed the woman uneasily” (356).
I believe the woman in the poor looking clothes with the collar is a slave. The Damane slave was the one channeling the lightning and is an Aes Sedai and is his property and is very valuable.
*How the blue-eyed woman treats Doman, 356 : “‘Speak slowly, man,”’ the blue-eyed woman demanded in her slurred speech. She came across the deck to confront him, staring up at him and in some way seeming taller and larger than he.” “‘You are even harder to understand than the rest in this Light-forsaken land. And I make no claim to be of the Blood. Not yet. After Corenne… I am Captain Egeanin.”’ (Done? )
358, watchers : “Falme stood on a spit of land at the very tip of Toman Head, with nothing further west of it except the Aryth Ocean. High cliffs ran to the harbor mouth on both sides, and atop one of those, where every ship running into the harbor had to pass under them, stood the towers of the Watchers Over the Waves. A cage hung over the side of one of the towers, with a man sitting in it despondently, legs dangling through the bars.”
“‘Who is that ?”’ Doman asked. “Caban had finally given over sharpening his sword, after Doman had begun to wonder if he meant to shave with it. The Seanchan glanced up to where Doman pointed.” “‘Oh. That is the First watcher. Not the one who sat in the chair when we first came, of course. Every time he dies, they choose another, and put we put him in the cage.”’ “‘But why?”’ Doman demanded (358).
359 : “There was another woman wearing the bracelet this time, with the red panels and forked lightning on her dress, but the damane was the same sad-faced woman who never looked up unless the other spoke to her” (359).
The oaths, 357 : “‘Oaths, Captain? What Oaths?”’ “‘To obey, to await, and to serve. You’re ancestors should have remembered”’ (357).
Caban hostile nature towards Doman , 357 : “Caban reached up from where he sat in front of the helmsman and put the point of his sword to Doman’s throat.” “‘Watch what your tongue touches or you will lose it. That’s the business of the Blood, not your kind. Or mine.”’ “He grinned while he said it, and as soon as he was done, he went back to sliding a stone among his heavy, curved blade” (357-358).
A creature, 359 “A hulking creature with leathery, gray-green hide and a beam of a mouth in a wedge-shaped head. And three eyes. It lumbered along beside a man whose armor bore three painted eyes, just like those of the creature” (359). This sounds like the grolm from the Mirror World. I think the Darkfriends are using the Mirror World like a waygate and are sending grolm to the Seanchan.
360, Egeanin doesn’t trust the merchant : “What do you tell tell the people when you take the your wagons inland?”’ “‘That they must obey the Forerunners, Captain, await the Return, and serve Those Who Come Home.”’ “‘And do you think to use the sword against us?”’ “The man’s hands went white-knuckled gripping his knees, and there was suddenly sweat in his voice.” “‘I have sworn the oaths, Captain. I obey, await, and serve.”’
“‘You see?”’ Egeanin said, turning to Doman. “‘There’s no reason to forbid these weapons. There must be trade, and merchants must protect themselves from bandits. We allow the people to come and go as they will, so long as they obey, await, and serve. Their forefathers broke their oaths, but these have learned better”’ (360).
What the soldiers ride 361 , “The soldiers rode creatures that looked almost like cats the size of horses, but with lizards’ scales rippling bronze beneath their saddles. Clawed feet grasped the cobblestones” (360).
*362-364 , Cuendillar seems super important (done?) : “The cuendillar disk shaped into the ancient seal of the Aes Sedai” (362).
“The man with the braid opened the doors of the cabinet to reveal shelves holding an odd assortment of figurines, cups, bowls, vases, fifty different things, no two alike in size or shape. Doman’s breath caught as Turak carefully set the disk beside its exact twin.” “‘Cuendillar,”’ Turak said. “‘That is what I collect, trader. Only the Empress herself has a finer collection.”’ “If everything was truly cuendillar, it was enough to buy a kingdom, or at the least to found a great House. Even a king might beggar himself to buy so much of it, if he even knew where to find so much” (363).
“I have learned that cuendillar is even more rare here than in Seanchan. Tell me how a simple trader came to possess a piece” (364).
At the Eye they receive a Cuendillar disc with the Aes Sedai symbol on it, just like the one Doman has that High Lord Turak takes from him. These represent the seals and one was already broken from Eye of the World and there’s a total of seven seals.
Since we’ve encountered three discs it makes me think there will be more of them and they will need all of the discs to help with the final battle.
The Seanchan might be ruled by an Empress.
Point of View at the end of the chapter
This chapter was from Geofram Bornhald’s PoV.
At the end of the first scene Geofram now is really curious how Doman acquired the Seal and Doman decides to make up a believable story and lies about all of it.
Bayle Doman has a PoV in the second half of the chapter.
At the end of the second scene Bayle Doman
Based on what I’ve learned about the Seanchan “tribe” I think they’re really horrible people, enslaving and selling women to other captains and them hanging people even the children seems pretty extreme; that being said I really dislike these people.
I also now wonder what the Seanchan’s role in the story will be and if they’ll play a major role or a smaller role in something bigger.
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