The Eye of the World recap

When Trollocs attack the remote village of Emond's Field hunting three young men - Rand al'Thor, Mat Cauthon, and Perrin Aybara - the Aes Sedai Moiraine spirits them away, hinting that one of them is tied to prophecy. Pursued by the Dark One's servants, the company is scattered at the cursed city of Shadar Logoth and makes separate, harrowing journeys across the land before reuniting in Caemlyn and braving the deadly Ways to reach the Borderlands. Learning that the enemy covets the Eye of the World, they ride into the poisoned Blight, where two freed Forsaken ambush them. In the crisis Rand seizes the One Power for the first time, destroys the Forsaken, shatters a Trolloc army at Tarwin's Gap, and battles the fiery-eyed Ba'alzamon in the sky. Moiraine realizes Rand is the Dragon Reborn: able to wield the One Power, and therefore fated both to stand against the Dark One and to be destroyed by the very power that makes him the world's champion.

In the isolated farming district of the Two Rivers, three young men of Emond's Field - the shepherd Rand al'Thor, the reckless Mat Cauthon, and the blacksmith's apprentice Perrin Aybara - prepare for the spring festival of Bel Tine. Strangers arrive: a stately lady named Moiraine and her silent warrior Lan, along with a white-haired gleeman, Thom Merrilin. Rand glimpses a black-cloaked rider who radiates dread. On the festival night, monstrous Trollocs and a Fade attack the village, and Rand's father, Tam, is gravely wounded. Moiraine reveals herself as an Aes Sedai, heals Tam, and explains that the creatures came hunting the three young men in particular, for reasons bound up with a larger and darker design. To spare Emond's Field further attacks, the three agree to leave with her. Egwene, the innkeeper's daughter, insists on coming, and Nynaeve, the village's young Wisdom, follows to bring her people home. The company flees north toward the Aes Sedai city of Tar Valon.

Guided by Moiraine and Lan, the company reaches the mining town of Baerlon, where Rand begins to suffer dreams of a fiery-eyed man called Ba'alzamon and meets Min, a young woman who sees strange signs of people's fates. Hunted by Halfmen and Trollocs, the travelers are driven to take shelter in Shadar Logoth, a cursed, abandoned city stalked by Mashadar, a hungry evil as deadly as the Shadow. Mat pockets a ruby-hilted dagger from the ruins, not knowing it carries a taint that will cling to him. Attacked from two directions, the group is scattered as they flee the city: Rand, Mat, and Thom escape downriver aboard a merchant's vessel, while the others are driven apart in the dark, each party fearing the rest are lost.

Separated, the companions make their own hard ways toward the Andoran capital of Caemlyn, where Moiraine has told them to regroup. Perrin and Egwene fall in with Elyas, a man who runs with wolves, and Perrin uncovers a disturbing bond with the animals before the pair are taken captive by the Children of the Light, zealous hunters of anything they judge tainted. Nynaeve tracks the others and rejoins Moiraine and Lan. Rand and Mat, put ashore at Whitebridge, lose Thom when he stays behind to hold off a Fade and is believed killed. The two press on afoot, Mat growing sicker and more suspicious under the dagger's influence, haunted and pursued at every step.

In Caemlyn the scattered friends begin to come together. Climbing a wall to glimpse a captured Darkfriend, Rand tumbles into a palace garden and meets Elayne, the Daughter-Heir of Andor, and her brothers, and is briefly brought before Queen Morgase and her stern Aes Sedai adviser. Reunited with Moiraine's party and joined by Loial, a young Ogier drawn out of his people's forest sanctuary, Rand learns that the enemy is seeking something called the Eye of the World. To reach the Borderlands ahead of their pursuers, the company dares the Ways, a lightless network of shifting paths menaced by the soul-devouring Black Wind, Machin Shin, and comes out in the war-torn northern nation of Shienar.

At the fortress of Fal Dara on the very edge of the Blight, Moiraine explains that the Green Man guards the Eye of the World, a pool of untainted power hidden within the corrupted land, and that the Dark One's servants mean to seize or destroy it. Nynaeve and Egwene learn that they, too, can channel the One Power, and that Moiraine intends to see them trained. The company rides north into the Blight, a poisoned, malevolent wilderness where the plants themselves attack, searching for the Green Man's hidden vale, while Trolloc armies gather at the mountain pass of Tarwin's Gap to break through into the Borderlands.

The company reaches the Green Man's hidden garden and the Eye of the World, only to be confronted by two of the Forsaken, ancient servants of the Dark One freed from long imprisonment: Aginor and Balthamel. The Green Man destroys Balthamel but is himself slain, and as Aginor draws upon the Eye's power, Rand instinctively seizes the male half of the One Power for the first time and channels through the pure pool, burning Aginor to nothing. Unleashing that titanic force, Rand hurls destruction across the mountains, shattering the Trolloc army pouring through Tarwin's Gap and saving the Shienaran defenders, and in the sky he battles the fiery-eyed Ba'alzamon and seemingly overcomes him. Among the treasures hidden at the Eye are the Horn of Valere, a broken seal on the Dark One's prison, and the banner of the Dragon. Moiraine grasps what she has witnessed: Rand can wield the One Power, the mark of the prophesied Dragon Reborn, the champion fated to face the Dark One and, like the man whose soul he carries, doomed to be driven mad by the Power's taint. The friends have survived, but the true war has only begun.

The battle at the Eye of the World ends in victory but changes everything. Rand al'Thor has channeled the One Power to destroy the Forsaken Aginor, to break the Trolloc host at Tarwin's Gap, and to overcome Ba'alzamon in the sky. The Green Man is dead, Balthamel and Aginor are gone, and among the treasures uncovered are the Horn of Valere, which can summon dead heroes to battle, a broken seal from the Dark One's prison, and the ancient banner of the Dragon. Moiraine now understands that Rand is the Dragon Reborn, the reincarnation of the champion who both sealed away the Dark One and, in his madness, helped break the world an age ago. Because he is a man who can wield the One Power, Rand lies under a sentence: the male half of the Power is tainted, and every man who touches it goes mad. Rand does not yet accept what he is. His friends face uncertain paths - Mat still bound to the tainted dagger he took from Shadar Logoth, Perrin uneasy with a new bond to wolves, and Egwene and Nynaeve newly revealed as able to channel. The Dark One's touch has been turned back for now, but the Forsaken are loose, the Shadow is stirring, and the long struggle over the Dragon Reborn has only begun.