In this section, Rand and his girlfriends embrace their
three-pronged romantic relationship.
An important element of the series is how Rand and three
women come to share their affections. Rand is reluctant to accept the love of
any woman at all, having gone out of his way to avoid endangering them with his
presence. He rightfully knows that his enemies see his love as a weakness to be
exploited, and thus avoids feeling any love or warmth towards anyone. Elayne,
Aviendha and Min all have to find a way to get Rand to accept and return their
love, but also to avoid feeling jealousy towards each other.
Romance is difficult enough to portray, so trying to show a
three woman to one man romance requires either establishing the situation and
motivations convincingly or using some other tricks to prevent the reader’s
disbelief. In this case, Jordan once again opts for humour, using Nynaeve’s
distraught reaction to acknowledge the ridiculousness of the situation. The
emotional reaction to the humour overrides the immediate logical reaction that
the four-way romantic situation is highly unlikely.
But even Nynaeve’s funny reaction isn’t funny enough to
simply be thrown into the discussion and distract the reader; the humour is built
up prior to that by having Nynaeve in a number of other uncomfortable situations,
of which learning about Rand’s live life is the last straw. First she must
endure an hour of teaching the Sea Folk, badgering from Alivia and the Kin, and
a misunderstanding with Talaan, all of which build up the expectation that
events are getting out of Nynaeve’s comfort zone. Subtle phrases set up the
distraught reaction later: Having a
husband meant that she did not have to share a bed with another woman, or two,
and it gained her a sitting room.
An emotional reaction will always trump a logical one, but
some readers will have a negative emotional reaction to some topics no matter
what tricks or convincing prose are used to try create a different emotional
reaction. Sex, love, death and morally difficult topics will always be
difficult for some readers, so if your story is going to include such an
element, the best you may be able to do is sway readers in the middle into
accepting the story element.
When the characters recognize the ridiculous nature of the
situation, the reader is complicit, and instead of feeling like they’ve been
left out of the story, they feel included. They know their concerns are being
addressed, and they will read on to see what happens next.
The women’s willingness to share Rand is an acceptance that
Rand does not belong to any of them alone. In this respect he represents the Light
itself. When the three women bond him, they feel his love returned. The chapters
in Caemlyn opened with a couple of descriptions of the taint, its foulness
tainting Rand, Lews Therin’s mad cackling representing his uncertainty about
his feelings but it ends with descriptions of warm feelings. The women’s
acceptance of Rand’s shared affections, and his acceptance of their affection changes
the negative feelings depicted at the beginning of this section into positive
feelings.
Rand’s excitement over the bonding with all three women is
presented in metaphor: He spun around,
wine sloshing out of his cup, more pouring from his pitcher before he could
bring it upright. With a muttered oath, he hastily stepped out of the spreading
wetness on the carpet and put the pitcher back on the tray. A large damp spot
decorated the front of his rough coat, and droplets of dark wine that he tried
to brush away with his free hand. Very satisfactory.
Nynaeve’s training of the windfinders makes excellent use of
imagery to describe how she strikes and counters attacks. Were they using
swords instead of weaves, the descriptions of parrying and deft manoeuvring of
weaves would be just as apt. Piggybacking on existing imagery or concepts that
the reader is familiar with makes it easier to explain abstract concepts.
Writing Lessons:
To suspend the reader’s disbelief, build up towards the emotional
reaction you want the reader to have when they reach the hard-to-believe
element.
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