Perrin Aybara
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Perrin t'Bashere Aybara, is one of the main characters of Robert Jordan's epic fantasy The Wheel of Time. He is most likely based on the Slavic god Perun.
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[edit] Description
Perrin is stocky with the thick arms and shoulders of a blacksmith. He has curly brown hair. His eyes were dark brown, although later in the series they became golden, and he also grows a beard. He is about 6'1" or 6'2" and about 235 to 240 pounds.
[edit] Youth
Perrin is a broad-shouldered, shaggy-haired man who was training to be a blacksmith before being forced to leave Emond's Field with Moiraine Damodred and his friends, Rand al'Thor and Matrim Cauthon. Unbeknownst to anyone except Moiraine Sedai, all three were ta'veren, and under the Dark One's eye. Moiraine intended to bring them to the White Tower for safekeeping. Perrin, for his part, was hardly interested in adventure; a methodical, placid man of great strength and equal gentleness, he would have been happy living out his days in the Two Rivers as a blacksmith.
[edit] Wolfbrother
Unfortunately, the journey went afoul, as most do when the Dark One takes interest, and Perrin and Egwene al'Vere found themselves separated from their friends. The two were travelling to Caemlyn (or attempting to) when they met a man in the woods named Elyas Machera. Elyas was a Wolfbrother, a man with unusual connections to wolves. He recognized the latent ability in Perrin as well, and introduced him to a pack of wolves, which included Hopper and Dapple. Perrin's wolf name is Young Bull.
Communicating with the wolves changed Perrin somewhat. The irises of his eyes are now gold; he can see, hear and smell better than any man, even to the point of smelling the emotions people are feeling and is able to see very well in the dark and for long distances. He can communicate in a form of telepathy with other wolves, using them for reconnaissance and occasionally as irregular shock troops in battle. And he has a natural affinity with Tel'aran'rhiod, the World of Dreams. The number of people whom Perrin has told about the full extent of his abilities can be counted on one hand.
Being a Wolfbrother has its costs, though. While following Rand's trail to Tear with Moiraine, Lan Mandragoran, and the Ogier Loial, he met a man in a small town whose brother was a Wolfbrother. The man had gone feral, losing all touch with his human side; to his own mind, he was, in fact, a wolf. Perrin fears the same fate.
[edit] The Hawk and the Falcon
Perrin soon became friends with one of Rand's companions, Min Farshaw, a young woman with oracular visions. One of her 'viewings' told him that eventually he would meet a hawk and a falcon, both female, who would 'perch on his shoulders.' Not long after meeting the feral Wolfbrother, he came across the falcon: a Saldaean Hunter for the Horn, Zarine Bashere, who eventually accompanied the party to Tear. Originally known as Mandarb, the Old Tongue word for "blade," she changed her nickname to Faile—"falcon"—when she found out that Lan Mandragoran's horse was called Mandarb. In Tear he also made acquaintance with Berelain sur Paendrag, the First of Mayene, the latest in a long line of Mayener rulers descended from Artur Hawkwing. Both showed romantic interest in Perrin, and though he did not return Berelain's sentiment, jealousy and possessiveness brought the two women to conflict several times.
[edit] Lord of the Two Rivers
After Rand, Perrin's childhood friend, conquered the Stone of Tear and was declared the Dragon Reborn, Perrin heard rumours that the Children of the Light had been terrorizing the Two Rivers. They were actually trying to get Rand to return, but Perrin did it instead, bringing Loial, Faile and their Aiel friends Gaul, Bain and Chiad. After a harrowing passage through the Ways, they arrived at Emond's Field to find Perrin's family dead, and not only Whitecloaks but Trollocs in the area. While the Two Rivers folk waffled, Perrin took charge, not because he wanted to be in charge but because he knew what to do. He united the Two Rivers region and repelled both forces. During the campaign, however, the Two Rivers unanimously accepted him as their new lord and ruler; this, combined with his yellow eyes, has lead to the style Lord Perrin Goldeneyes of the Two Rivers. Perrin, a blacksmith at heart, thought it madness. He was much more pleased when Faile agreed to marry him. After spending The Fires of Heaven on his honeymoon (he was not present in that book's narrative at all, the first but not the last time a main character would disappear so), he raised an army and led them to Cairhien to help Rand, taking part in the battle of Dumai's Wells.
[edit] The Prophet of the Dragon
Rand, always in need of trustworthy commanders, sent Perrin, Faile, the Two Rivers army, Berelain, her Mayeners, some Aiel Wise Ones, oathsworn Aes Sedai, and two Asha'man, to Ghealdan. There a man named Masema Dagar, the so-called Prophet of the Dragon, was causing all sorts of trouble. Perrin's orders were to find Masema (all three were old pals from The Great Hunt) and bring him to heel. Tempers flared immediately, not the least between Faile and Berelain.
The task was harder than expected: Masema promised to bring a couple hundred, but brought the whole army along with him instead, and refused the use of a gateway, which would have reduced the months-long journey to an hour or two. Even worse, Perrin's forces were attacked by the Shaido, and Faile taken captive along with several of her guests and retainers (including Queen Alliandre of Ghealdan and, unbeknownst to almost everyone, Morgase Trakand Former-Queen of Andor). Perrin abandoned his task in order to rescue her, eventually joining forces with the Seanchan during Knife of Dreams. In the process, he totally dissolved the Shaido threat, and won the respect of the Seanchan, who now call him the Wolf King. He has reunited with his wife, but with A Memory of Light and Tarmon Gai'don looming, it his questionable how long the two will have in each other's company.
[edit] The Axe and the Hammer
The night Perrin left the Two Rivers, he received his signature weapon from his blacksmith master: a moon-bladed hand axe, crafted on contract but never sold. Perrin has acquitted himself well with it, using muscles accustomed to swinging ten pounds of steel. In Tear, however, just before Rand took the Stone, Perrin stopped for an unplanned night's work at a Tairen forge, and in payment (and gratitude) the blacksmith gave him the hammer he had used. These signature implements perfectly encapsulate Perrin Aybara, a man of peace forced to lead his people to war.
Perrin prefers the hammer; he prefers the creative, constructive aspects of blacksmithing, and hates the axe's capacity for bloodshed. Not long after meeting Elyas Machera, he asked if he should throw the axe away, but Elyas told him only to do so once he found himself enjoying its use. Perrin never has; when he eventually discarded it, just before meeting with the Seanchan, it was in renouncement of his position of Lord Goldeneyes, abandoning his people for the sake of his wife. Ironically, he now uses his hammer as an implement of violence on the battlefield.
[edit] Perun References
- Perun is associated with weapons of stone and metal. Perrin is a blacksmith.
- Perun was often accompanied by wolves, and sometimes sent them to do battle for him. Perrin can speak to wolves, and has asked them to join him in battle.
- Perun was a god for the common man. Perrin, a common man if ever there was one, became a leader and lord only because his people made him one.
- Perun's weapons were the axe, the hammer, and the arrow. Perrin's weapon is his half-moon axe, he was a blacksmith at one time (thus he used a hammer), and, like most people in the Two Rivers, he is skilled with a longbow.
- Perun is associated with the bellow of the bull. Perrin's wolf name is Young Bull.
- Perun's name, in Christianized versions of the slavic mythology, is usually replaced with St. Elias. Elyas Machera, like Perrin, can speak with wolves.
- Perun's eye was the sun. Perrin's eyes, like the sun, are yellow.
